Hutchison Paul: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9479] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important financial review. I must say that I am very proud to be able to speak of National’s record in health. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Really? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: We see the Labour Opposition and we look at its record. Labour members were the very ones who when in Government culled tens of thousands of patients off the waiting lists—tens of thousands of patients. That was a bad record and that record is very well evidenced. In sharp contrast in this financial year over 129000 elective operations have been carried out. That is 11800 more than in the previous year. 
Hon Member 
: How many? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It was 11800 more than in the previous year and many thousands more than in any of the previous 8 years under the previous Labour Government. One of the things that distinguished the Labour Government was the dismal productivity in the health sector. That was borne out very clearly by a series of papers written by Treasury. After all Labour injected money into it but there was no evidence of an increase of output clearly shown in the area of elective surgery and clearly shown when Labour culled—not reprioritised; it culled—tens of thousands of patients off the waiting list. So when we have this Labour Opposition talking about cuts it just has to look back at its record which was a particularly dismal one when it came to health. 
One of the things I think is important to emphasise is that the health system that Labour had put in place was totally inappropriate in terms of the duplication and the poor local regional and national planning and performance right around the country. That is one of the great achievements that occurred with the formation of the new National Health Board. It is indeed providing the leadership required to manage that $9.7 billion that funds the 21 district health boards. It is indeed extraordinarily timely. 
It is important also to comment on the significant report called “In Good Hands” to guide district health boards in introducing greater clinical leadership into the public health system. Clinicians doctors and nurses throughout the country have absolutely unanimously considered that this is the very sort of thing that should happen after 9 years of being shunted out of front line services in the New Zealand health service. 
One of the other very interesting things that happened recently was the publication of a simplified health target system. Under Labour we had target after target we had strategy on strategy and Labour members just did not know where they were going. I note in the  
Dominion Post  
just this morning that the editorial “Public comparisons boost performance” said “One thing is for sure in the wake of the publication of Health Ministry statistics comparing the performance of 80 primary health organisations. Total Healthcare Otara the PHO with the poorest record of immunising two-year-olds will be taking immediate steps to improve its performance. Public ignominy is a powerful motivating tool. So it should be. The release of the data highlights yet again the benefits of comparing the performance of organisations doing essentially the same job whether they operate in the health sector the education sector or any other area.” 
That was one of the problems of the previous Labour Government. It was not transparent it created huge bureaucracy and it failed to bring evidence out into the public. Here we are seeing before us one of our major papers saying that this is good. In education they have baulked at it but the health fraternity is saying: “Yes this is great.” The district health boards have lauded it and so have the primary health organisations. 
Report noted.