O'Connor Simon: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10943. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Having been given the call I actually feel bad for Kevin Hague all of a sudden now but anyway. I am very pleased to take what will be I think a relatively short call but I might be found to be wrong on that. There are a couple of things I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to as we take this Committee stage on the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill.The first point and I raised it in the second reading debate is that this is a very narrow bill. Its scope is incredibly narrow. Its singular purpose is to stop the elections this year for the Southern District Health Board for the very proper and right reason that the commissioner needs to continue her work we believe and I think—when we were listening to the likes of Todd Barclay an MP from down there actually—for the good of the community through to 2019. Why I want to stress that very narrow scope is that a lot of the other stuff that has been raised understandably at one level is not really all that relevant to this discussion be it from food to the nature of the hospitals and so forth. That is not the direct element of this bill. Those are consequential aspects and I think what is really important is that all those elements—from the state of the hospitals to how the funding is allocated physiotherapists and the like; issues that are raised by members list or otherwise down there—are actually being addressed by the commissioner and her team. And that I think and assume has been an important reason as to why the Minister of Health put her in there.The issues around Māori representation I think people have rightly noted. The Health Committee took the right and proper step to put that into its report. As I say it is not in the actual bill and amendments because that is out of scope. It is not the bill’s purpose in this Committee stage or otherwise to dictate how the commissioner operates; it is more to say—actually it is primarily if not singularly to say—that there will not be an election. We certainly encourage transparency and we have heard some really good reports of late of how the commissioner is being more transparent to the public in the Southland District Health Board. But again this does not fit the bill as something to be amended or changed.I do want to draw your attention to a couple of thoughts on the amendments that have been put down. Both of them I do not think we should support. Primarily for the purpose the simplicity of this bill is not served well by these amendments. I can understand the intentions of them but both actually complicate. They also touch on to that whole dynamic that somehow democracy is best served by being democratic alone. I have touched on this before. Democracy is served because it brings about a particular purpose.Hon Ruth Dyson: Think of a better excuse than that.SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh look I could but it would get incredibly complicated for the member. So I am going to try to keep it simple.The whole point of democracy is not simply to vote for the sake of voting; it is to bring about good governance. And although I understand the good intentions of Ria Bond and can I commend her for her work on the select committee actually asking the Minister to appoint normally elected people really is just I think an overly complicated way of actually doing what the commissioner already does. So I do not think that is overly helpful. As an Auckland MP I cannot speak to those on the Southern District Health Board but I suspect that they would not see any difference. If the Minister was simply just to appoint all members of the board and say everything is tickety-boo to use the technical term I do not think they would quite believe in that.I took a bit more time looking at the Hon Annette King’s very recently tabled amendment. I can understand the intention of wanting to get the district health board back in place as quickly as possible. The analogy I think of is actually Selwyn College in my electorate around an education commissioner. Again I think that in dynamics like this communities are best served by a simple mechanism—in this case the board being taken out and a commissioner put in—but a dynamic that is quickly and easily understood. So in this case saying that a Minister may be able to reappoint at some time a board by Order in Council I think actually just complicates matters. I think it is simpler to say it is going to go through to 2019.I would be interested to hear from the Minister in the chair—who I just have to note is not actually my future brother-in-law Simon Bridges; I do believe it is Jonathan Coleman.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Todd Barclay.SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh it was Todd Barclay. Oh right. Well that is jolly good. I was getting all very confused about who was and was not in the Chamber. I would not mind hearing from the Minister in the chair as to the legal ramifications of this postponement. Is it actually possible legally speaking for these appointments to be—[Bell rung] Oh look! That is great. Now I am warming up; I am right into things. I would be interested to hear from the Minister as to whether or not actually there is an opportunity legally or otherwise for these appointments to be made. My sense is that it is probably not possible. So I would like to hear on that.The points made by most colleagues are quite right. This is a good bill. That is the reason that the select committee returned it to this Committee without amendment. I do note now that some members are not supporting the bill at this stage but I do still want to acknowledge the work and the important voice that they brought to this particularly in the area of Māori representation and transparency. I do thank Labour in particular for its support of this. I think it is important that we do our best to serve these local communities.So again it is a simple bill. There are no amendments from the select committee because we understand that its primary singular purpose is to push out that date to 2019. I think that is what keeps it simple. It keeps it if you will an elegant bill and a solution and I look forward to the continuing excellent work of the commissioner and her team there. I thank them for all that they are doing and if I might to the patients and the public down there I say that I think they should know that through the work of the Minister the commissioner and others the community is in good hands with this little piece of legislation.