Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I am delighted to rise to speak to the second reading of this bill.

This bill has been considered in the Health Committee and, I am pleased to report, was not a contentious bill at any point. As the records show, it was passed unanimously at the first reading. It was only the Labour Party that gave qualified support—not guaranteeing support beyond the Health Committee. The Health Committee considered nine submissions and heard two oral submissions—from the New Zealand Medical Association and HealthCare Providers New Zealand. All submissions were in support of the bill.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Official Information Act 1982 so that any entity representing one or more district health boards, such as District Health Boards New Zealand, would be subject to the Official Information Act. There had been growing concerns among the health sector that District Health Boards New Zealand—which represents the 21 district health boards—has been making decisions that impact on all New Zealanders, but the public have not been able to find out what this group does or how it functions, because it is not subject to the Official Information Act.

District Health Boards New Zealand is funded by taxpayers’ money through its contributions from the 21 district health boards, and it has been an anomaly that this organisation has been exempt from the Official Information Act when other organisations that are funded by taxpayers’ money are subject to it. The purpose of this bill was to bring accountability and transparency to the organisation. District Health Boards New Zealand has been functioning outside our constitutional situation. It is clear from the submissions that many, many people have been frustrated by District Health Boards New Zealand’s lack of accountability.

We had an oral submission from the New Zealand Medical Association, which supported the bill. It suggested that the organisation possibly be disbanded. The New Zealand Medical Association has been concerned for some time about the role of District Health Boards New Zealand, which it felt was increasingly taking on coordination and operational policy functions that should more appropriately be carried out by the Ministry of Health. The former chairman of the New Zealand Medical Association called District Health Boards New Zealand a private club for the district health boards, and said it was time that the organisation was absorbed back into the ministry.

The bill also had the support of HealthCare Providers New Zealand. This organisation said the existing situation was an anomaly that chipped away at our constitutional framework. The organisation also felt that it was high time that consistency was maintained by having District Health Boards New Zealand brought under the Official Information Act principles, which are based around the belief that information be made available unless there is a good reason to withhold it.

Researchers have been frustrated by the results of official information requests. They often have to make 21 separate Official Information Act requests to the district health boards to get a complete picture of the health sector. They cannot request the information from District Health Boards New Zealand because the organisation is outside the Official Information Act. To make 21 district health board Official Information Act requests is incredibly time-consuming and frustrating, particularly if the Ombudsman is involved. It is slow and frustrating for all concerned, and there is no guarantee that the information will be forthcoming. The district health boards, in turn, often protest that, in having to answer the requests themselves, their staff are taken away from their core business and roles. By bringing District Health Boards New Zealand under the Official Information Act, information is obtained directly and expediently, and district health board staff are not sidetracked from their own work.

All the submitters made excellent points, and after the submissions were considered the committee was advised that the Government agreed with the bill. As a result, the Governor-General has signed an Order in Council to amend schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act to ensure that District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to the complaints jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, and this will take effect on 3 September.

I am absolutely delighted that the Government saw the light. It realised that it did not have the numbers to defeat the bill, and it agreed with the intentions of the bill. As a result of the Government’s agreeing to this bill and agreeing that an Order in Council be made, this bill is no longer required and the National Party takes great pleasure in voting it down. Thank you.

The Government—at least, the Labour Party—will also be voting against the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill, for the reasons that the member who introduced the bill has pointed out, and they are that the Government has found a way to ensure that District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to the Official Information Act, and has made the changes by regulatory means rather than by primary legislation. That Order in Council was passed on 9 July and will come into force presently.

There is no problem at all with District Health Boards New Zealand being subject to the Official Information Act, and there will be times—as the member in whose name the bill resides, Dr Jackie Blue, said—that District Health Boards New Zealand is able to give people information and save them the transaction costs of going to the 21 district health boards. There will, however, be plenty of times when District Health Boards New Zealand is not able to do that, or chooses not to do so.

District Health Boards New Zealand official information requests are often made to gain commercially sensitive information, and to give negotiators an opportunity to gain an upper hand in a negotiation by getting hold of information about the other side of the fence, and that is not going to change. The Official Information Act is clear that where something is commercial in confidence, then it is not subject to the Official Information Act while, for example, negotiations are in play. In other instances, District Health Boards New Zealand will not be able to provide, for example, a researcher with the information the researcher wants, because District Health Boards New Zealand does not have it. It is absolutely the case that one cannot respond to an Official Information Act request if one does not have the information that is requested. On the other hand, to the extent that District Health Boards New Zealand is able to provide information, we are keen that it does so.

The health system in New Zealand prides itself on transparency and on increasing its transparency. Last week we announced a further 12 health targets. Each district health board, in a series of negotiations with the Ministry of Health, has agreed to put into its annual plan its target for responding to the various key performance indicators—as one might call them—that the ministry is asking the boards to pay attention to. These targets are things like the immunisation rate, the number of people who are on the “Get Checked” Diabetes Aotearoa programme, the number of people who are discharged from acute mental wards with a long-term plan for their recovery, the number of people who no longer smoke or have never smoked, and so on. There are 10 such targets.

These targets will be reported upon. They will be reported upon transparently. Transparency is an important part of the New Zealand health system, even though one’s political enemies may choose to make as much political capital as they can, should a target not be reached or not be fully reached. Transparency is relatively new to the New Zealand health system. It used not to be the case that we knew what was going on with elective services, or waiting times in an emergency department of a district health board for people with different levels of acuity. These things are becoming increasingly transparent, and it is therefore utterly in keeping with the move to greater transparency that District Health Boards New Zealand—when it is able to—responds to Official Information Act requests in a manner that is compliant with the Official Information Act.

We will take great pleasure in voting this bill down, as will Dr Jackie Blue and her party, because we no longer need it.

This second reading of the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill really marks a great victory for all those who are keen on increased transparency and accountability in our health system. I commend my colleague Dr Jackie Blue for bringing this bill before the House. It is something that has been sorely needed.

I totally disagree with what the Minister of Health has said about transparency in the health system. The fact is that if he could have got away with it, he would have ignored this bill. There should have been a Government bill long, long ago, because District Health Boards New Zealand has been a great vehicle for covering up what is really happening in health in New Zealand. I tell members that when people make an Official Information Act request to those 21 district health boards, so often they are told that District Health Boards New Zealand will be handling the matter. But then people find out that that organisation is not subject to the Official Information Act. Like so many other areas under this Government, District Health Boards New Zealand has been a mechanism for covering things up and sweeping them under the table. If we look at the speech made by the Minister in the first reading, we see that he had reservations about this bill and could not guarantee he would be supporting it beyond the select committee consideration. So this bill is a great victory for transparency today. It is a back-down for the Labour Government, and I would say that if it could have got away with it, the Government would not want District Health Boards New Zealand to be subject to the Official Information Act under its watch.

💬 Sue Moroney: Rubbish!

Members opposite mutter and shake their heads, because they know it is true. There has been a heck of a lot to cover up in the health system under this Government.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: We do not need this legislation. It has been done.

It has been done and we do not need this legislation, but that is only because of the pressure that Dr Jackie Blue has put on the Government. Those members knew they were on a hiding to nothing. They knew they could not get up in this House and continue to say that they had reservations. The Governor-General signed the Order in Council, and now we are lucky enough that District Health Boards New Zealand will be subject to the Official Information Act.

This Government has been in power for 8 years. People should see the issues in health that the Government has been trying to cover up in that time. They should see the big cover-ups on waiting-list culls, on people not getting access to the cancer treatment they need. Members opposite know that it is true; they have their heads down—

💬 Martin Gallagher: Tell us about the tobacco lobby.

That is classic. That useless member for Hamilton West can only start getting personal. He can only talk about an irrelevant issue! That sort of thing has been the theme of this Government. It is losing on the issues and its members get personal. We saw it in the House last week, and are seeing it again now. Martin Gallagher would not have the horsepower in his brain to debate this issue seriously.

💬 Martin Gallagher: Tell us about the effects of tobacco.

All he can do is get up and trade insults. He will get them back. He is shaking his head. Let us hear from him, after this speech.

There has been a big cover-up in health under this Government. It duped so many people who voted for it in 1999, 2002, and 2005 by telling them that the health system will look after them from the cradle to the grave, that all their medical needs will be met. Those members know, and the Minister knows—it has been a nightmare for him—that in the New Zealand health system now, people have to be more and more sick to get an operation. They all know this, because it is absolutely true. People are not getting the operations they need in New Zealand hospitals.

💬 Sue Moroney: Bring on the tax cuts and the spending cuts.

There they go; they are not arguing the point. They have a totally irrelevant argument again. People cannot get the operations they need. If they have a basic surgical condition, they will not get an operation in a New Zealand hospital. If they need something acute done at an emergency department, it will not be done. We know that.

I challenge the Minister to come up to North Shore Hospital and go through the emergency department. He knows how bad it is. He knows they are stacking people on trolleys in the car-park and in the corridors, and people cannot get through. North Shore City is one of the wealthiest cities in New Zealand, yet it has the worst emergency department. That must be due to nothing more than gross mismanagement. The Minister knows it, and Labour members have no come-back on this issue. The fact is that, under the Labour Government, health has been grossly mismanaged. The Government managed to cover it up until about 18 months ago, when we really started to get access—

💬 Martin Gallagher: How many Ministers of Health did National go thorough?

The member can shake his head, but he knows that it is absolutely true. He knows that it will see him kicked out of Parliament at the next election. The Government covered it up for so long—the waiting-list debacle, the culls, the fact that people could not get cancer treatment. It has been an absolute disgrace, and it has been from people, who believe in social justice and access to free health-care at the point of delivery.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Who took away the workforce planning that had been the hallmark of the 1980s?

They know. All they can do is get personal again. They are on a hiding to nothing now in health. How bad does a centre-left Government have to be to lose on health? That is the ultimate indictment—that Labour is losing the battle. Actually, the Minister is a pretty gracious guy when he is outside the House, but he knows that he has failed in this portfolio. If members want to know about cover-ups in health, then we have to talk, yet again, about Lake Alice Hospital.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Talk about Jenny Shipley and Bill Birch. We know what they did.

Let us live in the present. A lot of members on the other side are living in the past. What about the Cabinet cover-up in respect of Lake Alice Hospital? What about the 87 second-round claimants who received $35,000 each? The Cabinet Ministers’ heads have gone down now, because they were in that room when that decision was taken to lop that payment off. They thought they could keep it secret. It was only by chance that it was found out that $3 million had been basically confiscated from 87 of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand society. It was a total cover-up and it came to light purely by chance. That is an example of the lack of openness in the whole area of health care under this Government. The Minister has told me the Government is going to sort it out. Well, it is still not sorted out. I would say that, in the spirit of openness and transparency, it is time it was settled.

We can see there really is a need for this bill, because if there is a structure this Government can use to sweep anything under the carpet, it will do it. District Health Boards New Zealand has been a great structure for the Government in that regard. This is a great day of victory for those in favour of more transparency and openness of Government. I commend my colleague Dr Jackie Blue once again. It is great that we are not having to vote on this bill, that the matter has been signed off by the Governor-General. We look forward to getting more information under the Official Information Act about the failings of this Government in the area of health, now that District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to it.

I ask Jonathan Coleman, who has just resumed his seat, where he was when the National Government did not even have enough openness and transparency in the health system to trust local communities to elect district health boards. There were no elected members, no transparency, and no democracy in the health system under National. That member stands up and preaches about openness and transparency. Well, where was that member at that time? I think he just said he was working in the health system, so he would well know that in the 1990s under National all decisions with regard to our public health-care system were taken in secret, behind closed doors, behind locked doors, with no media allowed in, no scrutiny, no accountability, and absolutely no transparency. That is the background that those new members of the National Party have to acknowledge about their history. They should take on board the history of the National Party. I say: “It’s yours. Own it!”. It is for members opposite to own their own history when it comes to openness and transparency, or should I say more properly a lack of openness and transparency that has been promoted day in and day out, decade in and decade out by the National Party.

The new member for the National Party Jackie Blue has brought forward—

💬 Simon Power: New member? How long has this member been here?

Well, if Jackie Blue wants to take responsibility for the lack of openness and transparency in the 1990s from the National Government, then that is up to her. I am sure that Jackie Blue is interested in openness and transparency when it comes to members on the Auckland District Health Board and their disclosures or not about conflict of interest. I would like to have some consistency from members opposite when it comes to openness and transparency. I know that Jackie Blue will have some interesting observations on Dr Bierre and his lack of openness or transparency in his role on the Auckland board.

To come back to this bill, which we will be—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: One law for all.

That is the National mantra, and I am interested in seeing the—[Interruption]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the member opposite. I think Simon Power has been here for some time. His reference was the nickname that the 10 and 11-year-old boys came up with when I was that age.

💬 Simon Power: What are you talking about?

Was it Tau Henare? One of them came up with what is 10 and 11-year-old schoolboy stuff, quite frankly, and I take offence.

💬 Simon Power: Speaking to the point of order.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you enlighten me as to what might have been said?

💬 Simon Power: I can absolutely enlighten you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I said: “Let Lianne Dalziel take a call.”

Speaking to the point of order, I say that is not the statement I was referring to. I think Tau Henare probably knows the statement I was referring to.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Henare, the member is saying she heard you say something. Do you acknowledge that? You are on the point of order.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: A member cannot raise a point of order, then go down the line accusing people until he or she gets the right one.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is a fishing expedition.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Basically, it is.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: All right. We do not need to take it any further. If you could continue, please.

Thank you and next time I will get the culprit. I will work out exactly who the culprit is.

I look forward to Jackie Blue’s “Openness of Auckland District Health Board Members’ Disclosures Bill”, which she will be putting in the ballot, no doubt, as soon as this one has cleared the traps. And this bill will be clearing the traps rather quickly because, as I understand it, all parties will be voting against it. But there is a good reason why the parties are all voting against the second reading of this bill. It is not to do with cover-ups and, no, it is not to do with—[Interruption] I say to Dr Coleman that I am sorry but there is no cover-up here. There is no cover-up to be seen. In fact, we are voting against this bill because the problem has been resolved by action taken by the Government. National is the party that does not like legislative approaches to anything, but here is Dr Jackie Blue from the National Party bringing legislation forward for this House to consider when it is not needed. All that was needed was regulation. I think the National Party needs to have a good discussion about where it stands. Is it for over-regulation? Is it for lots of legislation when we do not need it, or is it not? That is where we have come to with this bill. This bill is unnecessary. Legislation was not needed to resolve this issue; in fact, it has been done by regulatory means.

Why would the Government have a cover-up over District Health Boards New Zealand anyway? We are enormously proud, as a Government, of the role of District Health Boards New Zealand, because it talks about cooperation in the district health board sector and in our public health system. Guess what? This Government thinks it is a great idea that there is some collusion, that there is collaboration, rather than the competition that was driven up, and that nearly brought our health system to its knees, in the 1990s. It is about cooperation. It is about the sort of coordination we get from doing nationwide planning of the health system in a country the size of New Zealand, and it is good news.

It has also allowed us to do things that I know that the National Party does not agree with. I know that it will rip them apart if it ever got the chance. In a nanosecond, these sorts of measures would be gone. But multi-employer collective agreements are another excellent example of nationwide coordination in the public health system. Yes, they have meant substantial wage increases for nurses, and I know that the National Party does not like that. It keeps going on about increased spending in health, and about increases for nurses, and multi-employer collective agreements, which allow consistency right across the board, being the sorts of things National would attack straight away. But they are exactly the type of thing that having an organisation such as District Health Boards New Zealand allows, because, yes, it has been able to do negotiations right across the board, it has been able to give advice and support to the district health boards, and it has been able to support them to be able to cooperate with each other so that they can share resources and are not competing in that very costly, market-driven mode we had in the 1990s.

There is absolutely no reason why the Government would be secretive about what District Health Boards New Zealand is doing, at all, because, in fact, we are incredibly proud of the message about having a nationally consistent health system that actually does some planning. I know that members opposite come forward all the time in this House and say: “Gosh, let’s have another vision. Yes, let’s have another strategy.” Yes, let us do that, because that is exactly the type of thing that is making sure we have a plan. We have a plan for developing the workforce, unlike in the 1990s when the National Government did not have a plan about anything, in health or in any other industry for that matter, because the market was going to sort it out. Well, the market made a hash of it, and the market particularly made a hash of it when it came to our health system. So District Health Boards New Zealand is a wonderful organisation in terms of planning and in terms of national coordination. It supports the very fine work that is done by health professionals and others in our public health system.

I am pleased to say that, for all the right reasons, Labour will be voting against this bill. It is unnecessary. The legislation brought forward by a member of the National Party is unnecessary. It could have been done by regulation, it has been done by regulation, and that information is available for members. However, I caution the member opposite who proposed the bill, Dr Jackie Blue. She made a statement about people in the past having to use the Official Information Act to gather information from the 21 district health boards, and now, instead, going to one entity, and how much easier that would be. In fact, District Health Boards New Zealand may not actually hold the information that one is seeking from the 21 district health boards, so there will still be a need to use Official Information Act requests for the 21 district health boards, but there will also now be the ability to get information from District Health Boards New Zealand.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill for all of the reasons that have been outlined by the previous speakers. We must congratulate the member on her bill and her intentions for this bill, and the success that she has had with it.

We believe that any entity representing the district health boards—and it is District Health Boards New Zealand—should be subject to the Official Information Act and the complaints jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. It was a rather interesting situation that this organisation stood alone as an incorporated society, rather than as a company or a Crown entity, so it could not be scrutinised by anyone—not even a select committee.

New Zealand First is very pleased, firstly, that the Government has agreed with the bill’s intention. It is a very worthy intention and it did need to be acted upon. Secondly, we are very pleased that there was such a speedy response to the situation and that the Governor-General has already signed the Order in Council to amend the Act so that as from 3 September 2007 District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to the complaints jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.

I recall that some time ago District Health Boards New Zealand came along to the Health Committee to outline what its role was in health finances and all the very many other activities that it was involved with. I know that many of us had been on to the website to find out exactly what the board’s role entailed and that role was very, very considerable. But the bottom line is that any agency that is using public money should be accountable and should be open to public scrutiny.

We do not need this legislation now that regulations have been passed to ensure that the information can be obtained officially. We in New Zealand First are very pleased not to be supporting this bill, and that action has already been taken.

The Green Party joins all other parties in this House in congratulating Dr Jackie Blue on her bill, which triggered action—and I might say very speedy action—by the Government to bring District Health Boards New Zealand under the Official Information Act, and to ensure that all of its work is subject to the complaints jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. This was a very simple bill, but it was important. It is important that we have the reality of those well-worn words that we have heard so much about tonight: transparency and openness. I myself know that I have at times been frustrated by the inability to find out information about District Health Boards New Zealand. We look forward to District Health Boards New Zealand operating more openly and coming within the scrutiny of the law. The Green Party will be very pleased to join with others in recommending that this bill not be passed.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Less than 24 hours ago I came into this House and asked that the books be opened, transparency be valued, and that accountability to the State and to every Māori be accorded a priority. Today, hello, we have a bill advocating for openness. We have a bill promoting exactly the ideals that I hold high, including that the district health boards or the entities representing them, such as District Health Boards New Zealand, are now accountable under the terms of the Official Information Act. Great stuff. I congratulate Dr Blue.

Why should this be so important? Well, according to my extensive research, during the 2005-06 financial year the Ministry of Health received 834 Official Information Act requests as listed in its annual report, while in the same period the Ministry of Justice received just 182 requests. Clearly there is sufficient appetite out there to warrant the highest level of public scrutiny that we can expect to see with the opening up of the Act. When we think of the influence and significance that the 21 district health boards have in providing State-funded health care services throughout Aotearoa we can only guess at how vital the information they hold is for New Zealanders.

New Zealanders need clarity about their individual health records but there are also broader concerns, such as the progress that is made in reducing health disparities by improving health outcomes for Māori and other population groups. We need to know just how well we are doing as a nation in promoting the inclusion and participation in society of all people. So it was worrying to learn from the submission of the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand that it had experienced situations in the past where district health boards have used the mechanism of District Health Boards New Zealand to unofficially withhold information that should have been in the public arena.

Why would District Health Boards New Zealand want to avoid the public duty of being accountable for taxpayer funding? Well, we appreciate that if there are matters of commercial sensitivity involved then the value of being able to receive aggregated data without having to make individual requests to different district health boards should not be understated. For example, in the critical area of Māori representation on district health boards, section 29(4) of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 requires the Minister to endeavour to ensure that Māori membership of the board is proportional to the number of Māori in the district health board’s resident population and that there are at least two Māori members on the board. In 2001, when district health boards were first established, only three Māori were elected to the 21 district health boards throughout Aotearoa. The Minister used her power of appointment to appoint 18 Māori, but the issue of Māori representation remains high on the agenda of Māori health practitioners.

Three years later there was still concern expressed about Māori representation in the aftermath of the 2004 elections. A report from Radio New Zealand in November 2004 revealed that many district health boards still lacked Māori, Pacific Island, and rural members. In Wellington the only Māori member was the reappointed chairperson; while in South Auckland the Counties Manukau District Health Board had only one woman member, one Pasifika member, and one Māori member. In December last year Ngāi Tahu Tumu Whakahaere, Mark Solomon, revealed that it had been a long journey to achieve a representative on the Canterbury District Health Board even as an observer. The media reported that the Minister of Health had supposedly rejected a Ngāi Tahu nominee when appointees were chosen after the 2004 board elections. It was not until 2 years later that Dr Matea Gilles was able to get on the board. Dr Gilles, for those who do not know, is the chairman of Manawhenua ki Waitaha, which is a collective of health representatives from seven rūnaka in Canterbury. Dr Gilles lectures in Māori health at the Christchurch school of medicine. He has worked for many years in indigenous health, including a significant amount of time with aboriginal peoples. In another district health board area, that of the Southland District Health Board, media reports alleged that the statutory requirement for two Māori representatives actually meant only one in that case.

I have taken the time to trawl over this one area of vital information about Māori representation because it reveals the mystery and intrigue that can arise when information is not freely available. Why was a Ngāi Tahu nominee rejected? Why does two Māori representatives mean only one Māori representative in Southland? How is it considered suitable that in South Auckland there are no Māori representatives? It is curious. In the light of all this ambiguity the amendment proposed in this bill has been welcomed by the Māori Party as it provides certainty and clarity to the public and to Māori in that they can request official information from district health boards. We want to avoid any situations of misinterpretation or of passing the buck between district health boards, District Health Boards New Zealand, and the Ministry of Health.

Being able to access specific information about how decisions are made, or about the basis for internal policies, principles, rules, guidelines, strategies, and reports is vital in being able to assess the value of the funding provided to district health boards to meet the health needs of the communities of iwi Māori. We endorse, therefore, the advice of the deputy Health and Disability Commissioner, Tania Thomas, who told the select committee: “I support any statutory amendment which increases transparency and availability of information in the health and disability sector.”

Therefore, the Māori Party congratulates Dr Blue once again on bringing such an important issue to the House, and we are happy to support the recommendation of the Health Committee that the bill not be passed, confident in the fact that its intentions will still be honoured through another area. Kia ora.

Like other members of this House, I rise to speak to the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill, and I say I am very pleased with the outcome. Along with the other members who have already done so, I would like to congratulate Dr Jackie Blue on bringing this bill to the House. Despite the fact that every party will vote against the bill tonight, she has achieved a significant move forward in terms of openness, transparency, and accountability in our health sector, and it is long overdue. I will come to some examples in that area where we are sadly lacking, but I say that this move tonight is a very important one.

Just before I explore those issues, I will take a moment to say that I was quite astounded when the Labour member Sue Moroney stood up. She actually reminded me of a racehorse. I do not know how fast she can move, but members can picture racehorses with their blinkers on. Sue Moroney’s ideological blinkers are well and firmly on, are they not?

💬 Kate Wilkinson: She’s a trotter.

That is dead right. Those blinkers are well and truly in place, and people must have thought, on listening to her, that this Government has achieved great things in health. She seems to forget that since 1999 this Labour Government has actually achieved nothing in health. It has spent an extra $4.5 billion but has produced not one extra thing. In fact, the Government forgets that since 1999 we have had significant population growth. If we take into account population growth since 1999, then look at the extra spending in health and the result of that spending, we can see that we have moved backwards. That is not something that anybody in this House should be proud of.

So openness, transparency, and accountability are the winners here tonight. The Labour member Sue Moroney said District Health Boards New Zealand was a wonderful organisation, because of the advice and support that it has given to district health boards. Well, how would we know that? It has never been accountable and it has never been transparent. Who knows what actually happens behind those closed doors? It is shameful, in fact, that when District Health Boards New Zealand was set up it did not have responsibilities under the Official Information Act implicit in its operations in the first place.

It is all very well for Sue Moroney to stand up and say that Jackie Blue’s bill was useless. It was not useless; it has achieved a great victory here today. The bill is not useless, because when was this Government, which has now been in power for almost 9 years, ever going to bring forward the regulation that is now coming before this House because of this bill? It was never going to do that. This Government does not want to know what happens in the health sector, because then it would have to be accountable for it. There are numerous examples of a lack of openness, a lack of transparency, and a lack of accountability, or whatever one wants to call it. Every party in this House, including Labour, which has not exhibited any of those qualities while in Government, likes to claim victory for them. The fact is that patients should be able to expect openness, transparency, and accountability, but they cannot.

I will highlight three examples of the way our health sector is certainly not open, transparent, or accountable. The first is that when I first came to Parliament I used to send off an Official Information Act request to Treasury every quarter, and ask for the productivity reports of the provider arms of the district health boards. Those were very enlightening reports. They looked at how much money had gone into the provider arms, and they tried to make some sort of assessment—it has never been easy—as to the productivity of those provider arms. The results were quite shocking. I went to do one of my regular Official Information Act requests about 2 years ago. The response came back that—guess what—those reports were no longer being done. A cynic might think that those reports had been stopped because the Government did not want me or anyone in the National Party to put out a press release, saying that productivity was down yet again—that population growth was up, but that productivity was down, and that the huge amounts of taxpayer money provided for health had gone, yet again, into a big black hole. We need to know in this House where that money goes. But, more important, patients who are sitting at home in pain, those who are sick and waiting for operations or treatment, and all those who are on waiting lists—waiting, waiting, waiting, forever—need to know exactly what the extra money that is being poured into the health sector on their behalf has actually achieved.

My second example is a finding in an OECD report that came out in 2005. It was a very thorough report that looked at the big areas of Government spending. Tucked away at the very back of the report was half a page on the New Zealand public health sector. Given that one in five dollars of taxpayer contributions goes into the health sector, one would think that the report would be more than half a page in length. But the conclusion that the OECD report writers came to was that there was insufficient documentation and insufficient information available, presumably from our Ministry of Health, for the OECD to be able to come to any conclusion about the state of New Zealand’s public health sector. I would contend that this Government should not be proud of that. We never hear about that OECD report—the Government does not want it to be publicised—but given that we are spending one in every five dollars of taxpayers’ money on health, we should have some idea of what those funds are being spent on.

My third example concerns waiting lists, and in particular waiting list exit categories. I also did a bit of research at the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005 about the exit categories from waiting lists. I was interested in the number of people who had been returned to their general practitioners, the number of people who had given up on the public sector and had gone privately, and the number of people who had died while they were on a waiting list, waiting for treatment. Those figures were quite staggering, particularly the figure for the deaths of patients on waiting lists. In the 2 years from 2002-04, the number of people who had died while waiting for a procedure on a public hospital waiting list increased by 40 percent. That sounded alarm bells in my head. I thought that could not be right, and I asked myself why, if the figure was correct, that increase was happening. Any responsible Government would have asked why that was happening and would have looked into the situation very thoroughly, because that figure is staggering and is worth investigating. But no, that did not happen.

There had previously been 10 exit categories, including patients who had been returned to a general practitioner’s care because the public hospital sector was not able to cope with the request, patients who had gone privately because the public sector was not able to provide a procedure or treatment, and patients who had died while on the waiting list. As a result of my publicising the fact that those deaths had increased by 40 percent, the Ministry of Health, instead of looking into the situation, decided—and I expect there was some input from the Minister’s office—to decrease the number of exit categories from 10 to four. The number of people returned to a general practitioner’s care, the number of people who had gone privately, and the number of deaths of people on waiting lists were all jumbled into one list, so that nobody could see exactly what was happening in our public health sector.

Those are three examples of the very reasons that Jackie Blue’s bill was needed, and that is why she has had a great victory on behalf of this Parliament today. As a result of this bill we will have a little more openness, transparency, and accountability in the health sector. This Government has a long, long way to go when we talk about those three things, but this bill is a step in the right direction. This entire House, instead of berating this move, should congratulate Jackie Blue tonight. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I rise to take a short call on the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill, and I do so in the knowledge that many members of the House tonight have joined with me to congratulate Dr Jackie Blue. When one comes into Parliament as a new MP one hopes to achieve some change, and that is truly what Dr Jackie Blue has done with this bill—and quickly and easily. We heard the Minister of Health himself say that the Government has agreed with the intention of the bill. We know that the Governor-General has signed an Order in Council to amend schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act, to ensure that District Health Boards New Zealand is subject to the complaints jurisdiction of the Ombudsman from 3 September 2007. That is a victory, and an example of a member of Parliament getting things done and making things better.

Therefore, it was quite surprising to hear one of the members opposite, Sue Moroney, speak as if she was against this bill and did not agree with the intention of the bill. It made me wonder whether, in fact, she was speaking as a member of the Government team. She is maybe a little bit confused. When that member talked about “openness” and accused the National Party of all manner of dreadful things, it occurred to me that openness is perhaps something she should reflect on very closely.

Let me tell members that not so long ago the Labour women’s caucus visited my electorate of Aoraki and spoke with a number of people there. The newspaper recorded those members’ views on how the health system was being dealt with in South Canterbury etc. Among the themes discussed behind closed doors was one that I am not sure all of the Government or even the Minister is aware of. It is my understanding—and it has been reported to me by more than one person—that Sue Moroney believes there is no need to have the South Canterbury District Health Board.

Let me tell members that that went down like the proverbial lead balloon. However, the “openness” of that member did not extend to her discussing it with the Timaru Herald reporter. That is unfortunate perhaps, because it certainly would have helped my cause in getting re-elected next time. Her view certainly would not be something the local people would be happy about. That is not my agenda, but it most certainly may be the Labour Government’s agenda. It would be interesting for the Minister to take a call and answer that question.

The Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill is in the interests of the public. The public deserves access to that information. It deserves the knowledge that that organisation is accountable and has transparency and openness. I wonder whether the reason that both the Auckland District Health Board and the Canterbury District Health Board have left District Health Boards New Zealand in recent times—I have not seen it written down anywhere; they have not told me this, but I just wonder—is in part because there is no place to hide any more, so why bother with it. They are both very big district health boards, and perhaps for that reason they can do without the purposes of District Health Boards New Zealand. I want to touch on those purposes, because it will underline the reasons why it is so important that District Health Boards New Zealand is transparent, is accountable, and shows openness.

In the 2005-06 year there were six areas for specific portfolio development within District Health Boards New Zealand. They were really important areas. In the area of primary health, the purposes were to continue implementation and build capability. In the area of sector productivity and value for money, the purpose was to build the framework and sector capability. In the area of service planning and coordination, the purpose was to further develop and apply the framework developed in 2004-05. In the area of health for older people, the purpose was to build joint activity with the ministry and district health boards to implement the strategy for health for older people. In the area of supplies efficiency, the purpose was to implement targeted initiatives with high returns on investment. That is about saving New Zealanders money. That is about saving the Government money—saving the taxpayers of New Zealand money. In an area called “inter-sectoral”, the purpose was to build a way of working and a development framework through specific projects and examples. These are all very important tasks, important things that District Health Boards New Zealand did, so it is no wonder that it produced many reports, and New Zealanders in general and people like members of Parliament wanted to have access to information about them.

As I said, this is just a brief call on my part. I want to underline that members have joined together to congratulate Dr Jackie Blue on bringing this bill before Parliament, and on achieving something in a short time. I congratulate the Minister on acknowledging that in his address to the House tonight. This is really a good-news story.

Although a member of the Health Committee, I was not going to take a call on this slight and insubstantial Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill, because I really thought the bill merely served as a warning for members new to the House to first breathe through their noses and try very simple tactics like a letter to a Minister. That is a very useful tactic that new members could think about.

But I sit in the House and I listen as the conspiracy theorists in the National Party roll themselves out once again. They seem to be riding high again in their speeches on this bill. Or should I say the fiction writers of the National Party, the hollow men of the National Party. Suddenly, it appears that District Health Boards New Zealand is being portrayed by the other side of the House as the Voldemort of the health world. Next thing we will have Draco Malfoy and the Death Eaters appearing from the other side of the House. I am moved to get to my feet and say that that portrayal from the other side of the House is just wrong. This is an insubstantial bill.

District Health Boards New Zealand is an organisation I had a bit to do with in my former life as deputy chair of a health board. It is a good organisation of which Labour members are proud. It is about collaborative and collegial operations. It is about coordination. It is about good people—many of whom I worked with in a former life—who lead health boards by working together and actually achieving very good results. It is all about delivering public health and putting the people back into public health. Those are things that the people opposite do not seem to know a lot about. That is quite different from the competitive, dog-eat-dog business model that the members on the other side of the House seemed to think was their only one-trick pony in the 1990s.

That reminds me that the members on the other side of the House still have only one trick, and it is called a tax cut. We all know very well exactly what their plans for the tax cut would do to the health system, which we have spent the last 8 years rebuilding, after they spent the 1990s breaking down the infrastructure; closing hospitals; instituting secretive, appointed health boards; bringing in bed-night charges; and mismanaging, through a series of failed health Ministers with names like Mr English and Mrs Shipley, disaster after disaster in the health system.

The fact is that this bill was unnecessary. The Government found a way to achieve the same end by a simple Order in Council. [Interruption] Those members should listen very carefully. An Order in Council was passed on 9 July and will come into effect from 3 September. The fact is the current health system actually prides itself on transparency, and on increasing transparency. Targets and reporting are open under this very good health Minister, and with elected health boards in place, unlike in the past under the last National Government, when there were Crown health enterprises, or “CHEs”, and other such strange beasts. Of course, there will be plenty of times when District Health Boards New Zealand is not able to provide the information requested, simply because it does not hold it or because it is commercially sensitive. But a simple Order in Council was all that was needed to make it possible.

This slight and insubstantial bill—which is a bit like the party opposite who put it forward and continues to promote it, jumping from insubstantial cloud to insubstantial cloud—was always an unnecessary bill. We will be voting against it because there was always a sensible way forward on this matter, which the Labour Government found.

I will take a very brief call. I say to the members opposite that I think there has been a very positive outcome for the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill. Let me be gracious in acknowledging that.

Even though I have been in this Parliament for a number of years, I still find it very hard to deal with the lack of memory that is apparent opposite. Those members are members of a party that closed the health boards and dismissed their democratically elected members, and they come here and talk about democracy and openness. I find that personally very, very hard to take. The “h” word comes immediately to mind. But let me be gracious. I say to Jackie Blue that she should read the history of the 1990s. She may even have been there! I say to Dr Jonathan Coleman that he should read the history of the 1990s if he wants to learn about closed doors and the dismissal of democratic community accountability.

But I am being gracious. I congratulate the Health Committee and the member, Dr Jackie Blue, on the very positive outcome for this bill, and nothing more needs to be said.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.