Hodgson Pete: Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11188] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Government—at least the Labour Party—will also be voting against the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill for the reasons that the member who introduced the bill has pointed out and they are that the Government has found a way to ensure that District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to the Official Information Act and has made the changes by regulatory means rather than by primary legislation. That Order in Council was passed on 9 July and will come into force presently. 
There is no problem at all with District Health Boards New Zealand being subject to the Official Information Act and there will be times—as the member in whose name the bill resides Dr Jackie Blue said—that District Health Boards New Zealand is able to give people information and save them the transaction costs of going to the 21 district health boards. There will however be plenty of times when District Health Boards New Zealand is not able to do that or chooses not to do so. 
District Health Boards New Zealand official information requests are often made to gain commercially sensitive information and to give negotiators an opportunity to gain an upper hand in a negotiation by getting hold of information about the other side of the fence and that is not going to change. The Official Information Act is clear that where something is commercial in confidence then it is not subject to the Official Information Act while for example negotiations are in play. In other instances District Health Boards New Zealand will not be able to provide for example a researcher with the information the researcher wants because District Health Boards New Zealand does not have it. It is absolutely the case that one cannot respond to an Official Information Act request if one does not have the information that is requested. On the other hand to the extent that District Health Boards New Zealand is able to provide information we are keen that it does so. 
The health system in New Zealand prides itself on transparency and on increasing its transparency. Last week we announced a further 12 health targets. Each district health board in a series of negotiations with the Ministry of Health has agreed to put into its annual plan its target for responding to the various key performance indicators—as one might call them—that the ministry is asking the boards to pay attention to. These targets are things like the immunisation rate the number of people who are on the “Get Checked” Diabetes Aotearoa programme the number of people who are discharged from acute mental wards with a long-term plan for their recovery the number of people who no longer smoke or have never smoked and so on. There are 10 such targets. 
These targets will be reported upon. They will be reported upon transparently. Transparency is an important part of the New Zealand health system even though one’s political enemies may choose to make as much political capital as they can should a target not be reached or not be fully reached. Transparency is relatively new to the New Zealand health system. It used not to be the case that we knew what was going on with elective services or waiting times in an emergency department of a district health board for people with different levels of acuity. These things are becoming increasingly transparent and it is therefore utterly in keeping with the move to greater transparency that District Health Boards New Zealand—when it is able to—responds to Official Information Act requests in a manner that is compliant with the Official Information Act. 
We will take great pleasure in voting this bill down as will Dr Jackie Blue and her party because we no longer need it.