Hutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1188] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 It is excellent to hear the Hon Jim Sutton praising the National Party and Tim Groser but what is quite astounding is his state of denial of his party’s overspend of $450000 in the last election campaign. I want to point out how serious that was in that it denied real people people who are in pain and suffering real and tangible help through the health system. 
That $450000 might have meant at $2500 per cataract operation that 180 elderly people could regain their sight. But no Labour has denied them that. Labour over the last 6 years has become so cynical so distorted and so intent on regaining power that it has kept the money for itself and denied real people help. Let us have a look at another possibility. That $450000 could have helped 1000 children have their $500 grommet operation. Instead those children’s hearing has deteriorated their education has deteriorated—[ 
Interruption 
] Jim Sutton interjects; I am not sure what he is saying but it is his Government that has denied those children. Let us think of one more example of how Helen Clark Mike Williams and all their cronies in the Labour Party have denied people in New Zealand treatment. At $100 an assessment that sum could have meant that 4500 New Zealanders wallowing on the waiting lists had their first specialist assessment. Instead they are doomed to stay there. 
I must say I recall so vividly none other than Annette King saying in 1998 that a waiting list of 98000 was criminal. Yet today the hospital waiting list under Labour stands at 160000. So who is the criminal? Is it Labour by its own standards of judgment? I am afraid to say that it is. And is it for criminal activity that the police are now investigating the overspending of the Labour Party? Because this overspending has tragically denied treatment to both young and old on the hospital waiting list. 
But what is just as galling is Helen Clark’s statement this afternoon in this House that Labour has fulfilled all its election pledges. No amount of airbrushing on the pledge card will be sufficient to hide the length of Helen’s Clark’s nose come the next election. That is what will happen— 
Darren Hughes 
: Is he a member of the Exclusive Brethren club? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Darren Hughes lost his majority by an enormous amount. I think it went down by about 150 percent. 
Tim Groser 
: He’s gone. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: He will be gone. One of the extraordinary things was that in the House this afternoon Helen Clark said that all Labour’s pledges had been fulfilled. Well I want to talk about one that was on the original pledge card the one from back in 1999 when Labour people were tearing around the country. It stated: “We will deliver” and “My commitment to you.” and she said that she would maintain access to free doctors’ visits for children under 6 years of age. Well just prior to the election I randomly rang up four general practitioners’ surgeries. The co-payment in South Auckland was about $5 to $10; in central Auckland about $10 to $15; in Christchurch for under-sixes about $12 to $15. But then I randomly rang up one of the surgeries in Miramar which is in Rongotai—the former health Minister’s own electorate—and I was told that the co-payment for my two under-6-year-olds would be $18 each and $15 if I paid by cash. That is the sort of unfulfilled pledge that Helen Clark and Labour have absolutely failed New Zealanders on. 
Let us have a look at another one on this famous pledge card: “My commitment to you” is we will cut the health bureaucracy. What do we know about that? What do we know about what Annette King said about the health bureaucracy? She said that when there was devolution to 21 district health boards the Ministry of Health would decrease by 25 percent. Instead its numbers increased by 25 percent! But that is not all. The Government then set about building the most extraordinarily complicated bureaucracy in the history of the health system in New Zealand with the 21 district health boards and all their committees and the 76 primary health organisations and all their committees. 
Now at the beginning of 2006 Helen Clark pronounces that the big thing in the health area is to have productivity increase. We have heard for the last 3 years the OECD Treasury and even the finance Minister Dr Cullen saying that productivity increases are absolutely fundamental if we are to ensure that the health dollar in New Zealand is spent well. Finally it has dawned on the Prime Minister Helen Clark that that is just about impossible because of the extraordinary mantle of complicated bureaucracy that Labour has built in the last 6 years. 
I now wish to turn to another shrill pledge that the Prime Minister made in her Speech from the Throne on 8 November 2005. She said: “My government believes that science and innovation are critical to driving our prosperity.” For once I actually agree with her sentiment but what is astounding is the mantra she the previous Minister of Research Science and Technology—Minister Hodgson—and the current Minister Steve Maharey articulate in saying they have spent 50 percent more on science research and development in the last 6 years because the fact is that when one expresses investment in research and development as a percentage of GDP one finds it has gone down since 1997 and hardly moved since 1999. That shows the lack of commitment to an area “critical to driving our prosperity.” Only yesterday KPMG published a report that pointed out that New Zealand is not making enough progress in research and development in relation to its rivals and that we are “investing too little in R&D—as a percentage of overall GDP—to compete on the basis of innovation and technology and to protect themselves from low-cost manufacturing powerhouses offshore.” Yesterday we were treated to the spectre of David Cunliffe grinning like a Cheshire cat sitting astride a surfboard with his wetsuit on the wrong way round. Pity help David Cunliffe if he tried to stand up! Like the rest of the Labour Government he simply missed the wave and he and his Government are about to be fully submerged. 
I end by saying that in 1999 when the Labour Government came into power it inherited a growth rate of 4.9 percent. Current predictions are that growth is falling towards 1.7 percent. That says it all. The Labour Government has simply let New Zealand down.