van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I'd like to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 153 that the ACT Party is putting up. This SOP is fundamentally why we oppose this health reform. In this SOP we are asking for the Government to remove the Māori Health Authority. Now we believe that behind this health reform there are no better outcomes. All that this health reform is is an exercise in co-governance rather than in healthcare. We think that we need to get back to basics and understand what our healthcare is supposed to deliver. Will this legislation actually lead to better treatments faster for more patients or will it simply deliver a co-governed system that will divide New Zealanders based on their race rather than on their health needs? That goes far—too far—away from the understanding that all New Zealanders have equal rights under the law and that's what the ACT Party proposes: that we consider healthcare as part of healthcare rather than co-governance and race-based healthcare. We put forward a minority view during the select committee because we don't believe that restructuring the healthcare sector and saying that we need to remove the district health boards because we're trying to get rid of a postcode lottery and putting in place one Health New Zealand will make it better. But then having the Government acknowledge that no they don't want just one healthcare system it would be better if there are two—two healthcare systems Health New Zealand plus the Māori Health Authority and to make it even more complicated Why don't we put in place locality structures that are put in place by iwi-Māori partnership boards?"—the Government still can't answer the question of how many iwi-Māori partnership boards there will be how many localities there'll be—he says up to 80—and how they'll be structured. They've been given up to two years to create localities and then another year for a locality plan. Then on top of all of that you've got the iwi-Māori partnership boards who are unelected people who are self-selecting who go to the Māori Health Authority and say "We'd like to be in charge of this entire area." They then have to work with Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority to create locality plans for all of New Zealand. Now tell me: how is that any less bureaucratic than the system that we currently have? You know I've spoken to many many healthcare providers and patient groups. Nobody can tell me how this new system will work and they believe it will actually make their lives worse off because not only do we not know who the iwi-Māori partnership boards currently are—and we still might not in two years—but we don't know who the Māori Health Authority is going to be we don't really know how we're going to work with Health New Zealand we don't know how the iwi-Māori partnership boards and the Māori Health Authority will work together and if in any case something terrible happens all of a sudden the Minister of Health has to get involved and arbitrate between all of these groups who have to decide on a healthcare plan. I think it is going too far away from looking at the basics of health needs of New Zealanders and putting patients first at the heart of our healthcare sector. All we've done is created a bureaucratic mess in an exercise of co-governance and it has to go. The ACT Party asks the Minister of Health to remove the Māori Health Authority make our system less bureaucratic put patients back at the centre of our healthcare system and actually ask the simple questions of what health outcomes we will see from this health reform. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an exercise in co-governance and not in any better health outcomes for New Zealand. It has to go. Thank you Mr Chair."