Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): E Te Tiamana tēnā koe huri noa i Te Whare Pāremata nei ngā mihi ki ngā mema katoa.[Thank you Mr Chairman; I acknowledge you all members throughout Parliament.]It is a pleasure to take a call tonight. You heard the chair of the Health Committee take a call before and he talked about how he and I had been at a seminar around the science of happiness. I am really happy to take a call because it is great to be up here and know that this is actually a record Budget spend for health in New Zealand—$16.1 billion has been estimated for 2016-17. That is great—that is $568 million up. That is showing progress and that is making us very happy. We have talked a lot about bowel screening tonight. You know once implemented a national bowel screening programme is expected to screen over 700000 people every 2 years. We know that bowel screening saves lives by detecting cancers at an early age. The danger age is often between ages 60 to 74. More than 80 percent of cancers that were picked up in the pilot were picked up between those aged between 60 and 74 so the sooner we can get on and the sooner we get the screening done—we would have all lost good friends with bowel cancer in the past so I think it is important that we get on with it. I think the other thing that is really important—you heard Minister Lotu-Iiga talking before about vulnerable groups. The $12 million that is being put into increased support for social services and primary care for people with mental health I think is fantastic. I was also at our own Feildays recently at Mystery Creek where we had Ministers Guy and Coleman announce another $600000 towards mental health. I talked before about the science of happiness—it is about that comfort; it is about that collective thing. We talk about money but I have never seen communities look after each other like they have in this dairy downturn. So I am really pleased to see this extra money going into mental health. It is needed and what I am finding is that actually the stigma is lifting. People are looking after themselves. There was testament to that when I was in Hāwera in August last year and we had 480 people turn up to see John Kirwan—and you never get farmers out in August when it is cold and the cows are calving. So it is fantastic to see that extra money going into mental health. Supporting other vulnerable people is also really important to me. Every year over 3000 families in high-incidence rheumatic fever areas benefit from the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative. We also heard Minister Lotu-Iiga talking about that before. This is actually providing families with insulation curtains heating beds maintenance ventilation advice and mould removal. It is actually looking after our vulnerable people—which is extremely important—and saving them from getting rheumatic fever which can have a large effect on the rest of their lives. I also want to mention Pharmac during my call. Pharmac has got a wonderful model of working out which medicines to fund. It is great to see in the next 12 months that $39 million is going in to provide extra drugs. You know there is that whole thing about Keytruda and Opdivo—I have got a friend who is actually still alive now due to those drugs who could well have passed away by now. It is a real achievement that that extra money is going into Pharmac so that it is able to fund those drugs that it could not fund before. Pharmac does a wonderful job of getting the best that it possibly can for our people. Last year over 70000 New Zealanders benefited from 41 new and wider-access medicines—so that is just fantastic to see Pharmac being able to do that. So look I am very proud to be standing here taking a call. We are doing extremely well and we are starting to get some progress going on in health. We are starting to get primary health care closer to home. More funding has been going into the mobile buses—and I see those operating in my electorate and in rural parts of New Zealand—so that people do not have to make the effort to take the trip to the big hospital. We can have smaller versions of the health service actually come to them—very effective. Thank you.