Coleman Jonathan: General Debate 
Coleman Jonathan: General Debate 
[Volume:645;Page:14624] 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 We have just heard from the happiest man in the New Zealand Labour Party because the worse the polls get the happier Phil Goff is. He knows that even people in his own caucus and the left wing press are now saying that the only hope for that failed mob is if Phil Goff takes over before the election. Members in that caucus are very torn because there are the Clark loyalists and there is the right wing of the Labour Party coming back and when it is getting to the stage where Phil Goff could take over we really know that the ship is sinking. I tell the House that we will see many fewer Labour members come the election and a lot of them are going to leave well beforehand. If that lot cannot fix it after 9 years I tell members now that they never will. They are losing the battle and we saw that today. 
The classic line in politics is that explaining is losing. In oral question No. 10 today the Minister of Health had to take a patsy question from poor old Russell Fairbrother the broken-down former member for Napier who is now a list MP. The Minister of Health had to get up and give a lengthy explanation for the frankly criminal situation that is going on behind the scenes at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. It is amazing. The Minister of Health is no longer concerned about patient care it is now all about political management and defending the cronies in senior management positions at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. What has gone on there is worthy of some Third World banana republic. The deal that has been done there is absolutely incredible. 
Just to reiterate Annette King was the Minister of Health. Her husband Ray Lind was the chief operating officer at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. Against the advice of the board the Minister appointed Peter Hausmann to the board. It then turned out that Peter Hausmann used his position as a district health board member to alter the conditions of a confidential tender document so he could bid for it and it was a $50 million contract. It sounds like something out of the Third World. People would not believe that this could happen in New Zealand today. 
What happened next? A whistleblower at the district health board said: “Hey this is not on.” And would members believe it the Minister of Health’s husband who was in senior management went to heavy this lady told her to shut up and she was restructured out of her job. The next thing we knew Peter Hausmann left to run his health-care company and Ray Lind the Minister’s husband went off to work for him. If that is not rotten if that is not a major problem I do not know what is. I can tell members that that situation is spelt out word for word in the  
Herald on Sunday 
 article last Sunday by Bill Ralston. If that article was not the absolute truth the  
Herald on Sunday 
 would not have published it. Bill Ralston would not risk a lawsuit. Did we hear anything about a lawsuit? No no lawsuit is happening at all. 
We do not think the Minister should have sacked that district health board. There are heaps of district health boards around the country where the situation is far worse. At hospitals in the Waitemata District Health Board area people are lying on trolleys for 24 hours. The doctors have written a letter saying that people there cannot get the care they need because the board has not done any planning. Why does the Minister not want to intervene there? Why will he not intervene in Waitemata? The reason is that the chairman of the Waitemata District Health Board is a personal crony a mate of Helen Clark and Labour members will not attack their cronies and their mates. They will not do that. But in Hawke’s Bay the cronies are all in senior management and the board was going to be way too much of a problem. 
So in the end this has all been about looking after and defending the cronies. The cronies are under threat in Hawke’s Bay. Annette King and her husband are under threat. So the answer is to sack the board. In Waitemata the cronies are on the board so the answer is that they have to support the board. The Minister is not interested in the fact that the doctors have no confidence in the board at all. There is absolutely nothing that he wants to do about it. The fact is that Labour has doubled the spending on health from $6 billion to $12 billion and things are no better. It has lost the health battle. The public does not believe it on health policy any more. Health will be a key election issue. The Minister is not even pretending to try to improve the health of New Zealanders any more; he is just concerned now about political management. We have had three Ministers of Health under this Government and the theme all along has been to manage the situation not to worry any more about what is happening in health because Labour knows it has lost on that. Labour members say they just have to shore up their defences and make sure that they look after their mates. The key mate they have to look after here because she is severely compromised is Annette King. She knew about this contract. She knew about it—we have the emails—and she still appointed this guy Peter Hausmann to the district health board. She was advised not to and it smells bad.