King Annette: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 29 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10503. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I have to say to my cousin Chester Borrows the member opposite who just spoke that Labour does not hate success. What we do hate is excess and greed and that is what we have seen in this Budget—but not just in this Budget. In every Budget that has been laid down by this Government we have seen excess and greed for a small group of New Zealanders. It is not for the majority of New Zealanders the hard-working people who go to work every day to support their families and we saw that when the Government gave tax cuts to a very small number of New Zealanders—the top wealthiest New Zealanders got the tax cuts. Even though there was a global financial crisis and we did not have enough money to feed the children we had enough money to give tax cuts. We have seen deals done around films. We have seen deals done around convention centres. We have seen appointments made that are not transparent and where there is a certain level of cronyism. That is what we dislike and that is why we will speak out against it.You know I saw this Budget very much as a political point-scoring and posturing one because there were a lot of feel-good factors and I think John Armstrong got that right today when he talked about the response to the report of the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. He said there were feel-good factors in it but in fact what you really got out of it was a disgrace—just enough money to get a headline but not enough money to make a difference. I say that you can fool the people some of the time but not for long.So when the sugar hit from the flurry of press releases and the TV coverage and the extended interviews are all over eventually it turns to the headache you get when you start to unpick what the Budget actually means. I do not think you could get a better example than the response to the expert committee on child poverty. You see the day that the Government responded to that expert committee’s report with its 78 recommendations was the day that the Government put out its response to the call for food in schools. Why? It was deliberate. It was to bury its response to the expert working party report on child poverty—work that had gone on for months and months with very good and detailed recommendations. The Government put out its policy and it gave it a little bit of money that does not go quite far enough or make a difference but does manage to cover up its pathetic response to the expert committee.Well I have to say that a lack of acknowledgment and concern and policy development to address disparities in New Zealand does not exist just in social development; it is a major problem in the provision of health services in New Zealand. I found it staggering at a meeting I was at last week with health professionals when they told me that the Minister of Health Tony Ryall had told them that if they raised the question of disparities again he would not meet with them. They had to stop talking about disparities. That was told to me by highly competent and trustworthy health professionals. He would not meet with them—Hon Tau Henare: What’s his name?Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh privacy matters. Privacy matters of course. We cannot release names. We would never be able to give names Tau Henare. I am following the example of the Minister of Justice—it is a privacy issue. But what I can tell you is that Itrust them and I trust them when they say that Tony Ryall said that if they did not stop speaking about disparities in health he would not meet with them.You know the Government was warned about health disparities. This will be of interest to Mr Henare because the Auditor-General just very very recently warned that we needed to address the disparities in health for Māori for Pacific Islanders and for Asian New Zealanders. The Auditor-General said this: “We consider it vital these disparities be addressed with the goal of eventually eliminating them.” That is a very very recent comment from the Auditor-General. I will repeat it: “We consider it vital these disparities be addressed with the goal of eventually eliminating them.” Well the only thing that has been eliminated is any mention of disparities in the health sector. Tony Ryall removed all mention of disparities out of documents even though there is a statutory requirement to report on disparities in New Zealand. The Auditor-General in this very same very recent report pointed out that there is a lack of any targets to reduce disparities in health.So here we have a Minister who likes to set targets. He loves targets that you can tick: “Tick I have done this; tick I have done so many of those; tick I have reduced this time on that.” But he will not set a target to reduce the disparities for New Zealanders the poorest and the sickest New Zealanders because he does not believe there are disparities. Well I think that that is a very poor approach to improving the health of New Zealanders.You see this Budget was all about getting a headline—all about posturing and posing. The Minister of Health announced there was $1.6 billion extra in health over 4 years. What he did not say was that the $352 million a year going to Vote Health is $200 million short just to stand still—$200 million short just to stand still. District health boards got $70 million less than in the last Budget—$70 million less. That does not take account of the need of the growth or of the cost of providing health care. He then claimed that $191 million was coming from reprioritisation and savings.Well it is very interesting when you read the Budget documents. We have not got the savings yet. We have not got the reprioritisation yet. But he has banked the money and he added it on to give himself the $1.6 billion that will be spent in health. So I asked the question: where is this reprioritisation coming from where are the savings to be made? I got his one-line answer back: no answer at all. He will not say where the savings will come from. He will not say which areas which district health board how much what will be cut or what will not be carried out—no answer at all. It is a case of just bank the money and say you are going to get it but there is no plan as to how it is going to be achieved.You know the Auditor-General warned this House 3 years ago at Budget 2010-11 that we faced serious challenges and expectations that there would be financial pressure on health services and that it would worsen. Three years ago that was told to this House by the Auditor-General. The Government said that it intended to keep restraining funding of expenditure over the next 3 years or more. Much of the increase the health services received the Auditor-General said would merely keep pace with demographics and cost changes. That was 3 years ago. I have to say that the situation has now reached code red in many district health boards. So something is going to give. There are going to be cuts in services and more user-pays services pushed into the community with the community having to pay for them or there will be growing deficits.So I say to members opposite: look under the heading Health Services Funding in Vote Health and there you have tucked away $90 million to pay for the rising deficits. That is what it is for. So when the Minister tells you members opposite that everything is going fine in health you will see in your district health boards around New Zealand this year a blowout in funding and deficits growing and he has put $90 million aside tohelp pay for it. I do not know whether that will be enough but health is under huge pressure.Right now district health boards are writing their district annual plans. They have to provide the Minister with a break-even budget but they have told me they do not know how they are going to achieve that. All they can do is write and say they are going to do it but they have no idea how they are going to be able to achieve it.And one last thing: the Minister makes wonderful announcements about what he is doing for women and children in maternal health which I applaud. He makes announcements on what he is going to do for children under 5 but then you find the very place that he cut funding in this Budget was in maternity care. He cut $12 million out of maternity care over 4 years by reducing the amount that is paid to the lead maternity carer. He has cut $3 million each year for 4 years out of the lead maternity carer. Who is going to provide the maternity care for our babies? So he gives with one hand and he takes with the other. I find this Minister to not be straightforward in terms of what is happening in health and it is my job to ensure that people know what is really going on.