Ryall Tony: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRyall Tony: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 22 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18261. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): What a great Budget for New Zealand families. Up and down the country people know that the John Key Government is making children and families a priority in this Budget and is absolutely determined to back those families. New Zealanders have got every reason to be optimistic about the future on the basis of this Budget. Through very sound financial management by the Minister of Finance the Prime Minister and the rest of the Cabinet this country is now in the black and is on a roll. This country is moving forward and we have options for how we can invest our finances now that our country is back in the black. This Budgetstands in marked contrast to what you are seeing all around the world. Just look across to Australia where the health budget has been cut by $10 billion.Hon Member: How much?Hon TONY RYALL: $10 billion. Australia’s growth projection is not as rosy as here. Things are much tougher over there and the Government is having to make decisions that could not be made under the Labor-Greens outfit that ran Australia up until a year ago. Look at France where the socialist PresidentHollande is cutting $17 billion out of health expenditure. A socialist President has cut $17 billion out of health expenditure. That is part of $90 billion worth of cuts that have been announced in France by a socialist President. So all around the world Governments are still taking significant expenditure actions but here in New Zealand because of the sound financial management of our Government we are able to produce a Budget that is in the black. And it is a Budget for families—a Budget for families and a Budget for investing in the future of New Zealand. It is marvellous to be serving as the Minister of Health in the John Key Government which is putting $1.8 billion into health over 4 years.Chris Auchinvole: How much?Hon TONY RYALL: $1.8 billion. That is made up of new money and savings in order to make sure that we can expand health services for New Zealanders and meet the cost pressures that we face. And let me just talk about what sound financial management in the health service can deliver. When I became Minister of Health deficits in district health boards were expected to be $200 million. We are now on track to get that down to $10 million or $20 million because of sound financial management of our system. We are able to have $90 million going into making general practitioner visits and prescriptions free for children under the age of 13 from 1 July 2015. That is 400000 children and their families who are going to expect a benefit from this investment. It is an important preventive health measure as parents will not have to think twice about taking their kids to their doctors and it will relieve pressure on our busy hospital emergency departments. We are putting an extra $110 million into hip knee and other elective surgeries to build on the record increase in elective surgery that we have had under this Government.We should remember that the previous Labour Government doubled the health budget but the number of people who got operations actually dropped. How does that work? How do you double the health budget and fewer people get operations? It just does not make sense. We want more New Zealanders to get hip knee and other elective procedures and that is what this funding will be focused on.One of the things that has been overlooked in this Budget so far is the Government’s very smart anti-obesity investment in Healthy Families New Zealand—$40 million over the next 4 years. It is a complete reform of the way that we address the underlying causes of poor health in New Zealand. Far too often resources are spread too thinly in this public health area. This Healthy Families New Zealand project working across 900000 of our population will be building a dedicated health promotion workforce that will be engaging with early childhood centres schools sports clubs eateries and caterers and helping them help their communities at a grassroots level to take responsibility and take action to improve the health and well-being of their communities. And we know it works. It is based on a programme that has worked very successfully in Victoria. It is going to make a big difference to many New Zealand families and many communities such as South Auckland west Auckland and parts of the South Island as well.We are also putting in $33 million for faster cancer treatment. What we are going to be doing here is addressing one of the major concerns we have picked up from cancer sufferers and their families around New Zealand. Being diagnosed with cancer is a timeof extreme anxiety for anybody. There are a lot of concerns about what the future may hold. This investment is going to allow us to put dedicated specialist psychologists into each of the six cancer centres around New Zealand to help support cancer sufferers and their families. It will also allow us to have dedicated counselling and social support staff—up to 20 of these support workers—throughout the country to ensure that patients who are diagnosed with cancer and their families receive more support and counselling. We have more than 20000 New Zealanders diagnosed with cancer every year and this is a very important part of how we support those families in their cancer journey. I think that is a top spend by our Government including extra investment for breast and cervical cancer screening programmes to ensure that more New Zealand women receive high-quality screening services. In fact we now have digital mammography services throughout New Zealand. That is providing a much better quality of services for New Zealand women.We are making a huge investment also in the training of our medical workforce. An extra 38 medical students will be able to go into our medical schools this year and we are funding $18 million to provide more postgraduate training opportunities for the extra graduates who are coming out of medical schools. We are growing more of our own doctors here in New Zealand and it is a great investment that our Government has made.We have got one major cut in health that Labour never criticises and that is the cut of 1000 managers and administrators. We have taken out 1000 managers and administrators from the health service and we have used that money to back the investment that we have made in well over 1000 extra doctors and over 3000 extra nurses at the bedsides of New Zealand patients in our hospitals. There are over 1000 extra doctors and over 3000 extra nurses at the bedsides of our public hospitals. It is a huge investment that is allowing us to provide more elective surgery faster better cancer treatment and more elective surgery—40000 more operations like hip knee and other elective operations.Chris Auchinvole: How many?Hon TONY RYALL: There were 40000 in the last year compared with what we inherited under the previous Government.I have got to say that one thing we have found about this Budget is that Annette King and Russel Norman do not know how to read a Budget. We have got the Greens going around the country saying that we are cutting the health budget over the next 3 years. That is completely wrong. What Russel Norman has not taken into account is the fact that the numbers he is looking at do not take into account the extra money that will come in next year’s Budget and the next year’s Budget and the next year’s Budget. So he is going around the country trying to tell people that we are reducing the health budget. We are increasing it year on year on year. When we started this job it was much lower than where we are now. We are building on Budget 2013 with $1.56 billion worth of health investment this year. But it is not just about the money; it has got to be about the results for patients. I make no apology for the fact that this Government has put a lot of pressure on the public health service to deliver more and we have delivered more care for patients. We do not send women to Australia for their breast cancer radiation treatment which that party did and made excuses for. We are treating them all here in New Zealand faster than that crowd ever did. We are providing more hip knee and other elective procedures than that party opposite ever did. We are delivering the results that make a difference to make this the best country to be young and to grow old in.