Tirikatene Rino: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10942. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Chair. I am very pleased to make a contribution in the Committee stage of this bill the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill. The Southern District Health Board is one of seven district health boards that I have in my electorate but it is a favourite of mine because it actually does a very good job despite the troubles that beset it at the moment through the appointment of the commissioners.I would just like to pick up on my colleague Poto Williams’ comments. Yes there are concerns from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu at being denied by the Minister’s appointments to have Māori representation on a normally constituted board. Those concerns are very valid but in the face of all of the change that has engulfed the Southern District Health Board I am very pleased—and I have met with the individuals concerned—that there is a very strong Māori health directorate in the Southern District Health Board. It is well led by Pania Coote a local from down there in Bluff. It does a very good job because in spite of all the difficulties it has still managed to have iwi governance andthe management advisory groups and has been able to put comprehensive Māori health plans together for the southern region.I do commend the Māori health directorate for the work that it is doing in such challenging and difficult times within the Southern District Health Board. We are talking about a geographically massive health board district. It is a very large size. People have said it is the size of Belgium; that is a reasonably sized European country. You could throw in a few more countries for the South Island. It is a very large and diverse area. Those are the issues I believe in terms of the funding model.What we are doing with this legislation—seven elected and four appointed board members have been replaced by three commissioners. Hopefully the financial expertise that they will bring to bear will surpass the collective normally constituted board that was governing the Southern District Health Board. We have these three commissioners and they have to try to rectify and steady the ship. They have to try to close the gap on the shortfalls of funding. But again we are dealing with a very diverse area. It is very hard to get senior doctors all the way down in Invercargill and Southland. Trying to attract senior doctors is hard and it costs money. Those are the challenges that the Southern District Health Board faces.Just yesterday I learnt that if you require a physio from the Invercargill hospital there is no physiotherapist down there. You would have to wait a year for some physiotherapy attention down in Invercargill—maybe not that long but it is certainly long because there is no physiotherapist actually employed down in the Invercargill hospital. This was at the health summit convened by the Hon Annette King. There was actually a very enlightening and very wise group of health sector heads there. Yes they were very concerned—very concerned.But returning to the bill it is very important that we get—we want to get the fully elected district health board back in place. This bill sets 2019 as the year of the automatic transition back to the elected district health board. Let us hope that happens because as we have seen with the example of Environment Canterbury’s appointment of commissioners these time frames are not necessarily fixed. Who knows? We may be back in this Chamber in a few years’ time extending this time out further if the job is not done. I just certainly hope that the commissioners who are appointed are getting on with their job and that they will be able to.Mr Bridges mentioned that this is an exercise in recalibration for the district health board. I would venture to say that we need more than recalibration; we need a resurgence of funding to go into the Southern District Health Board to make sure that it is actually able to do its job more effectively so that we can all—[Bell rung] I just want to carry on just a little bit further. I do want to make sure that there is a resurgence of some fair funding taking into account the geographical size and the large population of the 300000-plus Kiwis in that southern district—all of those factors to make sure that we do get back to a top-performing Southern District Health Board.Those are just the main remarks I wanted to make. I do want to give another shout-out to the Māori directorate within the Southern District Health Board which is doing an excellent job in improving the health outcomes for Māori across that district. Kia ora tātou.