Walker HamishHAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I want to talk about the handling of the Lumsden Maternity Centre which has been an unsafe life-threatening unethical and failed social experiment on Southland mums and babies which this Government is not prepared to own or fix. There has simply been no accountability no solution for the mums and babies of Southland. I just want to outline the series of events and this time line demonstrates the level of incompetence by those who are supposed to be responsible for delivering safe healthcare across Southland.In early March 2018 the Lumsden Maternity Centre directors were informed about the closure of their much loved maternity centre. Now this maternity centre covers an area the same size as Tasman or 1.25 times larger than the size of Taranaki. The closure of this maternity unit puts lives at risk. You only need to look across the Ditch at Queensland when they closed 40 rural maternity unit seven years ago. The Minister this year has reopened them because the infant death rate has increased from six per 1000 infants to 23 per 1000. That's because mothers and babies are dying especially babies while trying to get to a maternity birthing unit.In mid-April this year the maternity centre was closed. Now the much promised maternity hubs were supposed to have critical lifesaving equipment. They simply didn't. In late May I wrote to the Minister of Health outlining my grave concerns saying the community was being left in limbo that should a baby be born on the side of the road or even the unimaginable happen it would be blood on the Government's hands. That's because basic infrastructure basic lifesaving equipment was missing. Only a few weeks later what do you know a baby was born on the side of the road and the response from the Government the following week: We are satisfied with the level of maternity services in Southland and mothers need to plan their births better." Well the so-called Wellbeing Government is satisfied that mums in Southland are giving birth in degrading unsafe life-threatening circumstances.There have been several other births since then. One of those was a mother travelling from Queenstown to Invercargill. Her midwife had to break into Lumsden as the district health board hadn't given her instructions on how to get in there. Another mother was forced to be driven at 120 to 130 kph to the closest primary birthing unit because basic drugs were not available. A father had to break the law for the pure survival of his unborn child and the mother of the child's life. It was minus two degrees and when they got to the primary birthing centre that mother was on all fours in the back seat. Not only has this Government disregarded the safety of rural mothers and babies I just want to talk about the social experiment and especially the unethical behaviour conducting this social experiment. The Government's own list MP Liz Craig two days after the closure emailed one of her constituent's concerns that "Despite the DHB announcing that the Lumsden child and maternal hub is operational unfortunately it's not." It goes on to say "The medical centre have phoned me and told me that the hub does not exist here yet. Nothing has been signed. There's no access arrangements for any of the midwives. And how are they supposed to access the hub when there is an emergency?" Now what's really interesting is that during my petition to the Health Committee to reinstate services the DHB fronted up and said they knew nothing about these concerns. According to them it was all operational. Now if it was operational why is the Government's own list MP emailing in these concerns? The Health Minister doesn't even listen to his own list MP's concerns. What on earth is the point of him not even listening to that? Now what's even worse—the select committee we got to my petition. There were eight people on the select committee: four National three Labour one New Zealand First. Now all National MPs voted for an independent investigation. What did the Government MPs do especially two list MPs from down that way—Liz Craig and Mark Patterson? They voted against it. Now if they had the interests of the people at heart they would have voted for an independent investigation and for services at Lumsden to be reinstated. Now they voted against that. What on earth is the point of being here when you vote against a petition that's going to hold a DHB to account and you're basically voting against your own people?National backs rural New Zealand. That's why we've announced if we get back into Government next year if re-elected we will reinstate full services at Lumsden Maternity Centre because we're not going to put the lives of rural Southland mothers at risk for the sake of a few hundred thousand dollars. We will reinstate Lumsden Maternity Centre because we value the lives and put the safety of rural mothers and babies at top of mind."