King Annette: Budget Debate 
King Annette: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:20814] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 All I can say about that speech from the National spokesperson on finance is “Baloney!”. It is no wonder he attracted the grand audience of one of his colleagues to listen to it. New Zealanders should look out because a scythe held by Dr Brash hangs over our public health systems should his party ever be elected back to Government. National’s policy of borrowing to give tax cuts then cutting public services will have a devastating impact on the health sector of New Zealand. We are just starting to get somewhere in the fight-back after the destruction of the health system in the 1990s. Now those members opposite want to take us back to the bad old days. They want to slash $1.6 billion from the health budget. New Zealanders know there is no such thing as a free tax cut. The previous National Government in its last Budget in 1999—and I want New Zealanders to remember this—legislated for a tax cut. At the same time as it legislated for a tax cut it cut superannuation. That is National’s record. There is no such thing as a free tax cut. 
This Government has spent almost 6 years rebuilding the staffing and infrastructure that was undermined by National when it took a market approach to our health system—an approach that was hated and ridiculed up and down New Zealand and that saw the National Government change its Minister of Health five times in that period. By the end of the 1990s hospitals had been closed were under threat of closure or were crumbling. Communities were forced to join hands around buildings to protect their hospitals. Let us name just a few of them: Masterton Kaitaia Thames Wairau—and many others. We are not closing them; we are rebuilding every one of them. We are investing in the infrastructure of hospitals. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: What about Murchison? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Murchison will get a new hospital. I thank the member who was the member for Tasman before he was tossed out. Yes Murchison will have a new hospital under this Government. 
By the end of the 1990s doctors and nurses were heading overseas as fast as they could find jobs because New Zealand’s health system under National’s heartless and ruthless approach to health services was recognised by health professionals as being no place for them to work. One of the most ruthless things the National Government did was in the provision of cancer services. It was an example to hundreds of New Zealanders. In 1996 the National Government was told there was a looming crisis in cancer services unless it increased the number of trained personnel and the number of linear accelerators. It ignored that advice. 
We have had to spend 5 years trying to sort out that debacle because it takes years to train personnel and years to build the infrastructure. The latest report on cancer service waiting times shows that we have finally reached a point within the guidelines. It is fragile; anything could go wrong at any time. That is how long it has taken. It takes 3 years to train one radiation therapist. Radiotherapists were not trained under the National Government. National was told it should train them and it did not. I have no doubt that the same approach would be taken by the National Party if it were to come into Government again. Radiation therapists would have to say goodbye to the excellent wages and conditions we have built up for them since 2000. We pay them to train and that would be one of the first things to disappear. That would go. So would the linear accelerator and so would the investment in this vital part of our health services. 
No wonder New Zealanders were disillusioned at the end of the 1990s. A  
National Business Review 
 survey published last week showed that 12.2 percent of New Zealanders thought that health was the most important problem facing them. In the DigiPoll last week 18.8 percent thought that health was the top issue. Let us put those figures into perspective. Let us compare that with a TV3 poll in the mid-1990s. [ 
Interruption 
] The member who is interjecting might want to listen to this. Of course he will not want to believe these figures; he wants to believe only his own. Seventy-five percent of respondents thought health services had deteriorated under a Tory party health policy. Three years later in 1999 54 percent of New Zealanders wanted more money put into health. Well those bad old days are well and truly over. I am pleased to say that we have invested in the health sector of New Zealand. If members opposite get the chance they will be back slashing and burning health once again. 
I say to the member from ACT who was interjecting that I feel sorry for ACT’s poor old health spokesperson. She often gets things terribly wrong. I felt sorry for her this week when she complained about the deficits. She was forecasting a rise in the deficit to $100 million. In reality our deficits have been falling. It is not so long ago that National presided over deficits totalling almost $300 million. Even if she was right about the $100 million how does $100 million as a percentage of almost $10 billion in Vote Health compare with a $300 million deficit as a percentage of a $6 billion vote? Deficits reached 5 percent of total Vote Health under National; now they are around 1 percent. That is real progress. 
Where has the $4 billion that we have put into health gone? Let us look at operations first—although they tell only part of the story because we have put a lot of investment into primary health care. The total number of medical and surgical casemix discharges increased by 7.6 percent in the 5 years from 1999. There are now 44000 more procedures a year. That is only part of the story. From 1998-99 to 2003-04 the number of day procedures increased by 19.5 percent. That is an extra 27500 cases a year. In the past before technological improvements many of these cases would not have been performed as day procedures. But that is not all either. There has also been a steady increase in the number of outpatient procedures since 1999. In one area alone in publicly funded accident and emergency events the number of procedures increased from 740000 then to 844000 in 2003-04—an increase of 14 percent. 
All this is on top of the success stories of projects such as the orthopaedic project and the cataract project—all receiving sustainable funding. Money has gone in year in and year out. It has not been one-off money as we saw throughout the 1990s. But that is only part of the story. The efficiency of our public hospital system is demonstrated by the average length of stay of patients. The average length of stay in December 2001 was almost 3.5 days. It is now 3.1 days. No wonder we are doing better in terms of total medical and surgical case-weighted discharges. 
Patients like what we are providing; patient satisfaction ratings in all the surveys that are carried out across the district health boards show that 88 percent of patients are very happy with the services they receive. It is going in the right direction. It is also clear that our health workforce is happier than it was in the 1990s. We are training more health workers. We are paying them more. Nurses have had their biggest pay increase ever doctors are paid more radiation therapists are paid more and medical radiation technologists are paid more—all aimed at keeping them here in New Zealand. [ 
Interruption 
] The member may not like this but staff turnover has been steadily declining in the health sector. Staff turnover in the health sector is now less than 4 percent—much much lower than in the National Party caucus. 
There has been a worldwide shortage of health professionals but we are holding on to them and increasing the number of doctors and nurses in our health system. I would like the National spokesperson to hear this: since Labour came into Government the number of doctors in New Zealand has increased by almost 1000 and the number of nurses by over 3000. That is what has increased in New Zealand. When that member takes his $1.6 billion out of the health sector it will be doctors and nurses— 
John Key 
: 20000 bureaucrats! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I will take the smirk off the member’s face when it comes to bureaucrats. If that is where he is going to save money the health sector will get a piddling amount of money under a National Government. I am proud of what we have done with this Budget. It is a continuation of our good work.