Pettis Jill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Pettis Jill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17652] 
JILL PETTIS (Labour) 
: 
 One of the things we have to be really careful of in the health sector—and most of us who have worked in the sector are aware of this—is not to exploit the vulnerability of a group of people who think they will get everything they want delivered to them. That member over there Jackie Blue who has worked in the health sector and in the area of women’s health knows that National cannot deliver the tax cuts it is promising to New Zealand and deliver 12 months’ supply of Herceptin. I do not believe that at all—not for one single minute. National is not telling the women of New Zealand the truth and I think that is despicable. National is telling them tattle and telling them that repeatedly. I despise it when vulnerable women are exploited for political purposes. I say to those 5-minute Tories over there—most of whom were not here in the 1990s when the health sector was decimated by National—that they should give us a policy. I ask them to give us a policy—just one. There is none—absolutely no response at all. 
I can tell the people of New Zealand who care about health issues—and a large number of New Zealanders do care about health issues—that under National the cash registers will be back in the hospitals again. There will be an increase in private insurance take-up—as there was when National was last in power because people were fearful of never getting their treatment. They were fearful they would never see it so the health insurance take-up rate increased. Health insurance rates will increase again. National members’ mates in the insurance industry know that; they are rubbing their hands with glee knowing that their profits will increase. 
Under Labour health spending has increased to $13 billion and we are delivering more services than National did. There are lower doctors’ fees—it costs $22 less than it did previously for most families to see a doctor now—and prescriptions are down to $3. We remember what it was like in the 1990s when people left prescriptions sitting on the chemists’ shelves because they could not afford to pick them up. There have been 5000 more elective surgery discharges this year alone and those of us who actually run constituency clinics—those of us in Labour who actually see people—know that. We do not have to write letters to the hospitals asking when Mr Brown or Mrs Smith is to receive his or her surgery. People know when they will receive their surgery because the waiting lists are not a sham like they used to be under the former National Government where people were just dumped on to waiting lists. People now know once they are on the waiting list when they will have their operation. National hid people on waiting lists; it gave them the panacea of being on a waiting list saying “You’re going to get your operation Mrs Brown.” Then Mrs Brown lived in totally false hope because she did not understand that she was being manipulated and used by the former National Government. 
As for cancer treatment I remember—I am not a 5-minute MP like those 5-minute Tories over there are—that the former National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley ignored the advice of the cancer health specialists the non-politicians about the dramatic capital expenditure that was required on linear accelerators in order to treat the increasing number of people who required treatment against cancer. Jenny Shipley and the National Government of that time in which Nick Smith was a Cabinet Minister ignored that advice. When we came into Government we found that massive capital expenditure on linear accelerators and on getting cancer treatment equipment into our key hospitals was required. The National members did nothing. They played politics. They played Russian roulette with the most vulnerable people in New Zealand. 
We know what it is like to have friends and family members die from cancer. We know what that is like and we know how vulnerable our nieces nephews and sister-in-law were when they lost their father and partner at the age of 41. We know what that is like. We do not play politics with vulnerable groups of New Zealanders and I say the National members should not do that either. 
Vote agreed to.