Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to start with two statements: first of all we support the democratic district health board (DHB) elections and secondly I want to acknowledge that Waikato DHB was also struggling in our hands. There were some challenges that are quite clear to everyone and that we were making our way through as well.What we've heard here are the reasons for the bill and the reasons for why Waikato DHB has been struggling. But while we've heard these issues what we haven't had is any acknowledgment from the Minister as to whether he has had a hand in these past 18 months in contributing to the reason we find ourselves with this bill before us today. So whereas I'm happy to acknowledge we had some issues that we needed to deal with I'll help the Minister out and give the gracious speech he maybe should have given acknowledging his failings that bring this bill here today. Now for background none of us should take the removal of democratic processes lightly. In fact I believe this is only the third time that a DHB board has been sacked. The first was in 2008 under Tony Ryall when Hawke's Bay DHB was replaced by Sir John Anderson. The second was in 2015 when Jonathan Coleman sacked the Southern DHB—I'll come back to that later—and Kathy Grant took over. And here we are today with David Clark sacking Waikato DHB and putting Karen Poutasi in the commissioner's role—who I rate actually; Karen Poutasi's a very skilled and knowledgable lady. So here are the acknowledgments that maybe the Minister should have made around his own failings that bring us here today and there are three of them: first of all ministerial leadership. Now the Minister has many tools at his disposal some of which he's used to bring DHBs into line—for example the letter of intent at the beginning of each year is a very clear message from the Minister to the DHBs of what he expects them to do. Waikato DHB had a very weak copy-and-paste that pretty much every other DHB had which did not in my opinion firmly and strongly give them good guidance as to what the Minister's specific expectations for them were. So what the Minister admitted in his speech was to apologise for his leadership failing with the letter of intent. The second failing was with the Crown monitor. The Minister appointed Ken Whelan to be the Crown monitor to Waikato DHB—yeah how has that gone? We wouldn't be here today if that had gone well and so I think what the Minister also admitted in his speech was to apologise for a failed Crown monitor. I think the third and final acknowledgment that is missing is operational decision-making where the Minister specifically gave instructions to Waikato DHB in July last year and those instructions were around the National Oracle Solution—a multi-platform very expensive piece of IT software that was struggling. In July last year the Minister said to the sector Stop. All of you stop on the National Oracle Solution." This was after of course he'd appointed the independent review panel to review the National Oracle Solution. Deloitte as you recall had already worked on it—whatever. In July the Minister said to all the DHBs "Stop on the National Oracle Solution. We've got problems with it except for four DHBs. You can continue." Who were those four DHBs? Canterbury Bay of Plenty West Coast and Waikato. They were struggling already with a major IT platform that's a challenge for everyone and the Minister gave them permission to continue. We will hear more about that because the National Oracle Solution continues to struggle but in the Minister's own hands he gave permission for Waikato DHB to continue with the National Oracle Solution and I'm sure that's part of what brings us here today. So three areas where the Minister could have fessed up and said "Ha! Maybe I could have done better as well.": ministerial leadership the Crown monitor and operational decision-making around the National Oracle Solution. I want to briefly talk to the departmental disclosure statement which points out some issues with the Treaty of Waitangi obligations—particularly that "The exemption of the Waikato DHB from the 2019 elections means that there would no longer be a Board with Māori representation." and it fills out a bit further than that. Now this is going to be a problem here today. It's going to be a problem for the Greens and New Zealand First and I'll tell you why: when Jonathan Coleman sacked the Southern DHB board it was New Zealand First and the Greens who voted against that bill an identical bill to what we're seeing here today that suspends democratic elections. New Zealand First and the Greens voted against it. Here's what they said in the House. The Greens: "The whole point here is making sure that we maintain the strongest possible the most open the most transparent and the most engaging democratic process around the world. New Zealand prides itself on … democracy. We can maintain that pride only if we respect the right of New Zealanders to have a say. This bill strips that away. This Government has no respect for the right of New Zealanders to have a say over their democracy. This is yet another attack which the Green Party will not support." Where will they stand today? If it was good enough for us for them to stand on their morals and principles and say "We will not support this." I challenge them to offer the same morals and principles today.And New Zealand First—exactly the same. Where are they going to stand: morals and principles or a coalition agreement? Well we're going to find out soon enough because when we brought the similar bill in 2015 to the House here's what New Zealand First said: "But first what this bill means for democracy in this country. One of the basic principles in this country is the right to vote. It is how I got my job; it is how the Minister of Health got his. In New Zealand First we respect democracy but this bill is an appalling affront to democracy." So let's see later in the day exactly where those two parties sit. Are they going to stand by their 2015 morals and principles or have they shifted towards the coalition agreement?This is going to be a problem for them; it's not a problem for us. We understand fiscal responsibility and we understand the Waikato DHB has been struggling so we will be supporting this bill. Let's see what the other parties around the House do later in the day. Thank you Mr Speaker."