Coleman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeColeman Jonathan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I am not sure whether anyone is still awake out there after Nanaia Mahuta’s soporific mumblings but if you are there are a few points that badly need rebutting. That was really an alternative commentary on what is happening in New Zealand at the moment. There was so much there that you could drive a truck straight through.Labour says that it is all about jobs. In actual fact there were 80000 more people in work over the last year. It is incredible. Nanaia Mahuta was talking about the cost of living. Inflation is at less than 1 percent. Nanaia Mahuta was talking about Skycity convention centre concessions. They are exactly the same concessions that the Government she was a part of gave Skycity when it built the original casino. Those are three points—three things you are actually being misled on by Labour members. Can you trust anything else they say? No absolutely you cannot.What I would say is that this Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament is really a sound plan for the future. What we provided over the last 6 years is very clear leadership of the economy. We have focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders. The things that really count are whether you have got a job and as I have said there are 80000 new jobs. It is whether you can get to the hospital and access the general practitioner. I will speak some more about that. It is whether you are happy with the local school. Of course what we have done is go around the unions and the Labour Party to connect directly with parents to actually provide the sort of certainty about their kids’ education that they want. And ultimately of course it is all about the economy. Law and order is very important as well. We have presided over the lowest crime rates since 1978.So contrast John Key’s very solid path for progress in the future with what Labour is focusing on which is all the in-fighting the hara-kiri stuff the changes of leadership. Andrew Little is talking about zero-hour contracts not to mention that he favours zero-pay contracts where actually the poor bloke who was working for him during his leadership campaign had to get an article printed in the National Business Review before Mr Little would actually pay up. Of course the treachery is still going on. Grant Robertson fully aware of that today asked Bill English a question that invited an answer that totally exposed Andrew Little’s duplicity in this matter. So look it is all bad over there. It is not looking good. It is pretty low energy over there actually. You would have seen from Nanaia Mahuta’s sort of 30 heartbeats-a-minute speech there that there is not a lot happening.Meanwhile over here we are getting into our portfolios. I am very proud to be the new Minister of Health building on the excellent work that Tony Ryall has done over the last 6 years.Hon Annette King: You wait.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Annette King said: “You wait.” I do not know—we will be waiting a long time for her to get up and ask a question. It has not happened yet. I think actually Annette is just looking forward to the Wellington mayoralty a soft retirement and leaving that bunch of losers to it over there because she is a winner. She is always there beside the winner of the Labour Party election campaigns but she is saying: “I’m out of here man. I’m having nothing to do with these people.”When you look at the health system—I have spent the first 3 months going around all 20 district health boards having a look what is happening—I can say we have the best doctors and nurses and allied health professionals in the world bar none. It is a highly dedicated workforce which National is backing. There are 1600 more doctors 3500 more nurses in that workforce. When I go there I say to them—Hon Annette King: Trained under Labour.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes—try it under Labour. They do not want to try it under Labour. Under Labour the doctors all went to Australia. Now they have come back. But what I say to them is: “OK look at what has happened in health. In the end is the health system getting better is it getting worse or is it staying the same?”. They all look at me and say that it is actually getting better and that it has got better over the last 6 years. It is actually backed up by the statistics. Under Labour 760 people had to go to Australia to get cancer treatment; under National zero. Under Labour 30000 people were waiting over 6 months for an operation; under National zero.So we have set very direct targets around the health system and we are meeting them. We have brought that discipline and at the same time we are putting an extra $500 million a year into the health system. So we are funding it properly but we are looking at the quality of spend. Under Labour money was frittered away on all sorts of stuff. Things were blowing out left right and centre. We are making real progress.I am very proud of this one: under National smoking rates are down from 20 percent to 15 percent—a drop of 25 percent so everyone’s paths can change. Look this is very positive stuff. Under National we were achieving our first cancer target of everyone who is ready for treatment getting treatment within 4 weeks. We have achieved that. We have now moved on to this new gold standard target that everyone will get their treatment once they have been referred by their GP within 62 days. So we are setting the bar higher all the time.Cancer treatment is very important. We are actually now delivering an extra 44000 operations per year. When Annette King was the Minister of Health she put an extra $2 billion into the health system to deliver 2000 fewer operations. Can you believe it—more money; fewer operations—and she has not even got a reply to that. So there are 118000 operations a year going up now to 162000 a year and these are the things that people really want us to focus on.Immunisation rates under Labour were hopeless: 80 percent of kids were being immunised. We are now almost at 95 percent. It is just incredible. Heart and diabetes checks—we have set very rigorous targets around those so we are delivering on that as well.Emergency department waiting times—you know at the select committee today Clare Curran was whining on about equipment being stacked in the corridors at Dunedin Hospital. Scott Simpson MP for Coromandel said that under Labour it was patients being stacked in the corridors and that is absolutely true. That has to be the zinger of the day—absolutely true. I can remember going to North Shore Hospital my local hospital where the good people of Northcote my electorate go to. People were waiting in the corridors for 24 hours when Annette King was running it. Now 95 percent of people are in and out of the emergency department within 6 hours. That district health board has turned round.The people of New Zealand do not want Labour running the health system again. We could not afford to have Labour running the health system. No wonder Annette King is leaving because frankly she does not want to be the Minister of Health again. That is why she never asks a question in the House. She is out of here completely.So when you look at it you have also got to look at the international context and I think Nanaia Mahuta should just go away and have a look at the facts of this. There is 3 percent economic growth for the next 3 years. Everywhere else in the world they are actually facing zero levels. There is deflation everywhere else huge unemployment numbers everywhere else. Here we are looking good: fewer people out of work the unemployment numbers are projected to drop over time. It is a very good economic story overall.But look it is not just all about health and the economy; it is the Cricket World Cup. It is a great time for New Zealand. New Zealanders are in an upbeat mood. If you look at New Zealand’s world cup record under the National Government over the last 6 years well who knows what might happen. The Cricket World Cup is going to be great for this country: over a billion people watching that 30000 to 40000 visitors here over the next 6 weeks and great legacy benefits. It is going to be an excellent time for New Zealand.We have also got of course the FIFA U-20 World Cup coming here. That is a global opportunity. We had 100 million people watching the draw last week. We are going to get great long-term legacy benefits from those two tournaments. If you look at what we have done with high-performance sport my predecessor Murray McCully did a great job: $30 million into building that network around the country. Labour members do not like sport—they will never admit it; but Helen Clark hated rugby—they really do not. You know actually at the cricket on Saturday I could not see a Labour MP there.Hon Anne Tolley: Really?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No they just were not there. But the point is that you would never have got that money into the high-performance network without the National Government. Mr McCully did a great job.In the end that is what counts for New Zealanders. It is the hard stuff like jobs the economy law and order health and education. But they love their sport as well. These people are just so far out of touch there. I would encourage members over there—how many Cricket World Cup games are people there going to?Louisa Wall: I’m going to two.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: See—one. One person is going to two games and that is it. And what is more I bet you that none of them has bought a ticket. So Labour—get with the programme get behind the Cricket World Cup get behind John Key and the National Government get behind the winners. Thank you very much.