Coleman Jonathan; Tisch LindsayHon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Well I would just like to thank Mrs King the previous speaker for her contribution. She did an excellent job actually as the Labour Opposition spokesperson for health and I think she has been cruelly treated by a very ungrateful Labour Party which has made the mistake of getting rid of its best performer. She is now joined by Sue Moroney and basically all its Māori caucus as very able people who are not appreciated by their party. I must say that question time is no longer the same but I hope she is giving some tutelage to her previous understudy the member for Dunedin North who is now the Labour Opposition spokesperson on health because he could really benefit from listening to Mrs King for her wise experience because it is quite noticeable that Labour is quite exposed in that area now. It cannot get a question on health any day of the week apart from about question No. 12 on a Thursday and health really has slipped down the agenda for Labour as its political management has crumbled as we saw earlier this week.Be that as it may we are talking about the 2015-16 financial year and I do have to take issue with some of the points that Mrs King has raised. Look you know it is not really like her to be bullying public servants in the manner we have just heard. I know those remarks are out of character because we have excellent public servants in the Ministry of Health.In respect of the Ministry on the Move programme: yes things could have been done better. There was an issue around financial governance. There are new people there now. The issue has been addressed. We are very lucky to have Chai Chuah there despite Mrs King's ongoing campaign against him. We are very lucky to have him there as Director-General of Health and he has given very good and clear advice.You have got to look at the big picture in these things and the big picture is that actually health spending has increased to record levels under this Government. I must correct Mrs King when she says this fiction about $1.7 billion of cuts. She knows it is not true and I know that when—Hon Annette King: Yes it is true—absolutely true.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I see her smiling when she is saying that because actually we all know that when you increase health funding from $12 billion to $16 billion that is a $4 billion increase. It is pretty hard to argue against that. Mrs King increased the funding a lot but of course she delivered fewer surgeries and that is one thing that you know I hate to have to bring up again but it is true.Look this Government as in all things is really focused on the results that count and you cannot argue with those. I mean we have got 6800—6800—extra doctors and nurses in the system. That is incredible. We are doing record numbers of first specialist appointments—an extra 150000 first specialist appointments per year. We have record numbers of elective surgeries. People come up to me in the street and say—and my local district health board (DHB) Waitematā on the North Shore of Auckland was a cot case before—that things have never been better. We are building the infrastructure around hospitals and we are providing the services. No one is having to go to Australia for care any more. It has been quite remarkable how that system has turned around in nearly 9 years of a National Government. The worst thing that could happen now would be to hand the system back for financial mismanagement by the people with the terrible track record from 1999 to 2008 because we have got the system in a really good place.You go to these hospitals and these DHBs and the staff are enthused. They do a great job—our doctors our nurses the allied health workers. They know this is a Government that backs them. They are thrilled actually with the successful $2 billion pay-equity deal that we delivered last week for some of the hardest-working and lowest-paid people in New Zealand. They know we are a Government that backs health workers because those people are doing the most important work in New Zealand.Bowel screening—well look that is a fantastic programme. We are going to be screening 700000 New Zealanders every 2 years. We are going to be detecting 700 cancers per year that otherwise would not have been found. That is going to make a huge difference to the health of New Zealanders. I know Mr Chair is probably going to tell me my time is up in a second so I think—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.