Robertson Grant: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Crown Entities Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2335. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 It seems a little unusual to stand up and join in the love fest that we have here on Part 1 of the Crown Entities Reform Bill because it seems that most parties in Parliament will support it. It is an unusual feeling for me to be able to stand up and affirm something that the Government is doing here but do not worry I will get to some problems in a minute.  
The first thing I want to do is to pick up where Kevin Hague left off in his excellent speech that he has just given and to indicate that there is something in this bill that shows that the Government gets the idea of what public health might be and what the Ottawa Charter means and that is the inclusion by the Government Administration Committee—and presumably with the agreement of the Government members if they were awake during this bit of the select committee—of the phrase “and wellbeing” within the functions duties and powers of the Health Promotion Agency under new section 58 in clause 6. The inclusion of well-being indicates that we are now moving beyond the notion that this is somehow a medical matter to the fact that this is a wider issue of public health and a wider issue of the well-being of our communities.  
Kevin Hague spoke earlier about what the core elements of the Ottawa Charter are and the fact that it does move beyond health and well-being to the question of the empowerment of communities and to the question of the environments in which communities live. These are the core elements of what public health means today in New Zealand. I do credit the committee and indeed the Government for putting in the notion of well-being.  
But my cynicism and where I would like the Minister to take a call rises in response to how the Government has looked after public health over the last 3 years. When I say “looked after” I mean cut. That is what I mean when I say “looked after”. That is what this Government has done with public health. It has certainly lowered it in priority beside other parts of the health system particularly in terms of secondary services and particularly when we look at something like the Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programme which was brought in under the last Labour Government. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Oh God you’re joking. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Anne Tolley says that I am joking. The system was not perfect. The Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programme was not perfect so therefore we get rid of it completely! That is Anne Tolley’s solution to public health—if it is not perfect get rid of it completely. That is what this Government has done. That is why on this side of the Chamber we are somewhat cynical as to whether the Government will actually provide the resources that are needed to ensure that this works.  
We support the notion of the integration of these services. We support the notion that we will actually have an agency that will look at public health in its widest context. But it will achieve its goal only if this Government is prepared to give it the resources that it needs to put resources into prevention and to stop treating health over and over again as a political football so that Tony Ryall can hold up charts in this Chamber for targets that he has invented rather than what is actually going to help the long-term health outcomes of New Zealand which is investment in prevention and investment in public health programmes.  
I welcome the structure here but what I do not think we have seen from the Government is a true commitment to public health a true commitment to what it means to actually support the principles of the Ottawa Charter. I know that many of the agencies that submitted on the bill said that they supported this because they are looking for that better integration they are looking for a more responsive Public Service when it comes to public health matters. But they will get that only if the resources follow.  
The second question I have for the Minister is actually around what he can tell us about the current responsibilities of the Ministry of Health’s public health directorate and how that fits within this new structure. As Kevin Hague has just talked about the integration of policy practice and monitoring is vitally important. We can see that the bill focuses on bringing together the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) and the Health Sponsorship Council and their responsibilities and that is good and useful but what do we know about the actual work of the Ministry of Health? What do we know about ongoing monitoring what do we know about how policy will work alongside in practice? I just want some assurances from the Minister that the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health in the public health area will actually be explicitly put in front of those who will be doing the work of this agency.  
My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has already mentioned that some concerns were raised about the fact that ALAC is disappearing at the very time that New Zealand is confronting what to do about the issues around alcohol in our community. I do note that the bill under new section 58 in clause 6 does give the alcohol-specific functions to the new Health Promotion Agency. That is at least something. But once again we need to know from the Minister that those responsibilities will go on into the wider issues of alcohol its impact on the community and what damage it does in the wider environments in which people live. Those kinds of considerations are vitally important if we are going to get a functioning organisation under this part of the bill.  
I am not going to take up much more time of the Committee on this. Labour does support Part 1 of this bill. We do believe that this structure provides an opportunity to actually see real implementation of the principles of the Ottawa Charter and real implementation of public health policy but we sound the warning that the Government needs to assure New Zealanders that this will be resourced and funded to enable it to do its job properly that it will be given the kind of priority that it should be given and that it will continue to provide linkages between policy practice monitoring and promotion of public health.