King Annette: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10840. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): The Labour Party supports this bill. As the Minister of Health said this bill has been to the Health Committee. We had a number of submissions—not many but a small number of submissions—on this bill and the select committee considered them. We raised a number of issues which I will go through in a moment but we did not vote against the bill and we did not make amendment to it. It does not mean that we were not concerned about the issue of curtailing democracy in a district health board. We did our best in terms of this bill itself to raise the issue that this was to be a short-term solution for one triennial period of a district health board election. Our expectation is that there will be elections—the next one in 2019.The reason we have supported this bill is that this is a district health board that has been in serious trouble for some time. In fact from 2009 the Government had put in a Crown monitor. It had also put in intensive monitoring of this district health board. I do not blame the district health board for the problems it was getting into. If you go back and look at what was happening to that district health board you will see there was a decision made—a political decision—by the then Minister of Health Tony Ryall to merge two district health boards: the Southland District Health Board and the Otago District Health Board. He merged them without the background work that was needed to see what the impact and cost would be on that region and it became quite clear after a number of years that the funding formula for that part of New Zealand does not fit that particular now-amalgamated district health board. In fact if you look at the funding formula—and I am sure the local members who are sitting here today will be aware of this—the funding per head of population for the rural component of the population-based funding formula is higher in South Canterbury than it is in the Southern District Health Board.So this is a district health board that has been under financial pressure for some time and struggling to do what was required of it. It got itself into a position where there was a lot of loss in confidence in the board itself—a loss of confidence by the public a loss of confidence by the staff. There was certainly—the Minister said—a lack of confidence in the board which led to him dismissing the board. I have to say that a number of us asked why he was not taking action a lot earlier because of the impact it was having on the morale of the people and the staff in the Southern District Health Board. Then having made the decision and put in a commissioner the Minister followed up with this bill which requires the district health board as I said to not hold an election in 2016 and to postpone that election and keep in place a commissioner.We looked very closely at that decision and one of the things we are keen for—if there is not going to be an election—is that there be far greater transparency and openness by the commissioners than there had been by the board. Unfortunately there had been a loss of confidence in the board for some of the decisions that were seen to be made in private without the public being aware. The members from Southland will be particularly aware of discussions the board was having at that time to cut the budget in places like Ōāmaru Maniototo Queenstown Dunstan and Balclutha by up to 5 percent to try to save money. So there had been a considerable loss of confidence in what the board was doing. Now a commissioner has been put in and we said: “Right there has to be a lot more transparency and a lot more consultation with the people of the southern area so that they can have some confidence that the change process that is being put in place is going to work.” At the select committee—and we represented at that committee the National Party of course the Labour Party the Green Party and New Zealand First—we did ask questions about what that transparency would look like. In fact we asked that it be written into the bill that there be transparency—that the commissioner must consult.Interestingly it was not that long after that that the commissioners themselves announced—actually on 27 April—that they were now going to be more transparent. They were going to be holding district health board committee meetings in public from this month. This was due to the power of the select committee I think because we made it very clear that we expected more openness more consultation and more transparency. It was reported—in the excellent reporting I have to say done in the Otago Daily Times by Eileen Goodwin who had done a brilliant job in holding the board to account as far as was possible but is now holding the commissioners to account—that they will be holding open meetings for the hospital advisory committee the combined meeting of the disability support advisory committee and the Public Health Advisory Committee. These will be held in public so I am taking that as a win.There was a submission from Ngāi Tahu. They wanted to know whether it was able to be provided for them as a representative to be appointed as a deputy commissioner. We received a letter at the select committee from the clerk of the committee. The clerk of the committee advised us that such an amendment if we were to put it into this bill would be beyond the scope of the bill as it was introduced. We did consider it but on the advice of the Clerk of the House it was not possible to consider it and to put it into this bill if we had decided to do that so now we have got to the position where we have returned this bill without amendment and without any minority views.We do not say that it is a good thing that we cancel democracy but it is not the first time that it has been done and what must be the overriding issue here is that we do return to open elections by 2019. The Labour Party will certainly be doing that in Government but—heaven forbid—if we have to have a fourth term of thisNational Government we will certainly be saying that we will not tolerate what happened with Environment Canterbury where a promise was made to hold elections and then delayed with some jiggery-pokery going on about how the Government wants to restructure the organisation of Environment Canterbury. We will not tolerate that and we will make that clear in putting it on the record now.It is until 2019 that this election is delayed and in that time we would expect that in the budgets that are coming the proper adjustments are made to help the Southern District Health Board meet its obligations. There has been a review of the funding formula and much to my disappointment there is little or no change so how it is going to address the funding problems of the southern area I am not yet quite sure. But I am sure—as the Minister said 21 sleeps to go—we will be waiting to see exactly what is done to address one of the fundamental problems of that area: the funding and the funding formula for it.We do support the second reading of this bill. I will be pleased when the Minister is in the chair for the Committee stage for I want him to say on record that he expects and will guarantee that there will be elections in 1919—in 2019 not 1919 although he probably comes from that era when you listen to him sometimes—that there will be elections in 2019 at the Southern District Health Board in line with every other district health board in New Zealand. So yes we do support the second reading of this bill.