Dyson Ruth: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Affordable Healthcare Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I guess that the Minister of Health thinks that the Prime Minister is not listening because if he thought the Prime Minister was listening he would not have made that speech directly attacking what his Prime Minister committed National to doing.I have got a challenge for the Minister of Health. If he is so confident of his figures and his facts argue them out at a select committee. Let those facts be aired at a select committee where members of the Opposition can have the advantage of advice from officials—admittedly they have to get the Minister’s sign-off; it is not really independent advice—so that we can have the facts on the table and debate them. I do not think the Minister has got the confidence of his argument. I do not think he has the courage of his convictions to be able to back this debate at a select committee. That would be the courageous thing to do so that is the challenge that I want to put to the Minister.The National member who spoke immediately prior the Minister whose name just escapes me made quite a big fuss. He made quite a big fuss about the fact that this bill the Affordable Healthcare Bill in the name of the Rt Hon Winston Peters breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and what an outrage that was. I have got a little sentence to read to that member. It says: “New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Act 2013”. That was legislation that was introduced by the National Government during the Budget and it went through all stages under urgency. Not a single submission was heard—not a single contribution from the public. No members of the Opposition were able to get any information from officials because the debate went through right until Saturday night. On Thursday the debate started after the Budget. It went all day Friday through until midnight. Then first thing on Saturday morning at 9 o’clock we were here again debating it and it finished late on Saturday afternoon.That legislation according to the Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson who I am sure was not misleading the House breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It put in the law a provision that stopped family members taking a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. This is New Zealand and that Government stopped family caregivers taking what they considered to be a breach of human rights in a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. That is what the law says currently.The regulatory impact statement which is meant to be the independent advice to Parliament about the impact of the particular legislation was so redacted that we could hardly read it. Page after page after page of the regulatory impact statement was redacted. So those members should not come and lecture us about the fact that the Affordable Healthcare Bill breaches human rights legislation.The proposal is not to ram it through all stages under urgency; the proposal we are debating tonight is that this bill should go to a select committee where members of the public can contribute particularly those people who have got to their 70s or 80s or 90s and have had to stop paying their medical insurance because they have not got enough spare money and are now facing major medical costs. If Jonathan Coleman says this is not the answer what is the answer to that question? What alternatives is he proposing? I have not heard any.The bill says that we should have a rebate for private health insurance. It says that we should remove the fringe benefit tax which employers currently pay—and the member who has introduced the bill has compared that with the way that ACC levies are currently paid and the entitlement that is born from that. But I think more than anything else this bill reminds the House that in the last 7 long years we have had every year budget cuts in the health system.The public health system which is what most people rely on—every year the new Budget has not been enough to keep up with the costs of health inflation or population increases. In effect in reality—the real world where we live rather than the theory where the Minister of Health lives—the health budget has been cut. It is now underfunded by $1.7 billion. The ideas that are contained in this bill need to be contrasted against that significant underfunding. The bill deserves to be sent to a select committee where we can have the debate properly.