Clark DavidHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I do want to address a couple of matters raised by that member Shane Reti's speech. I'm not quite sure why he is spending so much time in that particular rabbit hole but I do want to clarify one or two things for the committee.Firstly Deloitte was appointed by the previous Government. So he's questioning the integrity of the appointment of his own Government on the day before the former Minister of Health is set to give his valedictory. I think the irony is lost on no one. He asks how the all-of-Government process works. That is the process that that Government uses and used when they were in power to work through these kinds of contracts. I'm assured that all real actual and perceived conflicts in this case were notified before any contract was signed and I don't expect to micromanage every single contract that the ministry lets. There would be no point in having a Ministry of Health if I did. So I'm intrigued and no doubt the member will continue to try and pursue this matter but it is of some intrigue to me I have to say. It's not abundantly clear to me why he keeps attacking the very process that the Government that he was a member of set up and that he claims has spent $20 million so far and led nowhere. He claimed at the beginning that it might be up to $90 million I think—$87 million—that the budget was for. And we all know it's become a problem and that's why I have called for a review because the previous Government has failed to deliver on the National Oracle Solution. There is a great irony in this whole situation and that is a microcosm of what happened under that Government.We all know that there has been nearly a decade of under-investment in the health sector. We have huge deficits in social and infrastructure spending from that previous Government. An estimate commissioned by the former Labour Opposition of an independent economic analysis agency confirmed that about $2.3 billion had been stripped out under their watch and that means that services were cut. And emblematic of that is the situation at Counties Manukau that we find now. There is literally sewage in the walls. The last debate in this committee was on finance and they avoided getting into the health debate for so long I think because they did not want to count the cost of those very few surpluses that they actually managed to deliver when they were in office. The cost is in the detriment to investment in our health sector amongst other things. So we have that huge under-investment. We now have rot mould and sewage in the wall of one of our major hospitals and that's not to mention Dunedin where people have to don hazmat suits to collect their medical records. That is the state of Dunedin Hospital. When it rains they have had to cancel surgery because the operating theatres leak. That is the legacy of that former Government over there and it is deeply ironic that they should then raise issues in this committee about the health system that we have inherited.Well I am determined to deal with what we have inherited from that Government. I'm determined that we will stand up and find a positive way forward. I have asked for a national asset management plan to be put together so that we do have a comprehensive assessment of the neglect under their watch so that we have a plan to manage forward into the future to deliver the kind of healthcare that New Zealanders would expect and deserve. Shortly after I became health Minister the Rebstock report was released—and it had taken a long time to get to that stage—which found that the Ministry of Health was in a parlous state really even worse than its review five years before; again a sign of neglect by the previous Government. They did not want a highly functional health ministry it seems. They refused to address capacity issues there. Well the good news for New Zealand is that that health ministry is rebuilding. There are many good people there despite the attacks of the Opposition. There are many good people there who want to do a good job and lead our health system into the future.We've made a number of early positive steps. We've launched an inquiry into mental health; we've taken steps to improve health support for Canterbury kids; we've invested in Maniototo Hospital something that former Government opposite in the Opposition benches failed to do. They refused to give any money to Maniototo Hospital. We've also already announced extra funding for Middlemore Hospital to address the neglect there. I have got around all of the 20 district health boards to have my own look at what's going on and to rebuild relationships that suffered under that Government's watch. Shortly I'm sure we'll hear from the member Michael Woodhouse who will try to defend that Government's record. But I think the public knows that when we've got rot mould and sewage in our walls that is a case of serious neglect.