Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to offer the Green Party's support for the Public Health and Disability (Waikato DHB) Elections Bill. As was previously signalled by a member of the National Party who spoke previously this is not an easy decision for the Green Party on one level. We hold local decision-making dear to our hearts. It's part of our charter that informs all of our policy making. We have in the past on one other occasion supported legislation in the public interest that overrode the public elections of councillors in the interests of public safety and we have been convinced that this piece of legislation has the same purpose. We have had very strong assurances from the Minister of Health that there will be more mechanisms put in place to enable local input and ensure there is a new vehicle for democratic participation while Waikato waits for the next election in 2022. The reasons that the Minister has had to propose this legislation are significant. The financial forecasted blowout in terms of the Budget has a consequence for the entire country when we look at the difficult trade-offs that are made for Governments around spending. A massive blowout in one area because a district health board (DHB) is not able to manage their costs has a consequence for everyone as well as that community and there was a history of instability in terms of governance at executive management levels. Most concerning for me when considering this proposal was the increasing number of clinical concerns that we were hearing and I don't think anybody can responsibly sit in this House and ignore clinical concerns coming through from the community that they could address through measures like this. We also had seen the issues around improper spending by the former chief executive (CE) and the board's inability to appoint a permanent CE to be able to address the issues that had been identified. There were examples of the board's decisions reportedly reaching the media while the board was still meeting—just showing a real breakdown in relationships on that board that was not serving the community—and senior doctors being concerned about the decisions being made and some GPs as well as other hospitals in the area were also starting to raise concerns. So those are issues that would I suspect concern everyone in that community and they would want to see us taking that seriously. If we didn't have the ability to get a good CE in there to address those issues then we believed and we were convinced that the appointment of a commissioner really was the only option in this situation. So there's no way that we've taken this lightly but with regard to our concerns around ensuring that local decision-making we've been given that strong commitment from the Minister that there will be clear expectations about community engagement replicating what was used for the Southern District Health Board. We've had the feedback from people down South that on the whole that's actually been a really positive process for them. In the South where there was a commissioner the Southern DHB has continued to operate a range of local engagement mechanisms and public advisory committees including an iwi governance committee a hospital advisory committee a disability support advisory committee and a community and public health advisory committee. These committee meetings usually also involve public forums that open up this process to the public in a way that actually it would be lovely to see more of our DHBs as normal business pick up mechanisms to increase that public engagement.We would also note recognising that one of the submitters to the select committee raised some concerns around Māori representation that alongside the very well-respected Commissioner Dr Poutasi is Chad Paraone a senior health executive from Te Aupōuri who is of Ngāi Tahu descent who has been appointed and that there is an existing iwi Māori council and consumer council within the Waikato through whom that relationship can be strengthened. We expect to see that strengthened through this process to ensure that the inequitable health outcomes for Māori can be addressed in this process.So it was with a lot of consideration but really coming down on the side of public interest and safety and wellbeing that the Greens are supporting this with the confidence and the assurance from the Minister that there will be many ways for the people of Waikato to engage and be part of this and have a sense of creating a DHB that serves their community.