Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I too am delighted to join other members of the House in supporting this legislation but before I make my contribution on that can I say that today there is huge celebration in the suburb of Redcliffs in Christchurch because the Minister of Education has finally made the decision to allow our school to come back to our community. It was a well-deserved victory for the Redcliffs community. Thank you for that indulgence Mr Deputy Speaker and now I will speak directly to the legislation. We certainly support this legislation from a Labour perspective. It has taken a long time for the Government to get around to it. I cannot imagine why the Minister of Health was not able to put a bit of time and energy into this earlier but it is here now we are up to the third readings and I am keen for it to progress. As my colleague Jan Logie said—there are two points I want to pick up that she mentioned. The first is that this is about the law catching up with the training and qualifications of nurse practitioners in particular. They are trained to be able do all sorts of things that the law does not allow them to do and that is just a nonsense particularly with the challenges that face us with the number of GPs who have indicated they will be retiring over the next little while and our increasing population and an increasing percentage of that population being older and potentially needing more access to health services. So we are just making the law catch up with the reality the qualifications and the training. Jan Logie also mentioned that this legislation does nothing to address the causes of illness. That is something that not just the Minister of Health but all the Ministers in the current Government have neglected and it is foolish. It is foolish from a social point of view and it is foolish from a financial point of view. It costs our country more because we have sick people whose illnesses could be prevented if the Government put on a smart longer-term thinking cap instead of the poll-driven short-term thinking under which it currently operates. So many people could be better off in terms of their well-being and the country's finances would be better off if we had a health-promotion disease-prevention strategy which we do not have. This legislation also recognises a societal undervaluing of nurses. I remember when Annette King was Minister of Health and she got a huge amount of money in the Budget so that she was able to give the nurses the pay jolt that they deserved. That actually largely addressed the pay gap the pay inequity between a female-dominated occupation—nurses—and comparable male-dominated occupations. Since the end of 2008 with the change of Government and the leadership—so-called—of the National Government nurses have just reverted to being undervalued not by society but by the Government. So their pay every year has slipped behind as has the pay and working conditions of junior doctors. So although we support this legislation and it is a good move forward it does not go anywhere near addressing the issues in the health sector. We have had two Ministers of Health who have really paid lip service to their job. They have tried to get a lot of photo opportunities cutting ribbons or opening a new integrated family health centre or a new ward somewhere but have never addressed the primary issues in our health system. I hope now this bill is going to be passed this afternoon that the Government turns its attention to dealing with the serious health issues that still face us. We are now $1.7 billion underfunded in the health system—$1.7 billion has been taken out of the health budget in the last 8 years. Mr Simpson I am on a 5-minute call so just relax. It is all right. Even though the clock is on a 10-minute call I am taking the other half of the Green Party's 10-minute call. That is $1.7 billion that should have been in the health system if the National-led Government had kept up with health inflation pressures and population growth. In every single part of the country we can feel that pressure growing. I certainly know in Canterbury where we have additional health needs because of the mental health concerns and our increased population with people coming from overseas and from around the country to help with the rebuild we have fallen further behind than even other district health boards. Despite that I commend the progress of this legislation. It is good legislation. It is not enough but at least it is something.