Menéndez March Ricardo; Verrall AyeshaRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I wanted to point to the report from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists that details the amount that people are spending to access dental care and the petition that they have launched. So I wanted to get an understanding as to whether the Minister had done any work or her ministry had done any work at looking at expanding free dental care for those over 18 and if not I guess I want to get her reflections around the state of access to dental care in Aotearoa.Another point that I wanted to ask was regarding the migrant workforce in the health sector and whether she was confident that migrants coming in to fill roles in the healthcare sector could be guaranteed that they could be in areas where they pay at least the median wage and whether that was something that she had certainty upon. And then whether for those that may not have pathways to residency that may still be working there whether she has concerns that that may affect retention rates as well.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I thank the member for those questions and the earlier member Dr Shane Reti as well. Some of the first set of questions are quite technical in nature so we're just making sure that we have the correct data to inform our response on those. With respect to dental care it is an incredibly important area for one's health and a priority area for action for this Government. My belief with so many areas of health is that prevention is better than cure and that's why this Government moved recently to enable greater action to fluoridate water supplies. We know that that halves the rate of dental caries for young children. We've done that by enabling taking the politics out of this debate which was one that was subject to misinformation and by enabling the Director-General of Health to make directives to fluoridate water supplies when that is supported by good evidence. With respect to the matter that the member raised around extending State-funded subsidised dental care there is no work under way to extend that at the at the moment but I understand that that is an important need for people and especially when there are pressures on the cost of living. The earlier question about migrants and their role in the health system—firstly one of the great pleasures of being a healthcare worker is working in a multicultural workplace where there are workers with experiences from around the world and experiences of diverse health systems. There is a lot we can learn from our migrant health workforce. The member will be aware that there has been coming out of COVID an immigration rebalance and health workers have been a priority in that and that now we have over 40 roles on the green list with a fast track to residency securing their ability to stay in New Zealand in return for the service they give in our health system. I am aware that there are some parts of the health sector where an exception has been made for the wage requirements and that is in aged residential care. The Minister of Immigration has the ability to periodically review that over time so that the industry has a pathway to be able to raise wages over time. But the alternative which was the huge pressure on the aged residential care workforce when migration was interrupted would have led to there not being able to be a workforce sourced in those areas. So that is how that particular issue is addressed.