Robertson Grant: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:671;Page:17468] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. In the last couple of days the Government has told us that health and education are safe—health and education are safe. As the “slash-and-burn Budget” comes before the country in May the Government tells us it is OK because health and education are safe: money will be redirected to the health system. 
The truth is that the health system is operating in significant deficit. We know that before the last Budget just for health expenditure to stand still we needed to see an investment of $555 million or $600 million. That amount was needed just to stand still but that investment did not come from this Government. This Government under-invested by $150 million. Programmes in public health and primary care were cut as the district health boards—pushed by the Minister to look at his manufactured targets and meet his slogans rather than the actual needs of the communities around them—were getting in there and making sure that those targets and league tables were met while primary care and public health were let go and under-invested in. 
This year—I know I can talk only a little about current operations—we will see a hole in the health budget of around $700 million. Mr Key and Mr English have told us that there is only $600 million to $800 million for everything in health and education. Mark my words: we will be back in this Chamber debating a Budget that will show a cut in health spending. Government members will say more money is going into health but everybody involved in the health system knows that health inflation an ageing population and the increasing costs of buying equipment because GST has gone up—all of those things—mean that just to stand still in the health sector it will take $600 million or $700 million. This Government will not be making that investment; this Government will be making cuts. 
This Government has lost its focus on the core part of the health system. As my mother would say prevention is better than cure. But the Minister of Health is not interested in prevention; the Minister is interested in looking good with his targets and charts that say that he managed to improve elective surgery even though the Auditor-General’s report on elective surgery which we await with interest might actually be telling a different story about how people get their surgery. 
I will leave that issue to one side. We have reviewed the district health boards’ performance and we have learned that they are following the money. They are following the Minister’s targets which means public health and primary care are being cut back. Everywhere I have been in New Zealand since I have been the spokesperson on health for Labour—from Wanganui to Rotorua to Nelson—I have been told constantly that the cuts are coming in public health primary care and mental health. That is a problem for the future of New Zealand. Although the Minister’s priority might be to look good in the health portfolio and have a nice colourful chart the priority for New Zealanders is affordable access to quality primary care. That is not happening at the moment. 
That is not happening when it comes to after-hours care. When I was in Rotorua I was told by a doctor the story of somebody ringing his clinic just after 5.30 wanting advice about whether they should bring in their child. She said that if it was after-hours and the cost was going to be $40 or $50 then she would not bring in her child. The doctor said that she had better come in. When they came in the doctor found that the child was potentially suffering from meningococcal disease. If that mother is deciding whether to take her child to the doctor on the basis of how much it costs rather than how sick her child is then there is something wrong in our system. The Minister needs to take some responsibility for what is wrong in our system. 
People in Queenstown are paying $102 to take a baby to after-hours care. That is wrong. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s not true. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: They are. That is exactly what they are doing. Someone on the Kapiti coast is being charged $41 to take a 20-month-old to get a cut lip repaired at 5.30. That amount represents 20 percent of that family’s grocery bill. Something is wrong. That person asked me whether Mr Ryall wants her to go to the emergency department at Wellington Regional Hospital. Is that what the Minister wants? It is the wrong priority to send people the signal that primary care and public health are not important.