Ryall Tony: General Debate 
Ryall Tony: General Debate 
[Volume:652;Page:1848] 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. What a bad day for Opposition members. They spend every morning girding their loins for question time scurrying through the Internet and all the newspapers trying to dig out a story. At their procedures meeting they work themselves up about how they will knock over a Minister that day and then they come down to the House at 2 o’clock. Would not members rather be watching the cricket? Opposition members are failing in their job of trying to hold this Government to account. It is embarrassing! For 9 years members opposite saw themselves bestriding the political landscape as the health system collapsed the education system failed New Zealanders and the welfare system and bureaucracy blew out of control. Now that they are in Opposition they come down to the House every question time and simply they not only fail themselves but also fail New Zealand. 
It is no wonder “Mr 3 Percent” is shaking every time he gets up to ask a question in the House. Have members noticed how his bits of paper are folded up and how he moves his hands? He is not worried about the question; he is worried about the looks that Shane Jones and David Cunliffe are giving each other the whole time. But I do not want to focus on what does not matter; I want to focus on the huge challenges that face this country because of what we have inherited from the previous Government and also because of the worsening financial crisis. 
The most important question raised in this House today was the issue of the balance of payments and the challenge that it raises for New Zealand which the Minister of Finance Bill English spoke about. There is no doubt that whereas when Labour members were last in Opposition they spent years travelling around the country talking about the burden of the public balance of payments it is now significantly worse than when that party came to power in 1999 and it was significantly worse when they left office after the best economic conditions we have had in this country for 9 years. 
New Zealanders know they have a Government that is focused on the issues that matter to them. They have a Government that is focused on improving the public safety of New Zealanders. Judith Collins is right on the money when she demands improved performance from the Department of Corrections. This Government will support her in ensuring that public safety is improved. She is also doing that role as the Minister of Police. 
New Zealanders also want to support the Minister of Education Anne Tolley in her excellent work in getting bureaucracy and administrative overheads out of the Tertiary Education Commission so that we can back our good tertiary institutions that want to go forward and produce good education for young New Zealanders. 
We also support the leadership of our Prime Minister in working together with Ms Bennett on the 9-day fortnight which will give us an opportunity to put a job support scheme in place for New Zealanders at a time when they need it. This country is facing increasing economic challenges and many New Zealanders are confronting the difficulties of those challenges. I know that in my own electorate of the Bay of Plenty builders plumbers and electricians who have never been out of work in 30 years are now facing that reality as the effects of the world economic crisis reach New Zealand. I know that the Minister for Social Development and Employment is keen to ensure that we can assist those people in those small businesses. 
But the failure of members opposite is no more stark than when it comes to health. Over the last few weeks the National Government has demonstrated that despite a doubling of the health budget in the last 9 years New Zealanders’ access to health services has got worse. Fewer and fewer New Zealanders on a per head of population basis have had access to elective surgery. It has been harder and harder for them to get timely service in our nation’s emergency departments. We know that New Zealanders want improvements in those areas and that is why New Zealanders support this Government. This Government is focusing on the issues that matter to New Zealand at this difficult time. Day after day the Opposition focuses on the irrelevancies.