Tremain Chris: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
Tremain Chris: Urgent Debates — Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Appointment of Commissioner 
[Volume:645;Page:14545] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 On Friday— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Just before I ask the member to start I advise the House that this is a split call. Both members will have 5 minutes each and I will ring the bell with 1 minute remaining. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: On Friday Craig Foss and I held a public meeting at the Taradale Town Hall in relation to the decision made by the Minister of Health to sack the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. We had over 300 people attend that meeting. The meeting room was stacked with people from all parts of society from all walks of life. Pensioners workers even former Labour MPs were at the meeting. There were health professionals at the meeting and I have to tell the Minister that his concerns over the sustainability and safety of the Hawke’s Bay health system were eradicated when nurses stood up and told us that regardless of what was going on in the upper echelons—at the board and ministerial level—the safety of the Hawke’s Bay health system was just fine thank you. They said they were doing everything they could to make sure that even better health care than normal was delivered. 
These people felt that their democratic rights had been thrown out of the window—just thrown to the wind. They unanimously moved a motion in support of the unprecedented position that the local councils have taken in moving that a judicial review be undertaken. People outside of Hawke’s Bay have said that the councils do not have a mandate to do that. It was clear from the multitude of people who were at that meeting that the councils certainly do have a mandate. Those people wanted transparency in what is being done by this Government. They wanted all of the information to be on the table. Why? Because the people of Hawke’s Bay are unconvinced by the reasons the Minister has given for his sacking their democratically elected board. 
Regardless of who is right or wrong I do not believe that the Minister should have sacked elected board members in favour of appointed people. The Minister has taken a position. He had alternatives. There was a local body election in October of last year. The conflict of interest review was already in the public domain; it had been well canvassed in the media—the whistleblower issue was already in the media. Despite that the people of Hawke’s Bay elected a new board. They went to the polls and elected a new board—including people like Helen Francis who had never been on the board before. They elected Kevin Atkinson who on two separate occasions had been appointed by the Government and had done a good job for it. He was elected again with a huge majority—above that of anyone else. 
The Minister says that one of the key reasons the board was sacked was financial issues. I will refer quickly to a letter from the office of the Hon Pete Hodgson in July of that year just before the elections in which he stated: “I am pleased to note that the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board has maintained the status of standard monitoring on the monitoring and intervention framework.” I ask members to listen to this one: “This is a reflection of your ongoing positive performance and is rewarded by the benefit of receiving early payment.” The board had a history of longstanding financial success but the Minister sacked that publicly elected board. 
On 10 December of last year the Minister said that he would not appoint a chair a deputy or Maori representatives. I talked to the Minister at that stage and said: “Why don’t you appoint the chair and allow governance to take place? If the review turns up negative findings that put the blowtorch on the board then sack it then.” At that point in time the Minister did not allow governance to take place. In the first instance he would not appoint those members because of the lack of a review but as we got closer to the sacking all these spurious reasons came out. 
The first reason was a breakdown in the relationship between the board and clinicians. Well that turned out to be a total red herring. Two gentlemen—just two—publicly came out against the board one of whom has now left the area. That is the first reason. The Minister stood up and told the whole of New Zealand that there was a dysfunctional relationship between the board and clinicians. Well that was patently incorrect. It was a red herring. He was casting aspersions that were purely wrong. It is no wonder Hawke’s Bay people believe that their democratic process has been thrown to the wind.