Blue Jackie: General Debate 
Blue Jackie: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:12867] 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I want to talk about the Prime Minister’s comments about the cervical cancer vaccine that she called for at the Labour Party conference last weekend. In fact we caught her out good and proper in the Health Committee this morning. On the back of the UK announcing funding for its cervical cancer vaccine the Prime Minister has called for urgent advice on the rolling out of a cervical cancer vaccine in New Zealand. Let us look at this urgent advice. We had the Ministry of Health officials in front of the committee and I asked them whether there had been urgent advice whether someone had pressed the button and whether there had been a directive from HQ that they should get on to this and no they were not able to say that there had been. There has been work in progress. They have been working on this for at least 1 or 2 years so this is nothing new to them. There was no urgent advice sought. Certainly no one has been communicating with the ministry. There has been no phone call from the Minister to the ministry. The officials were unable to say whether they had been asked to start work—the work is already there. They had the business plan. The knowledge is already there. 
The other thing is that if the Prime Minister needed to find countries that are funding a cervical cancer vaccine as an excuse to start funding one in New Zealand then why on earth did she not step in a year ago when our nearest neighbour Australia announced that it would be able to start its vaccine early this year? So to me it was all crocodile tears from the Labour Party conference last weekend. If the Prime Minister had really cared about a cervical cancer vaccine then she would have acted a year ago when Australia announced its package and not have waited for this rubbish comment about the UK—that that was the reason she wanted urgent advice. The advice was already in the ministry. It is a crock! What has happened is that Labour is behind in the polls those members are desperate and they have made this announcement. If the Prime Minister really cared then she would have been there a year ago. Nonetheless I hope that she follows through with this promise because we do not want it consigned to the dustbin which is what she did with the infamous “chewing gum tax cut” the blitzing of hospital waiting lists and the promise to get New Zealand back in the top half of the OECD. They were all empty promises. I hope for the sake of young women in New Zealand that the Prime Minister follows through with this promise to act on her comments. But the comments were insincere. She should have been acting a year ago to help the young women of New Zealand—not a year later—and she has used the excuse of the United Kingdom starting to announce a funding package for its vaccine to roll out her announcement at the Labour Party conference this year. That was just a political crock in my opinion. 
It is great that we have a new Minister of Health running the show—8 years three Ministers of Health and an extra $5 billion later. We can just look at the legacy he has inherited and see that it is pretty bad. We have workforce strikes and senior doctors are having an unprecedented ballot on whether we are to have more strikes. We have had 40000 people culled from waiting lists and morale is so low that we are haemorrhaging doctors and nurses from our country. We have a health workforce that is being propped up by overseas doctors and if we did not have them then we would not be able to operate. We would have a health workforce that was non-existent and our public hospitals would have to close. We have access to medicines that lags behind our nearest neighbour Australia and the list is endless. I could go on and on. It is a dreadful legacy for our new Minister of Health who fortunately has decided to run the show. 
Wellington Hospital is symptomatic of the malaise that is running through the health system. It is a sick puppy— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but I would say to those members on my right that if they could please look at Speakers’ ruling 57/3. Thank you. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: I have certainly hit a nerve have I not I say to my colleagues. The malaise is percolating through the health system. It is bubbling away it is there and it is of epidemic proportions. But in Wellington it is worse; it is acute. It is not bubbling; it is boiling away. It has become a boil. It is red it is painful it is tense and it is fluctuant. Guess what? Unfortunately it has landed on our new Minister of Health’s backside and it will be a painful proposition. But you know it is pretty good. This Minister of Health has decided after 48 hours that he is running the show. But even if the  
Titanic 
 had had a new person rearranging the deck chairs it would not have helped the  
Titanic 
 and it will not help this new Minister of Health. The  
Titanic 
 sank just as this Government will sink in the election in 2008—wait and see. 
My blood ran absolutely cold when I read the  
Dominion Post  
this morning. The headline was “Dysfunction mistrust morale at rock bottom”. “Board like a headless chicken says doctor” was the subheading.