Robertson Grant: Crown Entities Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Crown Entities Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 October 2011. Volume:676;Page:21655. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It was interesting to hear the Minister of Civil Defence say that the principles that would underlie a good Public Service policy would be around developing high-quality services that were modern and responsive. I found myself saying: “Exactly!”. That is exactly what we need. We need a plan around the delivery of 21st century public services that are responsive to people and that are developed in consultation with those who receive the services and with the Public Service. But that is not what is in the Crown Entities Reform Bill which is before us today. What is in the bill before us today is more shuffling around of agencies in the public sector in some kind of vain hope that this represents a plan to deliver better public services to New Zealand. 
The sad fact is that the Minister now and the bill we have before us today have not made the case for why these changes need to go through. From Labour’s point of view we cannot support this bill because we do not believe that the Government has made the case for why these changes need to be made. It certainly has not made the case for how this bill will deliver better public services to New Zealanders. We all want more effective more efficient and more responsive public services. But the approach the National Government has taken since it got into office has been simply to cut. The Prime Minister when he came in actually said the Government would cap but not cut the public services. He said it would cap but not cut. Instead he has gone back on his word. Here we are—2000 people have lost their jobs and public services have not got better. 
What we see from this Government rather than a plan to actually improve public services is just a series of indiscriminate cuts. I would welcome a plan that said how the Government was going to deliver more effective public services. But that is not what we have seen from the Government. What we have seen from the Government is cuts: “We will cut.” 
This Government said it does not need policy advice. Bill English told us that he could run Government by Google. He does not need policy advice; he will just get advice off the internet. That is what Bill English told us. That will not deliver good quality public services to New Zealand. It will simply deliver fewer public servants fewer programmes and fewer services. The Minister tells us when he stands up that this is about the new Public Service of the 21st century. Well it is not; it is the shuffling of agencies while the Government goes on with its indiscriminate cuts to public services. 
Let us look at a couple of examples in the bill. The first is around the creation of the so-called Health Promotion Agency. At a time when the country and the House are debating one of the greatest public health crises of our time the abuse of alcohol this Government comes to the House with a plan to get rid of the one agency in Government that is actually focused solely on alcohol issues. It is an unbelievable proposition that for this Government which claims to be concerned about the harm that alcohol is causing in our communities its big plan for the public sector is to get rid of the one agency that is actually focused on alcohol. But again the case is not made by the Government as to why this is the right thing to do. 
We see also that the public health responsibilities of the Ministry of Health will now be folded into this Health Promotion Agency. I can tell members that there are not many people left in the Ministry of Health working on public health measures because this Government has systematically cut funding from public health: $124 million— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How much? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —$124 million was taken out of the public health budget by this Government. The Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programme is basically gone and the Government has no plan to ensure that we keep New Zealanders healthy. That is what public health is about. It is actually about the Government supporting New Zealanders to keep New Zealanders healthy. But public health has basically gone from the ministry and it will now all disappear into an agency that will have mixed priorities and will not necessarily be able to give the focus to these issues that New Zealanders want. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Delusional. 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: He’s talking to himself. Don’t worry about it. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I challenge the members on the other side who are interjecting: is alcohol abuse a problem in New Zealand? Is it something the Government should be working on? If the answer to those two questions is yes why is this Government proposing to get rid of the one agency that is actually focused on that work? When it comes to the new Health Promotion Agency Labour is yet to be convinced that that idea will actually deliver good quality public services to New Zealanders. Certainly it will mean that the one agency focused on dealing with alcohol problems in New Zealand goes out of existence. 
I turn for the remainder of my speech to the proposal to disestablish the Mental Health Commission. The Mental Health Commission was due to end its work in 2015. If we were standing here today saying that the good news is that everything is done the mental health blueprint has been fully implemented and mental health policy and systems are going well then maybe we could agree to the commission being ended in 2012. But the truth is that under this Government focus on mental health has declined. There is no longer any kind of nationwide priority or target for mental health. 
District health boards have responded to the Government’s lack of interest in mental health by shifting resources away from mental health. Here in the Capital and Coast District Health Board region in Wellington most of the agencies that deliver mental health services in the Wellington and Kapiti communities have had their funding cut. Wellink the organisation that provides supported housing for mental health consumers has had its budget cut by one-third. It has had to close one supported housing facility on the Kapiti coast and is looking at closing another one in Wellington City. 
Mental health is simply not a priority for this Government and closing the Mental Health Commission 3 years early simply signals that mental health is the poor cousin of the health system under this Government. That is wrong because mental health issues in New Zealand are becoming more and more important by the day. 
If we needed an example of the lack of attention given to mental health we saw it in the House today from Associate Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman. He decided to avoid answering questions in the House about a serious assault on a family in Auckland by a person released from the acute mental health unit of the Auckland District Health Board. He hid behind parliamentary procedure and said that the question of whether he received an email from a member of this family was a matter before the court. Well I can assure the House that Mr Coleman’s receiving of the email is not the matter that is before the court. Mr Coleman received that email last Monday and it told him that this woman and her husband had nearly been killed by a patient who had been released from Te Whetu Tawera the Auckland District Health Board’s acute mental health unit. 
The Minister stood up in the House the next day to say there had been a marked improvement in the way patients were being managed at that unit. The Minister stood up and said that the day after he had received that email from a woman who said she had nearly been killed. The truth is that the Auckland District Health Board mental health unit is in crisis. The number of beds has been reduced from 58 to 52 because staff do not feel safe in that unit. This woman and her family have raised concerns and the Minister has refused to answer them. I think that is disgraceful. 
It goes back to the fact that mental health is not a priority issue for this Government. The changes being made in this legislation to end the activities of the Mental Health Commission are a sign of that. I want Minister Coleman to take some responsibility and explain to the people of New Zealand and the people of Auckland how he will ensure that patient safety family safety and community safety will be assured with the reduction of acute mental health beds and whether community mental health services in Auckland will get additional resources to deal with the patients who are now being released from the unit because there are not beds for them there. There need to be some answers from Minister Coleman; he cannot hide behind parliamentary procedure. 
Labour will not be supporting the first reading of the Crown Entities Reform Bill. We do not believe that the case has been made for these changes. We certainly do not believe that these changes will lead to more effective more efficient public services. They will certainly not turbocharge the economy. These changes are a shuffling around of agencies. They will not deliver better outcomes for New Zealanders and therefore should not go through.