Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call in this debate and I'm perfectly happy to fill in the gaps of the speech that we've just heard—about what's not going on.The member for Palmerston North talked about the well-being Budget and the value of finding a friend. If there is any personification of the failures of this Government it's in 38-year-old central Southland resident Blair Vining. Now Blair is not short of friends; in fact several thousand of them turned out to a fund-raising charity rugby match in Winton last month raising over a hundred thousand dollars for a fantastic sports foundation to help develop talent in sports youth in central Southland. Blair has got plenty of friends; what he didn't have was a timely appointment to see his oncologist. That's what he wanted. That's what he didn't get. That very brave family came to Wellington two weeks ago to tell the Minister of Health that he had failed his family that he had let them and many other New Zealanders down by not having a cancer plan. That to me is a metaphor for the complete mess that the health system is now in after just 16 months of this Labour-led Government.Remember all the promises—the claims of $8 billion of underfunding a gap they were going to close over four years? One would think that they would have started that at the first opportunity. It is incredibly disappointing to note that at the first opportunity on a percentage basis they put less into our district health boards (DHBs) not more and they removed national health targets including targets for timely cancer treatment. That wasn't mentioned in Mr Lees-Galloway's speech or in Dr Clark's last week. He seemed more interested in talking about my wedding anniversary. Well that's what one does when one has got nothing good to say about a health system that is in complete disarray.I'd like to be able to tell the House the projection for the combined DHB deficits that we had for 2018-19.Hon Dr Nick Smith: How much?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I have no idea Dr Smith. Nobody does because the Minister and the Ministry of Health are refusing to publish the data.Hon Dr Nick Smith: But this is the most open and transparent Government!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That's right. This most open and transparent Government eight months into the financial year cannot tell the public what the combined financial position of the DHBs is. So I can tell the House what I think it is. I think it's about a half a billion dollars.Hon Dr Nick Smith: What?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: A half a billion dollars. I think that's what we're heading for. The last full financial year under the previous Government's watch the combined financial deficits were $119 million. We budgeted in 2017 for a continuation of that and we were on track for that until November 2017 when the Labour Government took over. That's when the debt and deficit trajectory went up dramatically to the point where last financial year that deficit doubled to $240 million. So no more money in the kitty—$549 million but that keeps the lights on—and a huge amount of cross pressures has led to DHB deficits that Counties Manukau alone told us could be over $50 million. That's one DHB; we have 20. I shouldn't have to speculate. We should know what that position is.Now I think most of us would accept those deficits with some good grace if we could see improvements in clinical outcomes because the Minister himself said that financial disciplines are less important than good clinical outcomes. But as Blair Vining and his family know things are getting worse not better because of an ideological opposition to targets that the Minister said created perverse outcomes. Well what is more perverse than a young man who's being told he has bowel cancer that has metastasised and he gets an appointment that may be after he passes away? What kind of compassionate Government is this that they sit idly by while that happens in our DHBs? He went private to see a spectacularly good oncologist in Otago and he's getting the best care. His prognosis is challenging but I have a huge admiration for Blair and Melissa and their two beautiful daughters for the thing that they are doing here. They're saying I'm going to leave a legacy." Well I can say that the Vinings' legacy is a hell of a lot more than the Minister of Health's legacy. This is an outrage. We are drifting.Here's what Dr Clark didn't say at the Cancer Care at a Crossroads conference. He campaigned on creating a world-class cancer service in this country and it fell on the cutting room floor when the coalition agreement was signed—gone. The only thing we heard about it was when he was put on the spot at the start of that conference. He sent the ministry off to scramble something together to make it look as if he's doing something. That is not good enough but if that were the only thing maybe. We lost $200 million out of the pharmaceutical budget—very good efficiencies gained by Pharmac by purchasing DHB hospital-based drugs—and the Government had a choice. They could have reinvested that $200 million in savings into more medicines like Ibrance and Kadcyla and Keytruda as a first-line treatment for lung cancer. But no back into the slush fund to stop the stemming tide of financial deficits that we're growing because this Government lost control of industrial relations it lost control of anything that looked like a focus on improving health outcomes for New Zealanders. Cochlear implants: a small amount of money—$6.5 million—to wipe out the waiting list for adult cochlear implants disappeared on this watch. Those promises of GP visits being cheaper for everyone? The Prime Minister when Leader of the Opposition went to Manukau with Su'a William Sio and with David Clark and said "Everybody will get a discount." Where are they? Gone.This is a Government that has great speeches and the Minister said to the midwives 10 months ago "I'm listening." Last week he couldn't be bothered to turn up because the same midwives and their DHB negotiations remain unsettled. To the Minister of Health: they don't want him to listen; they want him to act on this settlement—on the industrial relations landscape more generally—on improving cancer treatment waiting times on improving emergency department waiting times on improving elective surgery throughput on smoking cessation on cardiovascular disease management and on diabetes management. These were the things that the national health targets focused on. Now I'm OK; I'm happy enough if he thinks there should be different targets but I cannot stand here and accept a Minister in a Government that dispenses with targets all together and then presides over a sector that is completely rudderless. I have a great deal of sympathy for the people who work in those DHBs because they have no direction from this Government.In the remaining time I want to touch on an issue of significant local concern for the people of Otago and that is the institutes of technology and polytechnics sector reorganisation. Never mind the fact that Otago Polytechnic the Southern Institute of Technology and indeed Ara in Christchurch are high-performing nimble responsive to industry organisations; that is at risk now that a monolithic bureaucracy is going to be centralised into Wellington. I want to remind Shane Jones and the New Zealand First Party of what he said about how important the regions are when he said that the billion-trees programme will fulfil a key commitment made in the New Zealand First - Labour coalition agreement—namely the relocation of some Government functions to the regions. Indeed it's in the coalition agreement. It says that they will work to push public sector jobs into the regions. Only we're in overdraft because at least a thousand jobs—middle management admin academic jobs—are being ripped out of Invercargill out of Dunedin out of Cromwell out of Timaru out of Christchurch and out of the West Coast.Where are they going? Wellington—the exact opposite of what this coalition agreement says and what that Minister for Regional Economic Development said he was going to do. Dr Smith in question time talked about $20 million probably also going to be ripped out of Nelson and given to the bureaucrats in Wellington. Well if that is support for the provinces if that's support for the regions I'd hate to see what a lack of support looks like."