9. Health Services—Conflicts of Interest and National Oracle Solution ProgrammeDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of HealthHealth Services—Conflicts of Interest and National Oracle Solution Programme9. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all his decisions and actions regarding the National Oracle Solution programme?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Yes in their context. Dr Shane Reti: What conflict of interest information did independent reviewers Deloitte not want the public to know when they emailed the ministry about their conflict of interest on 5 April this year stating Our preference is that this information is not made public."? SPEAKER: Order! Order! That's not an area for which the Minister has responsibility. Dr Shane Reti: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: Well the member can repeat the question or revise the question if he wants to but right at the beginning the Minister is not responsible for a Deloitte's email. Dr Shane Reti: It was from—in reply—Deloitte's to the Ministry of Health specifically responding to a request from the Ministry of Health around conflict of interests. SPEAKER: Can the member read it again. Dr Shane Reti: Certainly. SPEAKER: I'll listen to it again. Dr Shane Reti: What conflict of interest information did independent reviewers Deloitte not want the public to know when they emailed the ministry in response to their request about their conflicts of interest on 5 April this year stating "Our preference is that this information is not made public."? SPEAKER: OK well we'll go to the "this information" bit.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I'm sure that I can't speak for what Deloitte did or did not want people to know so I'm not really sure what answer he's looking for from me.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There was no question about what Deloitte was responsible for. What is in question here is information that was to be released by the Ministry of Health that Deloitte requested should not be released and that is something the Minister does have responsibility for.SPEAKER: I mean that is right but I'm not sure that's what was asked. I'm going to ask Dr Reti to ask the question again so that we can be very focused on this because it is an important one.Dr Shane Reti: What conflict of interest information did independent reviewers Deloitte not want the public to know when they emailed the ministry about their conflict of interest on 5 April this year in response to the ministry's request stating "Our preference is that this information is not made public."?SPEAKER: I'm now going to say that I accept the earlier answer. There is no indication in that question and no evidence that we're talking about a specific group of official information. That has not been established.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The purpose of this line of questioning is to build on answers that the Minister of Health has already given to the House in previous oral questions and that is that because Deloitte declared a conflict of interest there is no problem. Now the member is trying to drill into why it is in that circumstance that certain information which would establish the clarity of the conflict has not been released. I think to the degree that the Minister has already answered in that way it is within the Standing Orders to continue to probe that line of questioning.SPEAKER: What I am saying is that in the second of the three attempts the Minister did address the question and in any of the attempts previously or now no one has established to my knowledge anything to do with an Official Information Act request—well something that the ministry wanted to release which has been alleged by Dr Reti or Mr Brownlee—being turned down. That has not been established in the House.Hon Gerry Brownlee: What you've just suggested may well be a question; I accept that. But the point here is that Dr Reti has in his possession an email from Deloitte and he is simply asking the question of the Minister: "What were they requesting should not be released?" Now you don't have to have official information about that. If we had that we'd already know. It's the purpose of coming to the House and asking a Minister a question. The Minister of Health has previously stood here and said "Nothing to see nothing to look at—no problem here." There is quite clearly a problem now that this email has come to light.SPEAKER: Well I don't want to get into the substance of the answer which I think the member's inviting me to do and I think he might know that it is a standard practice when information from private companies is to be released that there's notice given of it. But what the Minister responsible has told us is that she doesn't know what the member's talking about and that's the problem. Further supplementary Dr Shane Reti.Dr Shane Reti: Thank you Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: You've only used one so far with all of this.Dr Shane Reti: Thank you. Will the Minister endeavour to find out exactly what information Deloitte did not want to make public in the email of 5 April this year?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: It is of interest to this Government that there isn't a conflict of interest or that any conflict of interest real or perceived is managed appropriately. The Ministry of Health is aware that there could be a perceived conflict of interest that could've been managed better but the real issue here is that this Government had to commission an independent report as quickly as possible because the last Government mismanaged an IT project of over $100 million of taxpayer money. That is—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker you've been very quick to stop questions when they start to stray into political territory. You've been quite firm on Mr Twyford today and indeed Mr Little as well. That member is resorting to just straight out political attack because there apparently is no answer to the question "Will she endeavour"—or "Will he" in this case; the Minister—"endeavour to find out what the information is that Deloitte did not want released?" It was a simple question and it could be answered yes or no. I know we can't expect a yes or no answer; we certainly didn't expect that tirade at the end of her in-explanation.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: There is no way that the public would not be interested in the reason why we commissioned an independent report of Deloitte and trying to draw a bow of some imagined conflict of interest is pretty ridiculous. Let's just shoot it home to the real reason we're doing the report.SPEAKER: Order! Order! I'm not sure that that was that helpful. But I will say to Mr Brownlee that if his colleagues weren't interjecting I think it's quite possible that the Minister wouldn't have been diverted on to such a long response. [Interruption] Order! Order! Paula Bennett will stand withdraw and apologise.Hon Paula Bennett: I withdraw and apologise.Dr Shane Reti: If it is an imaginary conflict of interest when the Minister replied in written question No. 6360 saying that "none of the reviewers have had any involvement in the National Oracle Solution programme" how does he explain Deloitte's Thorsten Engel being an independent reviewer when Deloitte reveals in Official Information Act (OIA) documents that Thorsten Engel also organised workshops on the programme in 2011?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The project didn't exist in 2011 and that is why we can say with confidence that none of the reviewers had any involvement in the National Oracle Solutions programme or even the preceding one. Yes it is the case that Thorsten Engel ran some workshops in 2011 for the Health Benefits Ltd which no longer exists but that is not really a substantive input into the National Oracle Solutions programme obviously.Hon Grant Robertson: Can the Minister inform us how much money has been spent on the National Oracle Solution programme and what has that delivered?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The cost of the National Oracle Solution programme blew out to over $100 million under the previous Government. Thus far it hasn't delivered any results and that is why this Government has commissioned an independent review to try and get some oversight over the project.Dr Shane Reti: How can Deloitte be independent reviewers and not reviewing their own work when OIA documents show part of the independent review contract was "assess the solution is designed and built" and yet in 2013 Deloitte was paid for "design and build support"?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: As I understand it Deloitte was very clear and the member should well know this because we've released the consultancy services order to him. They were very clear about any potential conflict of interest and they explained how they would manage it. But the real issue here is we're waiting for a final report on an independent review of a project that was $100 million of taxpayer money that hasn't delivered any results."