Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9238. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): If you look at Kiwi society Kiwis do not ask for much from their Government or from their nation. They ask for a fair go they ask for a future they ask—and they want—some hope; not just for themselves but for their families for the future generations and for their loved ones. New Zealanders know what they are about.The last speaker Minister Nikki Kaye talked about the Prime Minister’s statement and the vision and the great words and the great slogans that were in it. She talked—and I wrote it down—about “a Government that cares”. She talked about “a compassionate Government”. But there was one word and one phrase that did not appear in the Prime Minister’s statement yet was evident today and that was the word “Keytruda”. We had a display today in Parliament where members of the public presented a 45000-person petition. People sat in the gallery watching the to-ing and fro-ing of question time and they are people who are fighting for their lives quite literally. We had a couple of individuals come to our caucus meeting this morning to talk about the fact that in both cases they were effectively told it was lights out—they were not coming back. As my colleague said to go home and die was the message: “There is nothing that can be done.”And we had people on the front lawn of Parliament: people who have done sausage sizzles; people who have raised money through Givealittle websites and on Facebook; people who have mortgaged houses for their families—not because they have a choice to do so but because they have to literally in the case of the melanoma disease try to keep their loved ones alive because the Government refuses to fund Pharmac to produce literally a lifesaving drug.As Annette King has said there is no first-line or front-line treatment like chemotherapy or radiotherapy for this disease. These people require a lifesaving drug to survive and this is not you know the old green-lipped mussel sort of magic potion stuff that we had a few years ago. No these are people who were told “Go home and die.” who funded this medication themselves and are now living today. So when that member talks about compassion and when she talks about a caring Government she should reflect on those folks who sat in the gallery today and who were on the front lawn of this Parliament begging in many cases for this Government to save the lives of their family. That might sound a bit dramatic over there but it is a medical fact. It is a medical fact.The Prime Minister talks about aspiration. Well it is hard to have aspiration if you are dead. It is hard to have aspiration if your whole life as you move to retirement is about mortgaging your home going on Facebook to beg the public for some money going and running galas and other things because that is what you literally have to do to ensure that those you love who are victims of this awful disease can have their lives saved. I am told people are dying daily from this disease and these are people whose lives can be saved. I ask the Minister of Health—as he says “Pharmac might get some more money” or the Prime Minister as he says “We’ll have to wait and see until the Budget”—to act. And every day that we wait and every day that we procrastinate or the Government procrastinates people literally die.So when we talk about vision and when we on this side talk about the Kiwi Dream and the Prime Minister talks about aspiration—and when we hear 10 minutes of lofty speeches about roads and all sorts of other infrastructure and the wonderful opportunities available to New Zealanders who do not ask for much—those New Zealanders sitting in the gallery and out on the front lawn will never be able to exercise those aspirational goals because they might not be here.Government inherently is about choices. Ministers make choices every day. They choose to fund a flag referendum at 26 million bucks. They choose to fund charter schools and Novopays that fail. They choose all these things and today is an opportunity for them to make a choice and literally—literally for those people—save their lives.