Clark DavidHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I want to respond to a few the points raised in the debate. I will begin by just speaking to the issue Dr Reti's raised around the National Oracle Solution. I find it particularly astonishing that a member from that side of the House would be raising this issue in the Chamber for us all to see. This is—I think it's been called before—weaponised incompetence. This is a programme started by the National Government where they spent over $100 million before we took office. And clearly it's run into all kinds of problems to do with governance to do with being implementable and so on. This Government had a review. Dr Reti's fussed a wee bit about the review how it was done and so on. He's asking questions about how much impairment there's going to be as a result of that poor investment by that side of the House. I think this is genuinely a case of weaponised incompetence. But I don't want to spend too much more time on that now. I want to cover a number of the other issues that have been raised as we've gone through the debate.Dr Reti also raised the issue of meningococcal W and spoke about how the district health board (DHB) had said they were listening to expert advice. He spoke in very disparaging terms about the DHB listening to expert advice on how to run an immunisation program. I'm quite comfortable with experts making the calls on these things. I don't actually think it's the job of politicians to decide what the best healthcare is. We're here to fund it and support it. But the actual technical decisions need to be taken by those who are experts in population health.To speak to some of the other issues raised quickly we had the Hon Nicky Wagner a former Associate Minister of Health raising questions about health targets. She was saying for example that nothing's being measured any more then going on in her speech to speak to all of the measures that are in place—obviously a contradiction in her own rhetoric. But she spoke about the immunisation rate. I think the important thing to note that the member did not raise at all is that that immunisation target of the previous Government was never achieved—not once. They never achieved that at a national level the immunisation target. Immunisation is incredibly important. On our side of the House we're determined to do something about those low immunisation rates. Certainly it is of deep concern that the anti-vaxxers have been getting some traction out there. But I actually think it's also incumbent on all of us to explain to people the importance of science and the importance of confronting the danger that's presented by diseases like meningococcal W and like the measles.We're here on this side of the House to invest in health and to make sure that people across New Zealand can access health services. In my previous contribution I covered the community services card fee cuts for visits to primary care and general practice meaning people will be able to afford to go to the doctor when they couldn't afford to go before because we believe in making sure that healthcare is accessible.But we're also investing in our workforces. They're around 1300 more nurses in New Zealand in our hospital system than when we took office. That is because we've chosen to invest. We've invested in safe staffing. We've had a nursing accord that commits to safe staffing. We've also done settlements with healthcare workers who've been stretched and strained for too long and who were giving up. We're finding that there were staffing shortages across the system because people just were not prepared to put up with it anymore.This is a Government that is investing. A record amount was invested in the Budget we're debating—more than had been put in for a decade. I'm very much looking forward to the Wellbeing Budget that's coming up when we will get to invest more again in our health system. We will invest again in the capital infrastructure that's been neglected for so long so that our hospitals are fit for purpose so that they're good places for staff to work so that they are pleasant places for patients to visit so that they can get the care because we on this side of the House believe we need services for people be it education be it healthcare be it roads. We are going to invest for the future of all New Zealanders and fix the problems that have accumulated over so many years of neglect by the previous Government. We are determined to tackle those harder issues—the consequences of that underfunding—to make sure we've got a healthcare system that delivers for all New Zealanders.