Ryall Tony: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
Ryall Tony: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
[Volume:645;Page:14538] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 I invite members to get a copy of the Minister of Health’s speech and swap the words “Director-General of Health inquiry” for the words “Ingram inquiry”. David Cunliffe is the Minister who week on week stood up in this House and defended every word in the Ingram inquiry. He said there was no evidence of foul doing anywhere. He said there were no questions to be asked of the member Taito Phillip Field at all. What came out of the Ingram inquiry is that that member had no idea what he was talking about and unprecedented legal action has been taken against the subject of the Ingram inquiry an inquiry that that member opposite defended week after week. 
Let us be frank here. This Minister manufactured reasons to get rid of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. He wants to shut down the people who will criticise the way he his ministry and the people at the district health board have dealt with the smelly and murky goings-on within the management of that district health board. He is clearing away that board so that it is unable to defend itself and put its case to this inquiry. He knows that this board is on to what has been going on behind its back—the murky dealings and Labour cronyism some of which I revealed in the House today. 
Let us go through the sequence of events that brings us to the House today. Annette King was the Minister of Health in early 2005 and her husband was the chief operating officer at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. Annette King appointed Mr Hausmann to the board of Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. She was warned about the conflicts arising out of appointing a major player in the health system to a district health board at a time when a contract was being developed for which Mr Hausmann was likely to be a tenderer. No one knew at that time that Mr Hausmann was colluding with the chief executive to amend the specification of the tender process documents to advantage himself and in the end his company proposal was chosen. The tender was for a contract estimated to range between $2 million and $50 million. 
As the months carried on more discussions went on between Mr Hausmann and the executive of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. Then eventually a whistleblower discovered that Mr Hausmann was in email discussion with the executive of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board about a multimillion dollar contract in complete opposition to the view and the parameters that the board had set. So this whistleblower raised these concerns with the chairman. She alleged she was intimidated by the chief operating officer Mr Lind and she was subsequently restructured out of her job. Meanwhile the board discovered what was going on and cancelled this contract and some months later Mr Lind quit and went to work for Mr Hausmann. An inquiry was launched when these matters came to light as the result of a number of Official Information Act requests and this inquiry has dragged on for months. Damaged computer drives have had to be sent to London to be forensically reinstalled. There have been claims that one board member sent the board a bill for $500000 for legal expenses. Then Mr Cunliffe moved to sack the board. 
Let us join the dots. This is all about protecting Annette King and the foolish decision she made against advice to appoint Mr Hausmann to the board of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. Annette King has never answered this question: why appoint somebody whose conflict will be so intense? He was going to bid for one of the biggest contracts ever put out by a district health board so why would one insert him right into the middle of a conflict of interest? That is what she did. Annette King needs to explain why against the advice and the absolutely obvious information that he was going to tender for that contract she still recommended to Cabinet his appointment. While she was recommending to Cabinet the appointment of Mr Hausmann to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board we now know that he was in discussions with the chief executive of the health board in Hawke’s Bay to get a copy of the tender documents. He then amended those tender documents to prefer his company. The specifications have been changed in such a way that his company would be the primary tenderer in that contract. That was going on at the time that Annette King told Cabinet that those conflicts could be managed. There is no way those conflicts could have been managed or were managed. Those conflicts continued in such a way that the whistleblower found those documents. She raised concern. She subsequently was restructured out of a job by the people whose double-dealings she had revealed. 
This is not good. This is bad. This is bad because it goes to the heart of the integrity of the public contracting process in New Zealand. We simply cannot have a health system that has board members with such an interest that they can collude with management to prefer themselves in contracts up to the value maybe of $50 million. We simply cannot allow that to happen in this country. That is why this solitary whistleblower got up and reported what was going on. What a brave woman—to be intimidated to be questioned and to be vilified. She still stood by what she said and what happened to her? She was restructured out of her job by the people she blew the whistle on after they promised her that she would be all right. This is unprecedented it is dreadful it is appalling and it is Labour cronyism at its worst. 
What should happen from here on is this. It is now very well known that the first version of this review which took 7 months to get is reported to be substantially different from the second version. What happened in the intervening 2 weeks? That is what Hawke’s Bay District Health Board members want to know because they are the people who have been trying to hold management to account throughout this whole affair. Instead of dealing with the concerns and the cronyism involved in this case this Minister has fallen into line. He released Mr Hausmann’s letter which contained confidential review panel documents. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: How would the member know? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: We know because it has been in the media that they were confidential review documents and we further know that he released a letter from Mr Clarke that was perfectly designed to be released. We can have all the huff and bluff from the members opposite but we know that this is a Minister who in his attempts to front-foot everything has stood in a pile of sharp glass. He is compounding the errors of Pete Hodgson and Annette King. In appointing Peter Hausmann Annette King inserted this man into a conflict of interest that could not be managed and Annette King stands indicted for her involvement in this. She has her colleagues and the full weight of the Ministry of Health and its officials involved in a cover-up to prevent the truth from being made available to the people of New Zealand.