Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I'd like to begin by just addressing one issue. I think the Minister of Health has tried to claim his narrative of the 17 mental health initiatives of the $100 million amount not being appropriated as if it was his argument. In fact if he remembers quite rightly it was my mistake when I wrongly put the word appropriated" in my primary question at question time one day about the 17 mental health initiatives and the $100 million. So I just don't want the Minister taking the kudos that he had come up with that defence himself when in fact it was actually my mistake.But it actually poses the question: if it hasn't been appropriated why not appropriate it? And then he tried to say "Well it hasn't been to Cabinet." By definition if it's in a contingency fund it means it hasn't been appropriated and it has been through Cabinet but it gets put in a contingency fund that's been approved by Cabinet and when the details are worked up more into a business case then the funding is released. That's the real question here because as we know we've got a huge pipeline coming down at us through the demand of mental health services. We know that mental health demand in New Zealand has increased from 2.3 percent to 3.6 percent of the population an increase from about 98000 to 168000. So actually there's an agreement that there needs to be a change. If you go out and talk to the mental health sector what's the biggest thing they tell you?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Not me.MATT DOOCEY: It's that there's no point—sorry not you Madam Chair. The biggest thing they tell us as politicians is that there's no point in continuing to pour money into the district health boards (DHBs). In fact there have been reports out in the last few weeks where DHBs allegedly weren't even spending their ring-fenced funding of mental health per year. What I'm saying is it's the actual NGO sector—it's the community sector—that's saying they're primed and ready to go. They can deliver high-quality services at the same cost and higher productivity. That's why those 17 mental health initiatives were developed with the Chief Science Advisor and the mental health sector themselves to break out of the box and think about how can we do things differently.So the Minister can argue that yes it was never appropriated but he needs to say why he has not gone with the consensus of change to release the community sector so they can go out and deliver services at the mild to moderate end. Rather he's tipping more and more money into the DHB system and yes to a point they have a role to play but actually the mental health sector is agreeing that actually more needs to go into the community sector. That's what I think needs to be asked here.The Minister did raise a couple of things as well and one was the GP visits and how great it was that there's more access. He forgets to say actually that he announced in November as the health Minister that there would be free GP visits for mental health issues and unfortunately that wasn't honoured in Budget 2018. When you look at Budget 2018 in fact it really was a disappointment for mental health. When you look collectively across the three parties—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I am looking.MATT DOOCEY: Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for your attention. When you look at the policy announcements of the—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm not looking at those.MATT DOOCEY: —three parties in coalition—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm not looking at those.MATT DOOCEY: —it adds up to about 20 and what do they deliver in Budget 2018? About five and that is the real disappointment.As we've heard recently we've had vital pilots. One was ready to go around putting mental health professionals with our emergency responders. There's another pilot that's been cut that was looking at suicide and our response to identification support and follow-up. There was another trial that was to go out as part of the 17 mental health initiatives around people who had been in crisis. It was a step-up step-down trial when they get discharged from acute into community and back up again—three out of 17 initiatives that would have made a real change now. Yes there is an inquiry but in fact we could have done both and it would have returned a great thing for the mental health sector."