Coleman JonathanHon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Well I mean all we really got out of that speech was just one long unrelenting personal attack but I do have to take issue with Mr Clark there and what he is saying there about $1.7 billion being removed from the health system. That is just factually incorrect. Basically health funding has gone up from about $12 billion to about $16 billion per year. That is a fact and Mr Clark knows it. So the funding has gone up. Mr Clark needs to have a greater argument in the healthcare space than just more money.Yes the money has gone up but it is actually about providing more services and there is no question that under this Government access to services has gone up right across the board. Only today we announced that there are 6900 more doctors and nurses in the system than there were 8 years ago—6900. That is a huge increase. There has been a 45 percent increase in the number of senior doctors working in the New Zealand health system compared with 8 years ago. So that clearly is more resources and more services being delivered across the board.If you talk about funding the member talked there about his own district health board (DHB) the Southern District Health Board and said that funding had been cut. Well actually last year funding went up by $32 million. It has gone up in the Southern DHB by $194 million over the last 8 years. But what is really interesting if you look at funding per head of population—so every New Zealander is having 21 percent more spent on them per head of population than 8 years ago. Inflation cumulatively over that period would be about 15 percent. So in actual fact in real terms health funding has gone up.Mr Clark talked a little bit about mental health there and you know what we have acknowledged quite clearly is that 96000 people were seeking access to specialist services 8 years ago; this last year it was 168000. So that is an extra 72000 more per year. That is a lot of people. Funding has gone up in mental health. It has gone up by $300 million per year from $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion. This is the interesting point actually—there are more mental health nurses working in the system than ever before. If you look at where nursing graduates are going more of them are going into mental health than anything else. So Mr Clark can launch personal attacks—Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Minister insists on using my false title and I might like to refer to him as His Royal Highness but I resist.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am prepared to rule on it now. The member did himself make that error once. The Minister in the chair has now made the error seven times. I am asking both of you to learn.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well I think the basic point is well made—that this man has no background in healthcare and does not know what he is talking about. The one bit of advice I would give Mr Clark is to go and spend some time with Mrs King. She was an excellent health spokesperson. We had a very good rapport. Question time was entertaining. She actually had health at the top of the question list every day. You always knew—Tuesday Wednesday Thursday you would come down and health would be question 1 or 2. Where is it now? It is question 12 on a Thursday and I think that really shows actually what Mr Little thinks of Dr" Clark.Anyway when we look at other areas—so look it is quite clear that the levels of appointments have gone up across the board quite massively from about 400000 specialist appointments per year to 550000. The numbers of elective surgeries have gone up per year from 120000 to 180000 and I think Labour should very careful when it bases its argument just around funding because last time it was in Government it increased the funding quite dramatically but managed to deliver fewer operations each year. So it doubled the funding and 2000 fewer operations were being performed per year. My colleague Barbara Kuriger the excellent member for Taranaki—King Country was talking about free GP visits. That has been a major achievement under this Government. So free under-13s—99 percent of practices across the country are offering free under-13 visits.Of course what really irritates the Labour Party is that it is a National Government that has delivered the $2 billion pay equity settlement to the hardest-working lowest-paid people in New Zealand the New Zealand care and support workers. I can tell you I was in a rest home in my local electorate Anne Maree Court the other day. You know what? Those workers on the minimum wage—20000 of whom are going to receive a pay rise between 21 and 49 percent—were singing and dancing. I can tell you what if Labour wants to get in the game on health it had better come up with some policy pretty soon because we have got a great record there of increasing services of extra delivery of an extra $4 billion per year. Carmel Sepuloni: No one believes that Minister.Dr David Clark: No one believes you.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I do not care if Labour members do not believe me because the public of New Zealand do and that is who really counts."