Woodhouse Michael; Rurawhe AdrianHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a great pleasure to take a call in this Supplementary Estimates bill debate. After today's appearance at the Estimates review I think the list of Ministers of this Government that've demonstrated that they are completely out of their depth can have a new name added to it and that is David Clark. Today we exploded the myth of the $8 billion of underfunding—remember that? This is a health spokesperson and a health Minister that has crusaded around the country saying that the health budget had been underfunded by $8 billion over four years and that's what this Government was going to do to remedy it. They campaigned on that being Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) 2017 plus $8 billion. They misled the public into believing that this Government would do $8 billion more than what a National Government would do.Chris Bishop: That's right.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Quite right. Only that's not what the reality is because what we heard confirmed today by the Minister was that nothing could be further from the truth. Simply turning and keeping the lights on in our health sector over the next four years whatever Government was in place would have cost $8 billion. And do you know what this Government's going to do more than that?Chris Bishop: What?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Nothing. Not a single thing. In fact what we have is a seriously long list of broken promises. It started really early and it started with the GP visits. Remember that Dr Clark went with Jacinda Ardern to the Māngere market in August last year to a hero's welcome to say—because the previous Government had already just announced a significant package of improvements to GP prices for Very Low Cost Access practices. I can't remember the exact money—it was about $300 million over four years. It was very significant. It was going to help another half a million New Zealanders. And they said We can do better than that. Every single New Zealander will have a reduction in their GP fees—every single one." They said "We've worked it out we've consulted with the GP community and this is our promise: $250 million - odd a year." But where is it? They're now crowing about the fact that 580000 New Zealanders are going to get—that's actually a contested number but let's say that it's right; 580000—discounts on their GP fees only they told the New Zealand public it would be over 4 million. That is a broken promise and it's one of many.I want to remind the House what David Clark said after Budget 2017. He said "District health boards this year need at least $650 million just to stand still and they're $200 million short of what they need." That was a year ago and he got the chance to fix it. He became Minister of Health. He inherited coffers that were higher than the PREFU had. The numbers are looking better. They wanted to borrow more. They wanted to do more. He said $650 million last year—that's what they needed just to keep the lights on. He gave them $549 million. He could not even meet his own lofty expectations for himself. He let himself down by $110 million plus inflation and it's no wonder that the district health boards (DHBs) are squirming over the massively high expectations that are being set for funding that cannot be met. The best manifestation of the effect of that failed expectation is in the very sad news that the New Zealand Nurses Organisation have now issued a notice of their intention to strike on 5 July and I'm very sad about that.I respect the fantastic 30000-odd public hospital nurses and the other 25000 nurses in other parts of our health sector who go to work every single day and do a fantastic job. It's a measure of their frustration and disappointment at the expectations that were raised by this Government that have not been met that they have to take the first strike action of their union in nearly 30 years—Hon Dr Nick Smith: How long?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —and they can sheet that home—nearly 30 years Dr Smith since there was a strike. I believe it was under a previous Labour Government—I'd need to check that—and it's no surprise when the talk is big and the delivery is zero.Here's a really interesting factor: they go on about district health board (DHB) deficits but the analysis of DHB deficits in the last 18 years—until the change of Government—makes very interesting reading. I've mentioned it before but it's worth noting again because we're seeing a new trend emerge since this Government came to office. The average deficit between 2000 and 2008 by DHBs was $66.8 million per year. That's a lot of money but bear in mind the DHBs have had in that time probably $8 billion and $10 billion of funding appropriated. Between 2009 and 2017 without even adjusting for inflation it was 5 percent lower than that. The vote was higher; the deficits were lower. The previous National Government funded DHBs better than the previous Labour Government did.So the lofty promises come. They come in and they go "We're going to fix deficits." Do you know what's happened to the forecast deficits since they came to office? In the six short months since they have been in control it has gone up by 50 percent—50 percent.Treasury are now forecasting $211 million of deficits. It was $140 million. It was high—it was uncomfortably high. It's gone up 50 percent since November and I think we're going to need to get used to more and more bad news from a Minister who is completely out of his depth.The lofty promises have been met with the reality that rescue helicopters in Hamish Walker's electorate and in Scott Simpson's electorate of Coromandel are at risk. The Lumsden Maternity Centre is about to close. The Rural Health—Chris Bishop: What about Dunedin Hospital?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well good question Mr Bishop. I'm leading to the big hit but thank you for your excitement over the list. The Rural Health Alliance have lost their funding. What about the Roxburgh children's camp? This is a fantastic facility that has been providing care to our most vulnerable tamariki for generations. What did this Government that wanted to do more be more—Chris Bishop: That's right—compassionate.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —more compassionate—gone. Absolutely gone. And then Mr Bishop we have Dunedin Hospital.Now I have run a gauntlet and the previous Government was actually criticised by Treasury for going too fast not too slow—not that you would have that understood by the previous spokesperson Dr David Clark. How much money was appropriated for the actual build of Dunedin Hospital a hospital that he petitioned the Health Committee on imploring the previous Government to start the construction before the last election? Zero. There's money for design but not a skerrick of money can be found in this Budget for Dunedin Hospital.There are so many other disappointments of this Budget and we are debating a Supplementary Estimates bill and here's why I think that's relevant: because there's no doubt that David Clark will need to come back cap in hand to the Minister of Finance and go "We pared it back too much. We talked a good game but we didn't appropriate enough. We didn't control the spending." The $8 billion Minister of Finance was a myth. The net increase in the vote was zero. In fact it was lower this year than the previous Government's appropriation for health in 2017.This is a deep deep disappointment and the biggest disappointment is that such lofty expectations were raised and they weren't met and I think we'll be hearing a lot lot more. Time doesn't even allow me to go into the debacle that is Middlemore Hospital when they created the myth—Hon Members: Ha ha!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh laugh if you like. Laugh if you like but when a Minister phones a chair and says "Shut the hell up. And you're fired because you embarrassed me over buildings but by the way if you stay quiet we'll give you another job." there is a word for that. They can laugh about Middlemore Hospital but there'll be a postscript. There's more to come and so sit up and listen because these guys are going to learn a great lesson—that is when a Minister overreaches they get into big trouble. So chuckle away Ms Curran but there's more to come over that.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes."