Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. In this offering I want to respond to the Prime Minister's statement and the outlining of his view of the world: where New Zealand is where it could be and especially where he said that his statement was focused amongst other things on health. He described what his Government would look like the prevailing economic conditions and the cyclone impact. In response I will address these areas. The PM described the Government that he leads. Well I've decided that the current Government could be best described as the Jipkinson" Government—that is the Jacinda Ardern Chris Hipkins Grant Robertson Government. And the way I think about what the leader described as this unholy trinity is when I think of "Jipkinson" I think of gypsum which is a flaky material used as filler and fertiliser. It's also turned out that gypsum is used as a retardant in Portland cement. Now Portland cement is in my electorate and I can absolutely confirm to this House that this Government has been a retardant on Portland cement. It's been a retardant on managing the cost of living. It's been a retardant on producing enough houses. It's been a retardant on law and order. And it's been a retardant on transport especially—the single biggest economic driver for Northland. State Highway 1 through the Brynderwyns—how many times has it been down during this cyclone season? More times than I care to remember. And when the Brynderwyns goes down what happens? Well there's roughly two roads to the east and the west that then become the proxy the poor cousin proxy for State Highway 1. To the east they go through Waipu Cove Langs Beach Mangawhai and what happens is the road slowly starts to fall in towards the sea. Out towards the west they go through Paparoa/Oakley and again the wear and tear of that very poor proxy for State Highway 1 causes significant damage.What we have is a number of views on part of the solution to this the four lanes and I well recall standing with Simon Bridges around about 17 May 2017 and announcing the four lanes as part of the resilience for highways part of the resilience to cyclones like this from Toi Road to Marsden it was and at that point in time it had a cost-benefit ratio higher than the Waterview Tunnel. In 2018 when the police announced police hotspots—that is deaths per kilometre—that section of road between Toi Toi Road and Marsden was the number one police hotspot. So on a safety perspective it ticked a lot of boxes. And was any progress made? No because as we all recall Phil Twyford and his band of very merry people decided that it was a "Holiday Highway". Those who remember know that this critical infrastructure for Northland was a "Holiday Highway". And when every single mayor every single mayor in Northland—and it's kind of unusual to get that sort of local government support—and the chair of the regional council urgently came down to meet with Phil Twyford to discuss the four lanes what did he say? Very dramatically in front of them he reached behind his desk grasped a sheet of paper and tore it up saying "I will not be implementing National Party policy." That was how Phil Twyford led out this Government's progression if you like of radical failure to progress roading in Northland. And now we pay the consequence. We've been isolated several times and I totally get that other areas have too. Hawke's Bay certainly has as well. But let's remember the cyclone hovered over Northland for two days before it moved south and there's been times when we've had almost as many cell towers down as some of the other cyclone areas. So Northland particularly I think has some redress and I particularly point to roading. I particularly point to the Brynderwyns State Highway 1 and the four lanes that were clearly required.I want to for a moment rephrase because the Prime Minister talked a lot about the economy. And I want to rephrase—I want to redefine actually an economic phrase: the OCR—the official cash rate? No it's not. It actually stands for "Open Chequebook Robertson". Whenever we hear "OCR" again that's what we should think of: "Open Chequebook Robertson." And I actually have some dots that I can join to bring all of this together. Now Brian Roche is well respected by all of us. I respect him we respect him you respect him. And in fact Grant Robertson in November appointed him as a director of Kiwi Group Ltd. No questions there. But what happened was that during COVID in 2020 I think this was there was a COVID19 independent continuous review improvement group that was formed to look at the Valentine's Day outbreak to review it. And Brian Roche was appointed to that committee. In their review here's what they formally wrote: "The ministry has indicated that the 'chequebook is open' at least with respect to COVID-19." Let me just read that again: "The ministry has indicated that the 'chequebook is open' at least with respect to COVID19." That is the Grant Robertson chequebook. OCR: official cash rate? No "Open Chequebook. Robertson." That's what that actually stands for. The Prime Minister's statement talked a lot about health and about how he was going to focus this Government back on health. Well let's look at some of those things. Let's look at maternity and where the midwives are at the moment. And let's also reflect that maternity was a delegation to the current Minister of Health. She owned everything to do with maternity over the past two years. That is part of her baggage. And how has that gone for our midwives? Midwives have some of the biggest shortages in the health sector. How did that go under Minister Ayesha Verrall? Well I can tell you. What happened under Ayesha Verrall is that she refused to say that there was a crisis in midwifery and then she had the audacity to write in answers to parliamentary questions that midwives are coping in the regions. I don't think so. Show me one—anyone who is coping. And yet this is now the new Minister of Health who has done such a poor job in maternity. It actually gets worse. There was $180 million of maternity action plan through Budget 2020 and would you believe $60 million of that really important maternity action plan funding went to health reforms and we know that from written question No. 30042 where the Minister replies that $60 million over four years was committed to support the health and disability review reforms—money taken from maternity and pushed towards the Government ideology. So that's where the current Minister stands on maternity. Good luck with midwives making any progress there. If Prime Minister Hipkins is so interested in health let's talk about emergency department (ED) wait times. This is what really worries me because I think ED is sort of the canary in the mine. And I say that because when primary care fails ED backs up. When the hospital sector fails ED backs up. It's not a bad measure. And what have we seen? Well first of all Andrew Little hit them a year ago no longer reported them until he was shamed through written parliamentary questions to suddenly put them up and report them quarterly. Absolutely shamed. And so the last reporting was through to 30 June last year and then this Government decided to stop reporting them quarterly as well. And so what we know is that in June last year the last ED wait time target was 76 percent. Remember you want the number to be high because it shows how close we're actually getting to target. Then mysteriously about two weeks ago Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand's first performance report suddenly magically produces the ED wait times. Surprise surprise they've gone down 71 percent. Why would you do that? Because you know they're bad. Why would not bring out the December quarter results for ED wait times? Because you know they're bad. How bad? Well let's have a look at some of those figures. I have a lot of angst and it was interesting hearing the member for Palmerston North trumpet up his ED. I have a lot of worry for MidCentral and have done for a while. I know some of that team quite well but unfortunately their ED is tail-end Charlie. They bring up the worst figures. They started at the beginning of the year on 55 percent to target and at the last report they're down to 36 percent—the biggest difference across any of the previous district health board sector. I then worry about Capital and Coast. They've had a 15 percent reduction—the second biggest from 67.6 to 49.6 and nationally over the year ED wait times have gone down from 78 percent to 71 percent. What we know is that Minister Verrall said that there were supposed improvements to Middlemore one of our hotspot EDs that would make it resilient before winter and on that very same afternoon the ex-chair of Health New Zealand Rob Campbell said that Middlemore Hospital would not be ready in time for the winter flu season—a clear difference between the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health. I worry about EDs. I worry a lot. I worry about the workforce. They are tired. They are fatigued. I cannot believe that the Prime Minister has the gall to stand here and say he is focused on health. He has not been. His team has not been and the sector is tired and exhausted. We need to give some assurance to New Zealanders that in their time of most urgent need ED will be there for them. I do believe that. I do believe that but my goodness there is a lot of work to do. There's a lot of planning. There's a lot of trust and I don't believe this Government or a Government that Prime Minister Hipkins will lead will be successful in any of those areas. Thank you Madam Speaker."