Hutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12081. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (Chairperson of the Health Committee):The estimates for 2013 show a record budget of $14.1 billion going into health. This is a remarkable feat—$14.1 billion—following the global crisis 4 years ago. It is extraordinarily rich to hear from Mrs King who doubled the health budget and yet saw nothing more come out after 9 long years. There was decreased productivity and there were huge huge waiting lists. In fact I remember very clearly back in 1998 when she accused Bill English of being criminal because the waiting lists were about 10000. Well 4 to 5 years later they were 40000 to 50000 and she was busily culling them 10000 to 20000 at a time. It is very very rich for Mrs King to get excited and start shroud waving the way she did just a few minutes ago.Annette King feels absolutely upset that under the National Government the health targets are going so well. Only 4 to 5 years ago the immunisation completion rate for 2-year-olds was about 67 percent. Now it is 93 percent. The Health Committee heard at the end of last year from the Bay of Plenty District Health Board about a little town called Te Kaha where it said 100 percent of women had their cervical screening 100 percent of children aged 2 completed their immunisation and 100 percent of women had their breast screening. That is a phenomenal achievement in a low socio-economic rural largely Māori area of New Zealand. It is something to be celebrated. It is something to be celebrated under an incredibly progressive National Government.I also remember—again under Labour when Mrs King was in power—many women being sent to Australia to have radiotherapy for cancer and the huge dislocation from their homes and from their families. Today 100 percent of women who have radiotherapy do so within 4 weeks. That is absolutely world’s best practice gold standard treatment and it is happening under a National Government. That is how well the targets are doing under this Government. That is why Mrs King is so so embarrassed by the fact that her legacy was so poor during those 9 long years.Mrs King wants to drag up all sorts of things. She goes shroud waving at the first moment she possibly can. Health is a huge and complex sector and overall under National it has done superbly well. One just has to look at waiting times at accident andemergency units throughout the country. Five years ago about 63 percent of people got through without having to wait 6 hours. Today it is something like 93 percent and it is getting better and better as we speak.The programme to help people quit smoking has been a huge phenomenal success. They were not even recording the number of people who were given advice in New Zealand hospitals as to how to quit smoking 4 to 5 years ago. Today we are getting up to 95 percent being given advice in hospitals on quitting smoking and the target has been re-set so that advice on quitting smoking is also being given out in the community.The estimates for 2013 under this National Government recognise very much that if health spending went on the way it had been going under Labour it would be utterly unsustainable. We certainly have made sure that productivity has gone up. We have certainly made sure that we have put in the mechanisms and tools to ensure that every health dollar is spent well. I think that the record under National is like nothing we have ever seen before in the health sector and we can be very proud of it.