Goodhew Jo: General Debate 
Goodhew Jo: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15066] 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 The member opposite who has just resumed his seat should spend less time studying the words of popular music and more time studying the dates when various policies were released. If he did so he would realise that many pages of policy releases have been made first from the National side of the Chamber and not from the Labour side. In fact National loves the way Labour loves our policies. I have a list of such policies in my office and I will share it with him if he wishes. There are 11 or 13 policies; I am not sure which. 
Yesterday we started the financial review debate and it was very timely because last week we heard from John Key about the growth of bureaucracy in the last 8½ years. The Ministry of Health’s financial review states there are now 1263 fulltime-equivalents in the ministry and since 2000 there has been an amazing growth in the number who are paid over $100000. Back in 2000 there were 94 being paid more than $100000; now there are 194. And how do the taxpayers of New Zealand feel about that? I will tell members how they feel; they feel really ripped off. They do not personally know these people in the Ministry of Health but they hold them accountable for the care they are not receiving they hold them accountable for the fact that waiting lists are not getting any shorter and they hold them accountable for the fact that they find it hard to enrol with local general practitioners. 
Let us have a look at the workforce issue. For example New Zealand is ranked highest in the OECD—wait for it—for the proportion of overseas-trained doctors. That ranking is not for our own doctors but for the proportion of overseas-trained medical professionals. Foreign-born doctors number 47 percent of our medical workforce foreign-born dentists number 30 percent and foreign-born nurses number 23 percent. We have a huge reliance on immigrant health professionals. But wait—there is more. We are also near the top of the leader board in our export of nurses and that is handy because we have 7698 foreign-born nurses working here. It is a wonderful match—wait for it—for the 7564 New Zealand-born nurses who live overseas. What a huge loss to New Zealand—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
JO GOODHEW 
: What effect is that having? Down in Dunedin 28 beds have been closed not because there is no one to fill them but because there are no nurses to look after patients. That is happening not just in Dunedin; it is happening in Wellington as well. Forty beds are closed in Wellington Hospital because there are not enough nurses yet we hear about doctors making up beds in Auckland. We hear about junior doctors being in short supply in the Wairarapa and in the Wairarapa we find that nurses are being trained to do doctors’ work. There is $5 billion extra but the Government can claim it is raising numbers in the bureaucracy not in the front line. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I again ask members on my right to look at the clauses of Speakers’ ruling 57/3 especially the one about a running commentary of interjections. If members wish to make speeches they can do so later. 
JO GOODHEW 
: It is clear that I am hitting a nerve over there. Labour members do not want the public or other members to know this about the Labour Government. They do not want New Zealand to understand where the money is going to. It is going to the bureaucracy not to the front line. 
Again and again New Zealanders will tell us they cannot get a general practitioner. They cannot get dental care for their children and dental decay is worsening all the time. They cannot get into hospitals because waiting lists are getting longer and longer. We hear stories all around New Zealand that make us realise that our reliance on overseas-born professionals has got way too high. It makes us realise that this Government should stop growing bureaucracy and start growing the front line much much more. 
The high and mighty attitude of this Government and the Minister who sits over there is certainly a head-in-the-sand attitude as well. It is an attitude that causes New Zealanders not to see the health system as a good use of their taxpayer money. They do not see the health system through the same rose-tinted spectacles that the Minister wears. They see an exodus of those health professionals who have been wonderfully well trained here in New Zealand and they know that New Zealanders would prefer to be cared for by New Zealanders.