O'Connor Damien: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4304] 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I take the opportunity to close this debate. Never before has a Government invested so much money in the health status and care of its people. It has committed $10.5 billion. I am very proud as Associate Minister of Health and as part of a Government that has committed so much to the future health and well-being of its people. I acknowledge New Zealand First for its wisdom in contributing to this debate and to this Government. Barbara Stewart quite rightfully points out the priority areas in health care that we have laid out in front of the public and are absolutely committed to. Those are the health of older people the health of children primary health care and dealing with public health-care issues like obesity. We have invested a huge amount in primary health care because prevention is better than cure. We know—as the public of this country knows—that money spent up front looking after people preventing many of the ailments and many of the long-term problems is money well invested. 
Tony Ryall made a very good point. He said that general practitioners are very very important people. Yes they are. They are key components in the Primary Health Care Strategy. I am not sure whether Dr Coleman is a necessary general practitioner given his ignorance and the ignorance he showed in the House just before. But general practitioners and other primary health care providers and nurses—all those people—are essential elements of our Primary Health Care Strategy. Another very good point raised in this debate was the fact that 75 percent of people go into our hospitals through emergency care or acute incidents. Every one of those people almost without exception will say that the care he or she received was exceptional. It is absolutely amazing. Every day up and down this country we can meet people who will say and know that when they need health care they will get it and it is our public health system that will deliver it to them. 
The National Opposition focuses on the 25 percent of people who go into the hospital system—and members should remember that that is just one part of the health system—for elective surgery. That is always an area of difficulty because with increasing technology with increasing knowledge and with more drugs we are able to deal with more people. That is a fact and because the demands on the system will never ever be entirely satisfied we have had to make some calls. We have said we will focus on public and primary health care areas where prevention will deliver for us as a nation long term. We have said we will target areas of need. As the Maori Party quite rightly pointed out too many of those areas of need are unfortunately found within the Maori and Pacific Island populations because disparities of wealth align with disparities of health care. There is no doubt about that. 
That is why we have said all the way through our health strategy and through the primary health strategy as well that we will focus on areas of need. That means we will focus on the disparities in health for Maori and Pacific Island peoples and we are proud of that. It is a health system based on need not on ability to pay. 
The other reality pointed out by my learned colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove is that if National were to offer $7 billion worth of tax cuts as it did it would have to slash funding. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who to? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: They blame as the member pointed out the bureaucrats the administrators and the managers in the health system. Well if funding in health care is increased by 66 percent we need to know that it is being spent in the right areas. We need to know that that money is being well managed. That is why we have had an increase in administrators. We do our very best to minimise increases in that area but we need to know that every dollar is being well spent. 
The other reality of course of the National Party’s alternative policy is that one would not only have to slash funding to health but actually hand responsibility over to the private sector. The National Party ideologically believes that the private system can deliver more efficiently. Well I struggle to understand that because we have had some models that have attempted to do that—for example when the National Government privatised the railways although I am not sure that that is a wonderful example of large infrastructural private management. But we do need a nationwide system of health care and that is what we are backing. The National Government’s experiment in railways did not work and privatisation in other areas it reformed has not worked either. Its reform of the electricity system based ultimately on the ideal that privatisation would deliver to us did not work. Those two simple examples of key infrastructure reforms—of key Government services such as health—have failed under the private sector management models. 
That is why we as a Government are absolutely committed to the provision of public health services throughout this country. We will take taxpayers’ dollars spend them and invest them wisely in health care because that ultimately will determine the wealth of this country. One’s health is one’s wealth. There is absolutely no doubt about that—members should ask people who face acute and immediate health problems. They know where their priorities lie. So too does this Government. That is why I am proud to say that under the Minister Annette King and now under Minister Pete Hodgson we have invested 66 percent more money into health care since 1999. 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s a pretty good record. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: It is a very good record. In spite of all the harping on by the National Party we will have increasing health status for New Zealanders not only now but into the future. Oral health care which was raised by members in the Committee is a classic example. The National Government through its 9 years of management of this country chopped investment in training dental therapists. As a result we have seen a decline in the standard of dental health of young New Zealanders. There has been a direct decline in oral health because of worthless management and a lack of investment. We have started now to invest. We have 100 dental therapists training at the moment. We are investing $100 million over 5 years into dental care. That is the kind of investment we have had to make to offset the dumbing down the shrinkage and the attempt at private provision by the last National Government. It is a big job. We are committed to doing it properly. I think we have done an exceptional job and we will continue to do so for a long time into the future as a Labour-led Government with the assistance of our wise coalition colleagues.