4. Question No. 4—HealthHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 4—Health4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Is he concerned that any of his policies and actions could have a detrimental effect on the performance of district health boards?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Health: No. In fact I'm particularly confident that after years of neglect the $2.45 billion that we have invested in rebuilding our hospitals will have a positive effect on DHBs and patients. That number is twice as much as the previous Government invested in health capital over nine Budgets. I'm also confident that the additional $300 million investment in health infrastructure announced by the very modest Minister of Finance yesterday will also have a positive effect.Hon Michael Woodhouse: If those investments are so great why have DHBs plunged to $1.2 billion of combined fiscal deficits?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member will well know that such deficits build up over time and when there has been such gross underfunding of the health sector over such a long period of time under the previous Government it will take some time to turn around. In terms of the answer I gave to the primary question that was in reference particularly to capital investment where the member needs to tread very carefully when it comes to talking about the record of his Government.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Who is correct: Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield who told the Health Committee regarding pay settlements The funding that the DHBs received was explicitly designed to address their cost pressures." or Nelson DHB CEO Peter Bramley who yesterday told the committee "$3.2 million was the cost in that year for the settlement of multi-employer collective agreements that were not funded."?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I would need to see the full quotes from both members to be able to judge any answer to that question specifically. What I can say in general is that this Government inherited a situation where we had a number of pay claims in front of us. They were not adequately budgeted for by the previous Government. We have budgeted significantly increased resources for them.Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of those pay claims what was the extent of industrial action taken by health unions during the period 2009 to 2017 and how does that compare with the last two years?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think on this I would defer to the comments from the Deputy Prime Minister who said that if a person thinks that a bus won't come along they won't wait for it but if they think that there's a bus which has people in it who actually might care a little bit they'll wait for the bus. We have seen under this Government the fact that we're prepared to address wage issues that were ignored for a decade by that Government.Hon Michael Woodhouse: So if he believes funding and pay increases were adequately funded by this Government is he also saying it's the DHBs' fault that their financial performance has dramatically deteriorated?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said earlier on there are a number of reasons for why DHBs' financial performances are what they are at the moment. A significant part of that is the long-term underfunding that went on. We also have issues related to governance which the Minister of Health—I am the Minister of Health aren't I?—which we as a Government have been working on in terms of the appointments to DHBs and we're addressing those performance issues but there are many issues that lie behind that.Hon Michael Woodhouse: If he wants to look for someone to blame for the DHBs' parlous state shouldn't he just look in the mirror and see a Minister with no plan and no clue?SPEAKER: Order! Order! No."