Kanongata'a-Suisuiki AnahilaANAHILA KANONGATA'A-SUISUIKI (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It's a privilege to stand and take a call on this very important subject health. My kōrero today is going to be based on leadership. Because Tongan is my first language I want to define what leadership means to me. The chair of the Tongan Language Committee translates leadership into the Tongan language as Tauhi Kakai.When you flip that into English it says it's about caring for people—so how you conduct the caring is how you lead. So for me I want to acknowledge the leadership of all the district health boards (DHBs) that have come before the Health Committee. I want to highlight one thing that I liked in what they shared and bring my concerns about the leadership of the last nine years.I want to acknowledge the DHBs that reported to the Health Committee. The highest ranked target they reported on was the immunisation of the under-twos. Most DHBs actually were over 90 percent in achieving that immunisation. What concerned me in terms of the workforce was they then reported But we had to achieve year-on savings which are significant." The thing that worried me was that the majority of the DHBs had reported that their people were overworked. DHBs were overworked and they had to rely on the goodwill of people. They had to rely on the goodwill of their staff to continue working within their own DHB. I want to note that somebody had said before that the past Government of the last nine years had given this Government the best set of books. I want to question that leadership in terms of what we have found out in Counties Manukau. The reports from the Auckland DHBs Counties Manukau DHB and Waitematā DHB talked about avoidable hospitalisations and they also talked about unprecedented demand which the Health Committee chair Louisa Wall has highlighted also. Unprecedented demands on services of course had led to overworked staff in terms of the workforce.I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister of Health the Hon David Clark because he has realised we are going to go into what we now know are unprecedented costs of neglect by the leadership of the last Government. We've found out that in Middlemore Hospital—the ordinary New Zealander listening to this would hear many millions and billions of figures being thrown in the air. To the ordinary New Zealander what does that million look like?Well what it means is that we found out in Counties Manukau at Middlemore Hospital that seven buildings require maintenance. It didn't just happen overnight. If you look at a boil—my analogy of this is like having a boil. You know when you have a boil it sort of comes to the burst and it doesn't happen overnight. It comes to the burst because there was no attention; it was neglected. Luckily this Government came along and we talked about having an inquiry for mental health. We talked about an inquiry because the leadership of this Government is about listening to the voice of experience. And the voice of experience is actually about listening before you make a decision. Before you can say that we've had the best set of books I want to question the leadership of the last nine years. Is Middlemore Hospital the best set of books you've left? Is Middlemore Hospital which consists of the most socially deprived of our population—did you leave them with the best set of books? Well—[Interruption] I'm sorry to bring you into that Mr Chair. Did the last Government? I say to you no. The last Government didn't do that. Luckily enough the boil has burst in time where this Government is taking the leadership by caring for people. Leadership is about caring for people. It is not about caring for the books. That's me for today."