Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Thank you very much Madam Chair. This is my first opportunity to speak in the debate on this piece of legislation and I want to pick up where my colleague the Hon Peeni Henare has left off around the way in which the various parts of what will now be the way in which the health system interacts with Māori take shape. In doing so I have to—because it's my first opportunity to speak on the bill—indicate that philosophically I find this bill repugnant. I do that because what this bill does is shift us from a place where a by Māori for Māori focus at central government level is guaranteed to take that away and rely now on a series of patchwork band-aid - type approaches which say from this Government to Māori We know best how this will work." That's not actually the philosophy of Te Aka Whai Ora which was that Māori know best what works and that the Government would facilitate and encourage that. I just have to put on the record that that's why I am so strongly opposed to this legislation. But what the Government is now proposing in replacement for that is what I want to now ask some questions of the Minister of Health about. That is essentially what starts in the amendment to section 6 in clause 6 in Part 1 and the first question I have for the Minister relates to the establishment of the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee and their concept of this being a committee to advise the Minister. I want to understand from the Minister how he thinks that advice will be generated to him because one of the concerns we have on this side of the House is that almost universally we're hearing from iwi and hapū around the country that they supported Te Aka Whai Ora because of that very by Māori for Māori approach that I mentioned before. So my first question to the Minister is: what is the nature of the advice that he expects to get from this committee and how will that advice be informed by iwi and hapū around Aotearoa? On this point I want to note my colleague Arena Williams' proposed amendment to section 6(2) which is to insert after the words "to advise the Minister" the words "including alerting the Minister proactively to any matters that impact on the health and wellbeing of Māori". Now what we're trying to do on this side of the House is to actually improve what we consider to be by a huge distance a second- third- or fourth-best approach that the Government is taking but also actually try to give some shape to this because otherwise I think we're establishing an advisory committee that will have little teeth and be without really the kinds of connections that we would expect within te ao Māori to actually be able to give that advice to the Minister. The reason I connect this to what my colleague has just been speaking about is that when you look at what the Government is doing in Part 1 you've got the committee that's going to be advising the Minister and then you've got the board of Health New Zealand—so you know this is the structure of our system. We've got the Minister we've got Health New Zealand and we will come—and this will probably be in a future call when we come to talk about the iwi-Māori partnership boards who represent another layer of the structure. I know the Minister is a fan of the whiteboard in his office and it wouldn't be a bad idea if we could just drag the whiteboard down here and put it up behind him so that we could actually follow the logic here because I have real concerns about how the voice of iwi and hapū will be heard in the structures that the Minister is now proposing. So he has this advisory committee and as I say I'd like to hear from him around exactly how that advice will be generated how it will work and what he would consider about giving some more specificity as Arena Williams has proposed in her amendment. But then we have to get into what Health New Zealand is going to do because now a huge amount of work has been placed on Health New Zealand and as Mr Henare has just said how are we going to see Māori representation there? We were well served when we had Te Aka Whai Ora working closely with Health New Zealand—Te Whatu Ora. Now I don't know when I look at clause 8 of this bill "Section 12 amended" whether the board of Health New Zealand will genuinely be able to play its role in there. Madam Chair we'll see whether you'll give me another call and I'll move on to the next of my questions—Madam Chair? CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Hon Grant Robertson. Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Madam Chair—it was good timing. I won't take the whole of this call because this is the third of my questions. If we then go down to new section 15 in clause 11 which is Health New Zealand providing information to iwi-Māori partnership boards I'm really concerned by that phrasing because that is not the relationship that iwi-Māori partnership boards were meant to have. Their relationship is both within their communities and it was a very direct relationship with Te Aka Whai Ora. Now we've got this very weak clause. Let's think about some of the words that have been used in it: "support and engage" "take reasonable steps"—who's deciding what "reasonable steps" are Minister? Can you tell us what a reasonable step is? Is it a reasonable step if that iwi-Māori partnership board turns around and says to Health New Zealand "This isn't working."—and guess what! That's what they're going to say because that's been the case for decades and the whole reason that we created Te Aka Whai Ora was so that there was a more direct line. So again I say that we've got the Minister and his advisory committee we've got Health New Zealand and we've got the iwi-Māori partnership boards. At every level I would say to the Minister he is weakening those relationships. So I'd ask him to tell us what it means to take reasonable steps to support those and whether or not the engagement "with iwi-Māori partnership boards when determining priorities for kaupapa Māori investment" which is the new section 15(b) in here—does that mean that those iwi-Māori partnership boards will have some control and some say or is this just window dressing because I have to be honest with the Minister that that's what it looks like. So for me there are three sets of questions in there. The first is around where that Māori health advisory committee will get its advice from and how it will advise the Minister then picking up Mr Henare's question about the Health New Zealand board and how that will have proper representation for Māori and how iwi-Māori partnership boards will actually be able to fulfil the role that they're given in the Act when I think what we see here is a significant weakening of the language. I'd like the Minister's response on all three of those matters."