Coleman Jonathan: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeColeman Jonathan: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10651. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Well there is so much to correct in that speech that I do not think we have got enough time to do it quite frankly. There was so much fiction there. I mean for starters an extra 50000 operations were provided under this Government. In Labour’s last year in Government it did 118000 operations; we did 168000 last year. That is a fact. But I will tell you what—you know Mrs King talked a lot about the Southern District Health Board and actually we could do better on hips and knees there. We raised the rate by 10 percent over our time there but we have got to keep on doing more and that is the answer to unmet need. But the really embarrassing thing for Mrs King and the reason actually she asked questions about food rather than operations during question time is that while she was Minister of Health she delivered 420 fewer operations in the Southern District Health Board. It was absolutely shameful.Hon Simon Bridges: Oh here was me thinking it was just because she was hungry.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes. So when you get to a situation when question No. 1 in question time is about the Southern District Health Board’s food in reality I think that means we are covering off the big issues pretty well. But I will tell you what: there has been a signal achievement this week announced by this Government and that is moving the decision rights on the fluoridation—Hon Annette King: Yeah and that was pretty gutless.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: —of water from local government through to district health boards. Mrs King says that is “gutless”. Well I will tell you what. She had—and this was a dental nurse—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK the member will resume his seat. I was going to let it pass but again there is a long history of calling members “gutless” and that being ruled out. The member will desist from saying that word and the Minister will not respond to it.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Sure sure. I think actually this great achievement of announcing the movement of decision rights to the district health boards is something the whole Parliament could join together to celebrate. I would love to see Labour—especially with the Opposition spokesperson being a former dental nurse who actually had 9 years to do this herself—issuing a supportive press release saying: “Let’s put aside the petty bickering over you know the minor bits and pieces. Let’s actually celebrate what is a major achievement.” When you look at fluoridation of water that is one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. When you look at 35000 children having a tooth extracted last year that makes the point that this is a really important public health move. So if you look at 40 percent of our kids having a tooth go rotten before the age of 5—up to 60 percent in our young Māori kids under the age of 5—we had to do something about that and that was a very important move.Another great public health achievement under this Government has been the extension of free general practice visits to children under the age of 13. Much to Mrs King’s disappointment that was taken up by 99 percent of practices—99 percent of practices. That is going to be a huge contributor to ensuring the good health of a whole cohort of children—free general practice visits now for 750000 New Zealand children.Progress reported.Report adopted.