Kedgley Sue: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21307] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 As the previous speaker referred to an interesting debate is emerging about why despite all the funding that has been poured into the health sector over the last couple of years Treasury reports falling productivity. Why could this be so? There are many speculations about why this might be so but I believe that one of the key reasons is pointed to in a report that came out quite quietly last year from the Ministry of Health called  
Looking Upstream: causes of death cross-classified by risk and condition New Zealand 1977 
. That report quite extraordinarily analyses the 20 top causes of death by risk factor in New Zealand. Diet is twice the risk factor of any other single risk factor. Poor diet is the cause of an estimated 30 percent of deaths in New Zealand. Somewhere between 9000 and 11000 deaths are caused by poor diet. No one believes me so I have to take this chart with me when I go out and show it to them. Then they finally believe me. 
So if that is the case what have we done about it over the last year or so of this Government? We have published a wonderful health strategy that does appear to be addressing the issues. It states the 13 population health objectives: improve nutrition reduce obesity increase the level of physical activity reduce the impact of diabetes improve oral health and so on. When these population goals were announced we were absolutely delighted. Then the Government announced that it was going to bring out a world-leading report on healthy eating and healthy action and we were delighted with that too. The Minister of Health has trumpeted it internationally at the World Health Organization saying: “Isn’t this wonderful?”. 
But the problem is that we have this major initiative this Healthy Eating - Healthy Action but when we look at the books alas there is not any funding for this wonderful new initiative. Thirty percent of deaths are caused by poor nutrition and poor diet and this strategy states that it is going to focus on this issue. We have these population health goals. One would think that this flagship strategy would have some new funding but alas there is none. 
Sure some district health boards—and I have met them—in some parts of New Zealand are beginning to get their heads around the issue and there are some positive initiatives particularly in the Waikato and in Manukau but basically the Government has no specific funding for it. One would think that if this were the overwhelming cause of death in New Zealand way more than road deaths and all the other issues we tend to focus on there would be a national strategy a huge new programme but alas there is none. 
I have just touched on one issue of big concern. The second issue concerns Pharmac. The Green Party strongly supports Pharmac. We are concerned that a big public relations campaign is developing against Pharmac and against its single-supply contracts. We saw that earlier in the year when some public relations people visited me and I could see it coming. Suddenly and it does not surprise me at all some parties in this House like United Future rose up and became part of this campaign to undermine Pharmac and its single-supplier contract. 
We do acknowledge that there are all sorts of issues that we would like to see improved with Pharmac. There is great room for improvement but we are concerned that there seems to be an across-the-board strategy to undermine it and that is a real concern from a fiscal point of view and many other points of view. 
Finally I would like to talk about how the Government is quietly working without any political mandate to hand over the control of our dietary supplements and our pharmaceuticals to a trans-Tasman therapeutic goods agency in Australia. It has no mandate for that whatsoever.