Hutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hutchison Paul: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Sir Roger Douglas is absolutely correct in quoting Singapore in terms of the remarkable results that it gets from its health system. As he said Singapore’s current expenditure is in the order of 3.5 percent of GDP compared with New Zealand’s at 8 percent Australia’s at 9 percent and the USA’s at 15.5 percent yet Singaporeans live longer and the infant mortality rate is less than half of ours. It is underpinned by a variety of very clear principles that were worked out in a white paper in the 1990s. But I must add to that. I do not believe that the New Zealand ethos would quite accept the autocratic way that Singapore works. But we certainly have lessons to learn and we can learn enormously from the remarkable outcomes that Singapore has achieved. 
Yesterday Prime Minister John Key was clear and concise in his speech. National will focus on building a strong economy which is vital for an excellent health welfare and education system. National will focus on building better results from our public services and goodness me it needs to. We have Labour’s record over 9 years of spending double the amount of money for absolutely no increase in productivity. 
John Key’s speech was in sharp contrast to that of Phil Goff who presented a somewhat vein-popping shaking-hand charade that proposed everything that was the reverse of what he said he believed in back in the 1980s. He failed to acknowledge that the last Labour Government had built up the Public Service by 50 percent over 9 years into a creaking bureaucracy with very poor productivity. As I said earlier that was particularly the case in the health sector. Contrary to the advice of the Savings Working Group Mr Goff wishes to spend spend spend and so far the cost has been tallied up to over $5 billion and there is still much of the year left. He has not explained how he will get the money to pay for his promises—all in an environment in which the Savings Working Group says New Zealand’s level of debt is too high. Net foreign liabilities public and private amount to 85 percent leaving New Zealand vulnerable to economic shocks. According to the group it is absolutely vital that we increase savings as an essential component to reducing our vulnerability. 
National is taking a prudential and measured approach to the economy in stark contrast to Labour’s somewhat reckless and irresponsible policy to spend and bribe the vulnerable just as it did back in the 1980s and repeated over the last 9 years. I was astounded but not surprised to listen this afternoon to that veteran shroud-waver the Hon Annette King. She was complaining that the Prime Minister should have talked about growing the economy. I tell the Hon Annette King that she was given a copy of his statement. She could have read it but she continues to be in denial about what has happened over the last few decades. I am very happy to present her with another copy. 
Why did I call her a shroud-waver? In 1998 when she was the Opposition spokesperson on health she said it was criminal that the then Minister of Health had allowed waiting lists to expand out to 86000 yet 2 years later she had presided over the building of one of the most complex cumbersome and lowly productive health systems in the history of New Zealand. Waiting lists had blown out to 140000 and she was culling the waiting lists in lots of 10000 at a time. In very sharp contrast to that over the last 2 years Minister of Health Tony Ryall has achieved some very remarkable results which are shown up in the health targets. They include shorter waiting times in emergency departments and improved access to elective surgery with something like 400 extra elective surgeries per week. We have shorter waits for cancer treatment with 99 percent of people who were referred for radiation starting treatment within 6 weeks. I can vividly recall under Labour literally planeloads of patients going across to Australia for radiation therapy. We have increased immunisation with 87 percent of 2-year-olds now fully immunised. In the Lakes District Health Board there has been an increase in immunisation of 22 percent in just the last year. There is better help for smokers to quit and better services for people with diabetes and cardiovascular problems. 
Those are objective advances that have occurred in the last 2 years and they are quite remarkable. It is a good thing that at least Labour voted with the Government on the recent New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill which has allowed for greater national and regional coordination of our health system and the introduction of the very important Health Quality and Safety Commission. 
I was also very glad that the Hon Annette King said in a speech in October 2010 that she had been “thinking and re-examining all of Labour’s policies.” I believe it will be very good for New Zealand if she stays in Opposition and continues to think for a very very long time. I was also glad that she had decided to work on a policy she called “Putting Children First”. There is no doubt in my mind that over the last few decades or even longer New Zealand’s record at putting children first has failed miserably. Successive Governments have failed them and it is hugely important that that situation is reversed. 
I sincerely ask Mrs King to look carefully at the excellent policies the Government is evolving. They have to be cross-sectoral they need to be evidence-based as is so strongly advocated by Sir Peter Gluckman and people such as Professor David Fergusson and they need to operate from pre-conception onwards. I note that Annette King talks about the child from the age of nought to 2 but she must think prior to that. I am sure the Hon Stevie Chadwick would agree with me because after all the toll on foetuses in New Zealand from alcohol drugs and tobacco is hugely profound and substantial. National will very shortly bring through yet more legislation to progress measures reducing tobacco and alcohol along with our coalition partner the Maori Party in this country. That has to make a huge difference. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Not alcohol labelling? Oh great! 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I am very sad to see Stevie Chadwick not taking this issue extremely seriously. 
Annette King must be realistic. I note that in the beginning of her October speech she said detailed announcements including costings would be made in due course. Once again we see from the Hon Annette King a situation where she talks and her rhetoric is extraordinarily voluble but we do not see the record. In stark contrast we have a National Government that has a proud record of evidence-based improvement in the health system.