General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It all started so well. The freshly elected Government came in. Bill English went to John Key and said: “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to do something for the poor, the indigent, and the hard up, for whom we’ve done nothing for so long.” So he turned up here and said: “What about relief of poverty? Yep, we’ll do that. What about the poor people at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who need a big screen and a new reception desk?”. That was ticked off as well. “What about trade deals for the Middle East? We’ve got one little farm in the middle of the desert with no sheep on it. Yeah, we’ll tick that off as well.” And then they came to housing—then they came to housing—because they have run the housing stock down and they have got people living in poor-quality housing. Bill English said: “Please, we’ve got to do something about housing.” Prime Minister John Key, because he does not like to think little, said: “Yep, we’ll go big on housing. We won’t have one Minister; we’ll have three Ministers, and half a dozen associates if we have to have them. And we will make housing the centrepiece of our Government for the foreseeable future.” Then they appointed Nick Smith to run the programme, and that is where it all started to unravel.

That is where it started to unravel because Nick Smith was left in charge of the most pressing housing issues: out-of-control Auckland house prices, poor-quality rentals—a whole range of things. He was given the job of fixing it all up. And so he started. He had ignored the problem for several months to begin with. Pressed repeatedly by members of the Opposition about what he was doing about out-of-control house prices, he said: “What crisis of Auckland house prices? There isn’t one. What is the matter with them?”. “Somebody can afford the houses.”, he said. “Somebody can afford expensive houses. Oh, they’re all affordable.”, he said. Then he was pressed into actually having to do something. Desperation turned to panic, and he has not stopped panicking since, so that is where he is stuck now. He signed up councils for special housing areas—it was a couple of years ago that the Government did that. Thousands of houses were promised. The Prime Minister said yesterday that 8,500 houses had been built, and then he found the truth: it was 170 houses. Two years on, and there are 170 houses for a city that needs 20,000 houses a year just to catch up. So those members got that wrong as well.

Then those members said: “Oh, we will sort out the out-of-control house prices. We’ll introduce a brightline test for the people who are buying more than one house. We’ll make it for 2 years.” And so what did the property speculators all say? “Don’t worry, we’ll sell them after 2 years.”, so that is not going to work. Then they said: “OK, we accept that non-resident foreign buyers are a problem, so we’ll give them a couple of hurdles to leap, and that will get them out of the market.” But the two hurdles were non-resident foreign buyers having a bank account in New Zealand and an IRD number. They can get them online just about. That is no hurdle at all. Then those members got to the serious end of the business—the serious end of the business. They accepted finally that they had to build more houses more quickly—housing supply. And they were not just any houses; they had to be affordable—let us give them that. They understood that they had to build affordable housing. So Nick Smith stumbled on the idea of a State-led house-building programme, and he has not stopped stumbling since. He has not stopped stumbling since.

Unfortunately, a whole number of missteps and mishaps occurred to this “Minister of Outstanding Achievements”. It did not help that the plan was leaked. But leaks happen; we all know that. Then those members announced that there were 500 hectares. Remember? “Five hundred hectares—we’ve got land to burn. We’re going to build houses like you haven’t seen before.” Then they discovered that some of that land had power substations on it and that some had cemeteries. One area of land was earmarked for a motorway on-ramp. They cannot build on that one, so that was ditched. Then Nick Smith said: “Right, I’ve got the journalists. They’re interested. I’ve got ’em on my side. We’ll take ’em on the bus. We’ll ram a filled roll down their throats and say we’ve fed them, and we’ll show them the land.” So he showed them 30 hectares—30 hectares of land. Then it turned out that it was not his land to trade away. The local iwi had rights over the land, so that plan then turned to custard as well. Then he denied that the iwi had any rights at all. He told the Prime Minister “No, Prime Minister, they have no rights at all.” at the same time that he was going around saying to the iwi “We’ll give you right of first refusal.”

What sort of Minister is this? What sort of Minister is this? So they had to concede: “Listen, it was all just a guesstimate. It is all just a concept plan. We are not really sure what we are doing. We do not know which way it is going to go.” But he does have one redeeming quality, Nick Smith. He is a man of great foresight. Seeing his fate as a Minister, he recently went bush with Maurice Williamson and started playing like a possum and like road kill. Here he is in this photo, in his natural habitat. Road kill: that is our Minister of Building and Housing.

The first line in that speech was “It all started so well”, and in the end that is the line that is going to sum up Andrew Little’s leadership, because that was a pathetic speech. If you are a Labour supporter out there, watching on TV, you will be deeply disappointed. That man is the leader of the Labour Party and in no way was that a Labour Party leader’s speech, and those guys over there know it.

You know, there is a lot going on today. There is some big stuff, but what is Labour focusing on? The minutiae—the stuff that nobody cares about. OK, housing is very important. No question about that. Do not forget that Andrew Little is opposed to a capital gains tax. So what does that mean for Labour’s caucus? Do you think David Parker and David Cunliffe are going to fall in behind him? Frankly, on policy those guys opposite are now absolutely fractured.

I am very disappointed that on a day that is incredibly important to the people of Otago and Southland, when we have put in a commissioner to turn round a dire financial situation, the Labour leader does not have the quickness of mind, the quickness on his feet, or the intellectual flexibility to deliver a speech that would make some real difference to people in that region. Well, I can tell you: on health, that is a battleground that Labour is no longer prepared to fight, because it has lost on health.

We have got a situation in the Southern District Health Board of worsening deficits over many years. The financial forecasting has gone out the window. I could not rely on those figures any longer. After a very considered period I took the step to announce today that we are installing a commissioner, supported by two deputy commissioners, into the Southern District Health Board. Why that is important is that the people of Otago and Southland deserve high-quality health services, and, actually, until we can have confidence in the finances, we can have no confidence that those services will be delivered in the long term. We are totally committed to rebuilding Dunedin Hospital, but it is very important that we have the governance arrangements that can implement the strategic plan that is laid out. We need to know, actually, what the configuration of services will be, before we can build the hospital. But that hospital absolutely will be built, under National.

In terms of Otago and Southland—the southern region—we have put in an extra $135 million over 7 years, and many, many more doctors and nurses. The definition of a deficit is not underfunding; it is all about sensibly using the money that you are given. So what I say to those members there is that, actually, $800 million - plus for Otago-Southland—for the Southern District Health Board—is a lot of money. We are now relying on the commissioner, whom I have a great deal of faith in, to reconfigure those services to deliver positively for the people of Otago and Southland.

I am really disappointed when you look at what Labour is focusing on. Clare Curran, the MP for Dunedin South—do you know what she has had on her Twitter feed since it became knowledge that we were going to announce a commissioner? Well, there have been seven attacks on the Australian Government, three tweets in favour of Edward Snowden, and only one tweet, retweeted from Annette King, about the Southern District Health Board—and the Southern District Health Board is a big issue.

I am glad that we have support across the House for installing a commissioner. I know it is very tempting for everyone to play politics with that. I know that that is going to prove irresistible for some, but people like the MP for Dunedin North need to get behind the commissioner or get out of the way. Actually Opposition MPs can be a very constructive part of the solution down there, and it is going to be very important that we support Kathy Grant, Richard Thomson, and Graham Crombie as the commissioning team.

We are not being political about this. Richard Thomson, a well-known Labour Party member, and previously chair of the district health board down there—I do not care. He is the right guy to put in there for the job. We have got the best people there to turn round the health services and the finances, for the people of the Southern District Health Board. This is a very considered decision we have made today, but it had to be made. I think the future will be good, given that the commissioner has a big task in front of her. Thank you.

So soon this has become a smug, arrogant Government, prepared to covertly lean on the media because it cannot stand the heat. It is very clear that the Māori Party decided to ring up Māori Television because members did not want to front with a New Zealand First person on the panel. The reason is, of course, that we know what they are up to, and we said from the word “go” that they were not going to be a success. Although they might have sucked the National members into it, they are going to fall with them as well.

There is also a story up in the North, and what the story says is that there is gold in those wetlands of Northland. How did the Hon Judith Collins describe the place where swamp kauri comes from? “I don’t like wetlands—they’re swamps.”, she exclaimed, on TV3 last year. “I don’t like wetlands—they’re swamps.” No doubt, there are a few on the backbenches of National wondering what this has got to do with Judith Collins. If you were talking about Oravida Kauri, they would more likely answer: “We like wetlands—they’re goldmines.” The unlawful mining of swamp kauri is a practice that is robbing Northland and robbing New Zealand, but robbing is a trait that this Government has perfected into an art form, while the same officials who run “honesty box” biosecurity allow precious ancient timber to be exported whilst almost zero added value occurs for Northland and for New Zealand. Plus there is the environmental despoliation in so many cases.

This is incompetence built upon a rort that must stop, and New Zealand First calls upon the Government to stop turning a blind eye and start enforcing the law that we already have and that is capable of doing the job, if the Minister but did his job. This is like the Wild West, and it is no wonder. In 2012 the Northern Advocate, which is the paper at Whangarei, wrote that if swamp kauri averaged $71.66 a superfoot in old money, ancient swamp kauri the size of Tane Mahuta would be worth $7 million—just the one.

💬 Ron Mark: How much?

Seven million dollars. In 2012 the manager of Oravida—it keeps on coming back, does it not? It will never go away. I mean, you can be in the women’s magazine. You can be putting yourself out there, in a rather trashy, American way. It is the kind of distinguished thing that New Zealand First would never sink to: going in the magazines and holding your private life out there because she is on a mission to get back. But I am telling those colleagues over there that there is more. Anyway, the manager of Oravida Kauri’s Ruakākā yard confirmed that by the end of 2012 it would have 2,800 tonnes of swamp kauri harvested. In today’s dollars that is $71 million.

This is serious money, breeding serious illegality, because in law swamp kauri must be turned into a finished item before it is exported.

💬 Alfred Ngaro: All the drama.

Now, there is no use in Alfred Ngaro—who should understand these things, who should understand the cultural significance of what I am talking about, let alone the environmental matters—thinking it is a drama. It is a drama, all right. It will be a real drama by the time we are finished. This is serious money, breeding serious illegality, because in law swamp kauri must be turned into a finished item before it is exported. The Forests Act 1949 defines “finished” as being a manufactured wood product in its final state that is ready to be installed or used for its intended purpose. We are talking furniture, picture frames, and, yes, even carvings. It is important to understand, and the people of Northland know this, that dressed or rough-sawn timber is not—I repeat, not—a finished or manufactured product. So how can the Minister for Primary Industries, the Minister of Conservation, and the Minister for Māori Development class a raw log with shallow chiselled Māori carvings or titivated surface decorations as a finished product? The Minister for Primary Industries got up in the House today, and he is out there talking to the media right now. The fact that a kaumātua blessed some of these logs is totally irrelevant. There is always a kaumātua for sale if the price is right. Members opposite would not know what a kaumātua was if they fell over one. The one log cleared by both the Ministry for Primary Industries and AsureQuality as being a finished carving got the export tick to go to Fuzhou Yima Trading Company in China. In short, to conclude, there is an almighty rort going on with private products, right under the Government’s nose, but because it has Chinese friends and a former Minister’s husband who are involved, it will not raise a finger. Well, we are going to raise the roof.

One of the more challenging aspects of delivering better public services for New Zealand is that from time to time Governments need to make really tough decisions, and today has been one of those days. I want to applaud Dr Coleman, our Minister of Health, for the difficult decision that he has made to appoint commissioners to the Southern District Health Board, an organisation that I know very well having worked there, albeit it quite some time ago. I want to start my intervention by applauding those many thousands of hard-working staff of the Southern District Health Board, the regional hospitals, and the contractors to the delivery of health services in the south because they do a fantastic job for our people, but there is a problem. There is a problem of financial viability that, as the Minister said, is very longstanding. During the period from my last year at Dunedin Hospital, in 1996, until my first year as a member of Parliament, the combined deficits of the Otago District Health Board were around $144 million. That sounds quite challenging in and of itself, but the budgeted deficits during that period were only half that. What has frustrated successive Ministers on both sides of the House is that successive returns to viability plans have been tabled and not adhered to. So what is really important now is that there be a circuit breaker, and I think that is what the appointment of commissioners will do.

I was very pleased, albeit not surprised, to note the Minister of Health’s commitment to the rebuilding of the clinical services block and the hospital in the foreseeable future. What is very important, however, is that those decisions on the configuration and the timing of the rebuild are matters for clinicians and health building designers not politicians. I counsel Dr Clark, whose advocacy I admire—I have no problem with that—against the political rhetoric around the rebuilding of that hospital, which, as I know from experience, is a very, very complex process.

I want to defend and applaud this Government’s response to the support for the Southern District Health Board. In the best of times, when the so-called surpluses were many and plentiful, Labour did nothing about Dunedin Hospital. It built a Chinese garden but it cannot rebuild a hospital. The previous Minister of Health and current spokesman on health in Labour has heavily criticised the fact that the windows in the operating theatre are leaking. Well, I have got news for Mrs King. They have been doing that for years and she ignored it when Labour had an excellent opportunity. Then when finances were tight and this Government had straitened times, the commitment to all of our district health boards and in particular the southern one was maintained. The results are emphatic: a 30 percent increase in elective surgery throughput and reductions in waiting times for cancer treatment and emergency department.

The worst part of Dunedin Hospital was the neonatal intensive care unit, which my youngest daughter spent some time in after she was born. I cannot believe the patience and good grace with which those workers spent years in terribly cramped and overcrowded conditions. It was this Government that rebuilt the neonatal intensive care unit, the children’s ward, and the acute mental health ward at Wakari Hospital. That is commitment. That is making sure that health services are maintained in straitened times and despite the financial challenges that the district health board faces.

I want to wish the very best for the commissioners, all three of whom I know very well. Kathy Grant, Graham Crombie, and Richard Thomson have a mountain of work to do and it is encouraging to me to know that the community is behind them and will wish them all the best as they go on that path to viability. Yes, there are discussions about population-based funding formulas and regional rural adjustors and things like that, but the simple fact is, and we in the south should know this better than anybody—those canny Scottish settlers have given that ethos of cutting our cloth to meet the need. We fix those problems not by ignoring the financial constraints that are set for the community. We live within those constraints and we make sure that we extract every ounce of value from every dollar allocated to the Southern District Health Board. That is the responsible thing to do, that is what the commissioners will do, and that is what I wish them all the very best in achieving.

Andrew Little is right. This Government did start off with a bit of a hiss and a roar and then, as happens with many third-term Governments, arrogant, out of touch, and out of touch with the community are the themes that start creeping in. Is it not interesting that on the day that Nick Smith is out on walkabout—out in never-never land or somewhere, out of the House, gone—the Government sacks the Southern District Health Board? On the same day as the cheese slides right off Nick Smith’s cracker—right off it: the same day. He is gone troppo: gone bush. I will tell you this: if ever a Minister exhibited the themes of arrogance and being out of touch, it is that member Nick Smith.

What a litany, what a political catastrophe that man’s career has been. God alone knows why the Prime Minister is so benevolent—in fact, a number of Prime Ministers—as to put him back into Cabinet. Nick Smith is the man who in 1999 had his first defamation case and lost. He is the man who in 2003—and, as I say again, that was a time when the cheese did slip off the cracker; his headlights were on dim as he wandered through life—lasted as deputy leader of the National Party for a long 21 days. Then we hit 2005, the second defamation case—he lost again. Then in 2010 we find out $270,000-odd of taxpayers’ money was spent on his legal defence. He then acquiesced to and settled those two defamation cases. He had to make a payout and an apology.

Then we go forward, of course, to 2012: sacked from Cabinet for gross impropriety in respect of ACC, and then he goes back into Cabinet as housing Minister. Then we have a whole series, month after month, week after week, of the claim that there is no housing crisis. Then in the Budget there was a rush of blood to the head. The lights went from dim to high beam really quickly—maybe the fuse was blown—“We’ll come up with a surplus land housing policy.” Yet again that was a complete debacle—I will not waste the time by relitigating the excellent chronology that my leader went through to evidence that fact—with the result, of course, that the iwi are now taking the Government to court. What a litany!

Then, of course, the ultimate irony, on a very serious note, was his response to the death of an infant, Emma-Lita Bourne. I will read the quote because he denied it, you will recall, in the House yesterday. He said on TV3’s The Paul Henry Show that “people dying from pneumonia in winter was ‘not new’.” He also said: “People have got unwell during winter, died from pneumonia and other illnesses for a very, very long time.” That is what he said, and that is what he denied in the House yesterday—he denied it in the House yesterday. That is an example not only of a Minister who is completely out of touch—possibly with reality, definitely with the community—but of a Minister who is so arrogant, so lacking in compassion that he would not even draw breath, breathe through his nose, nod to the family, nod to the loved ones and express some sort of remorse, some sort of compassion, some sort of sympathy. The best the Government can do today after it has sacked the board—coincidentally when, yet again, Nick Smith’s feet are firmly in the fire—is to talk about that and not actually address the issue. I just ask, in the high standards that the Prime Minister has for his Ministers—

💬 Hon David Parker: Theoretically.

—theoretically—what does this guy have to do to get sacked, and what does the country have to do to be put out of its misery of putting up with him? He has exhibited qualities of a person who should be nowhere near a Cabinet door—nowhere near a dunny door outside Cabinet, let alone Cabinet itself.

💬 Chris Bishop: Closer than you, mate.

If a person, Mr Bishop—and I suspect that member would not be as stupid or dispassionate as Dr Smith, as he grins—cannot give a little bit of compassion and acknowledge, as he is the responsible Minister, that perhaps his department could have done better, that perhaps his department was indeed, as the coroner said, partially, if not greatly, responsible as a contributing factor to that little girl’s death, then there is something very, very wrong. The Prime Minister and this Government should see Dr Smith for what he is: an example of where this Government is going right off the rails, is completely arrogant, and is out of touch with the community.

It is an honour and a privilege to speak in this general debate this afternoon. It follows from a morning that I spent out in Porirua with thousands of other supporters of rugby, and supporters of Jerry Collins and the Madill family, to celebrate a rugby legend—to celebrate a young boy from Porirua who made good. We were there to celebrate certainly a gift from Porirua to our nation, and that was Jerry Collins.

We all know that Jerry Collins was brutal, tough, and uncompromising on the rugby field, but we also know that off the rugby field he was humble, he had a sense of fun, he was loyal, and he was a family man. He represented this country with great ability and achievement in 48 tests over his career.

💬 Tim Macindoe: And a proud Samoan.

Yes, he was a proud Samoan too, Mr Macindoe. The Pacific community revered him, upheld him, and uplifted this man, who did a lot, particularly for young Pacific males to look up and dream and aspire to, just like Jerry had done over those 34 years of his life.

La’auli Michael Jones, another legend, talked about him as being unique and as being spontaneous. His sister Brenda spoke of Jerry, who had big heart, as we all know. He had a lot of support, and our prayers and our thoughts continue to go out to Ayla, the child of Alana and Jerry—both of whom, sadly, passed away 12 days ago—as she recovers in a hospital in France.

We remember Jerry. We remember Alana. May I say to Jerry, ia manuia lau malaga. Our thoughts, prayers, and sympathies go to his family and to her family.

Today, as Jerry Collins demonstrated with his ability and his leadership on the rugby paddock, the Hon Jonathan Coleman demonstrated his leadership in the health portfolio by making the difficult decision to replace the board of the Southern District Health Board and appoint a commissioner, Kathy Grant. She will take up that role in order to bring this institution back in line and bring it back from the financial distress it is currently under and to provide the quality health services that the people of Southland and the people of the southern districts demand.

I was in Invercargill last week, and though I was dealing with matters around the Department of Corrections, disability care, and ethnic communities, the subject of the local district health board did come up. People were showing some concern about that, and they have shown concern for a great period of time. Today’s decision, I think, brings some of those concerns and those apprehensions to an end, and puts in place a process and a team. Alongside Kathy Grant will be Graham Crombie and Richard Thomson as deputies, and a third deputy with a strong clinical background is expected to be announced later this month. That team will lead the Southern District Health Board back into the black, back into surplus, and back to delivering the quality services that we expect—not just those people in the south but all New Zealanders. So today is about taking over the improvement of that district health board.

Health is very important to New Zealanders. Health is one of those fundamental portfolios, alongside education, law and order, and jobs, that New Zealanders demand and expect from their Government. They expect services and they expect leadership, and that is why, as an Associate Minister of Health, I welcome the decision that the Hon Jonathan Coleman has made. It is an important decision to take a step forward, with this district health board having taken several steps backwards over the years. So although it is disappointing that the district health board failed in its duties, we are confident that the commissioners who are going to take over the operations and the governance of this district health board will do the job we expect them to do.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to start my speech in the general debate by acknowledging the passing of economist and former secretary of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Peter Conway. It was his funeral this morning, and I have just come back from it. Peter was a kind, loving, and gentle man. He devoted his life to social justice. I think that he would have actually appreciated and approved of the bill that I launched today. It is designed to amend the Immigration Act to increase the refugee quota to 1,000 refugees, plus or minus 5 percent. This bill has been lodged, and although I recognise that the refugee quota can be raised currently by regulation, that requires the will of the Government, and at this stage that will is missing. A member’s bill is the only means I have to attempt to compel the Government into taking action on refugee quotas.

A former Prime Minister of this country with razor sharp wit, David Lange, once said that New Zealand was a country of insurmountable opportunity—basically, a place where many of us have the opportunity to thrive. Interestingly, David Lange was the Prime Minister the last time the refugee quota was raised, and that was in 1987—28 years ago. Since then, we have offered that opportunity to thrive to only 750 refugees per year, despite the fact that in 28 years our population has increased by roughly 40 percent. Basically, over that period we have nearly halved the number of refugees we take on a per capita basis. We take only 750 refugees from a total of over 50 million refugees worldwide, and that is the largest number since the end of the Second World War. Yes, it is a big problem. But, yes, we can do our fair share to support these people who have been displaced, who have endured war, who have endured civil disruption, and who have actually faced death many times over. These are the people who are desperately seeking a safe haven, a place to live—not just a refugee camp, which is a place to survive, but a place to live and a place simply to thrive.

There are people who would give the world to settle here in New Zealand, and many of them actually do give everything they have. By taking so few refugees, we are failing in our obligations as humanitarian global citizens. We are 88th in the world in terms of refugees per capita. Even Australia takes roughly five times more per capita then we do. I do not think that we should think this is generous of Australia, given its appalling treatment of asylum seekers in camps in Nauru and its appalling, inhumane, and illegal treatment of people arriving by boat seeking asylum and basically paying off the people smugglers. Before we think that Australia is generous by taking five times our refugee quota, we should look to the Scandinavian countries, which take 20 times more than we do, and that is on a per capita basis.

Increasing the quota will cost—of course it will. Based on the information that I have received from the Minister’s office, it would be about $19.2 million over 3 years, but this is a tiny fraction of the Government’s budget. When we think about how much we are spending on a referendum on a flag, I think we have actually got our priorities wrong. More and more New Zealanders want us to raise the quota. Organisations like Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and the Refugee Council want us to double it. Actually, even Newstalk ZB, with its poll, showed that the majority of New Zealanders who answered the poll want to see the quota raised. This Government is out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders, who want to take a compassionate approach to ensuring that refugees can come to New Zealand. We can increase the quota. It is a life and death situation for most of them, and we have it in our hands to make life better for them.

If we needed an illustration of how important good public services are for the lives of New Zealanders, then I think the events around the Southern District Health Board’s non-performance over the past few years absolutely illustrates and confirms this Government’s push and very strong focus on providing good public services. Today’s letter by the Minister of Health, the Hon Jonathan Coleman, to the Southern District Health Board, replacing it with commissioners, is the circuit-breaker that we have been looking for and that we have needed down south in the Southern District Health Board area.

I commend the Minister for his approach to this worrying situation, which has been developing over the previous months and years. It has been particularly worrying not only for the people of Dunedin and Invercargill but for the people of Central Otago and also North Otago. The reason for that is that the two rural hospitals, Dunstan Hospital and Ōāmaru Hospital, have contracts for services with the district health board. If you talk about the people of those areas, Ōāmaru is an area in North Otago with a fairly static population, an ageing population, but we also have a number of new people coming into our communities as a result of employment opportunities. Central Otago, on the other hand, is an area of growth. It also has its fair share of older folk there with their particular needs, but it is experiencing strong growth.

I met, many years ago now, a young woman who lived at Lake Hāwea. She was pregnant and was concerned about her pregnancy because she was one of those to whom it was signalled that she would probably have to go to Dunedin for the birth of her child. The implications of that were very stark. If one were to look at the Stuff website, one would see that there is a bad weather and snow warning for all of Central Otago and much of the south. What that would mean is that if you were having a planned birth at Dunedin Hospital, from Hāwea, you would almost have to set up the day before. We are very remote down south. We are very remote from the base hospitals of Dunedin and Invercargill, which is why it is so very important to maintain the capability and the funding to both Dunstan and Ōāmaru hospitals. We are remote.

💬 Dr David Clark: Her hospital’s underfunding. That’s why they are facing cuts.

It is really disappointing when the Opposition members choose to treat such a serious issue as an opportunity for political gain. Quite apart from the fact that they are just wrong, the issues are very important to all of Dunedin, and I do hope that that member chooses to take them a little more seriously in the future.

The rural health services review that was undertaken by the district health board over the past couple of years promised to be an opportunity to provide better services for those hospitals of Dunstan and Ōāmaru, but also Balclutha, of course, and Ranfurly. The board promised to take a more modern view and more modern look at how we provide health services for that woman living in Lake Hāwea, or for the person who is experiencing a cardiac event in Wānaka or Ōāmaru and needs specialist health services. It is entirely feasible these days for health services to be provided out at the rural hospitals. If I can just reference the mobile health services—the surgical bus that travels around New Zealand delivering day surgeries to patients at those hospitals, providing a huge benefit in terms of convenience and cost, and with greater health outcomes, because those patients do not have to travel. That is the future. That is the future of rural health services.

I wish the commissioners—Kathy Grant, Graham Crombie, and Richard Thomson—the very best in their endeavours because I would like to see this as an opportunity to have another look not just at reducing the deficit, and not just at a better delivery of health services to all people within the district health board area, but as an opportunity to look at how we deliver health services better in the future.

Talofa lava, Mr Assistant Speaker. First of all, I would like to honour and acknowledge Jerry Collins, who had his funeral in Porirua earlier on this morning. I and a number of Labour MPs were there to celebrate his life. Manuia Iou Malaga Jerry.

This Government has failed to deliver on the brighter future that it promised us. Seven years ago it promised us that it would deliver a Budget surplus; we have still not seen that. It has lost its way, and it is stumbling from one disaster to another. It is now dealing with incompetence—for instance, how it is dealing with the Tāmaki Collective and Ngāti Whātua over Crown land in Auckland and how it is dealing with Relationships Aotearoa. And one of my very own constituents, 2-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne—may she rest in peace—died last year due in part to the incompetence of this Government. There are many examples of where this Government has lost its way and of where it fails to prioritise what is actually important—that is, New Zealand children and their families.

This Government has spent $11 million on sheep for a businessman in Saudi Arabia. It has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment signs, on a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment rock, and, we heard today, on a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment desk. The Government has wasted $26 million on the flag referendum, which a lot of people tell us they do not really want. This Government has not even passed health and safety legislation following the deaths of 29 New Zealanders at Pike River. Then there is the housing crisis, which brings me to where I would like to focus today, which is on the tragic death of 2-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne.

In his report, the coroner found that Emma-Lita Bourne’s death, in Ōtara, was partly a result of the cold, damp, mouldy State house that she lived in. This is a damning indictment on this Government. The State house did not even have any carpets. It was not insulated. And the State departments that the family dealt with were told many, many times of the ill health that this toddler was suffering from, as well as that of one of her siblings who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Mr English stated that Housing New Zealand insulates all of its properties where practicable. I think that the Government needs to explain to the Bourne family the reasons why it was not practicable to insulate the State house that the Bourne family lived in and why it was not practicable to move the family. They asked many times to be moved from this State house to another house that would have been fit for them to live in. Why was it not practicable to move them until after the tragic death of this child?

I went door-knocking during the adjournment last week, including along the particular street in Ōtara where Emma-Lita Bourne lived. I tell you, it breaks my heart to see some of these State houses and the conditions that some of these families are living in still. Some of their houses are not insulated. It is actually colder inside the houses than outside the houses. I spoke with some of the neighbours who lived next to Emma-Lita Bourne, who actually recalled seeing this toddler and how she used to play on the streets and at the public park right next door to her house. Only a few days after Emma-Lita Bourne’s death, we were also informed of another father of six who lived in Papakura, and his death was also, according to the coroner’s report, because of the incompetence of this Government and the condition of the State house that he lived in.

I would like, actually, to point to the quote from the Hon Nick Smith when he was interviewed on TV3 on Paul Henry’s programme. Nick Smith is quoted, after the death of Emma-Lita Bourne, as saying: “People dying from pneumonia in winter is not new. People have got unwell during winter, died from pneumonia and other illnesses for a very, very long time”. This is a very, very insensitive quote right after a death. The tragic death of Ōtara’s Emma-Lita Bourne, as well as that of the father of six Mr Tovo, is indeed the fault of this Government, and the Government has a moral obligation to do everything that it can to stop its houses from contributing to the deaths of its tenants. Thank you.

Just before I call the member, I am going to ask the Hon Paula Bennett to speak just a little bit more quietly when other members are speaking, especially about serious topics. Thank you.

The Salvation Army’s report into the state of the nation in 2008 expressed incredible disappointment that the investment that was being made in social services and care for people was not producing the result that it hoped. There are challenges that New Zealanders face and that Governments face all the time, so laying everything at the feet of the Government is an easy blame game to play. I would just suggest that the previous speaker, Jenny Salesa, go back and read that report from the Salvation Army regarding her Government at that time and consider the words that were said.

What we need to understand is that during the most difficult of times that this nation faced financially the health budget in this country continued to be increased year after year. If you go back to 2012, and if you look at what was happening in, for example, Ireland, it cut out $200 million of its health budget at a time when we increased ours by 3.4 percent. Ireland ended up with an $800 million deficit and many health professionals lost their jobs. It was a time when we, as we have done year after year after year, increased health spending, increased accessibility for elective surgery, increased the number of doctors and nurses and midwives, and we have made it possible for hard-to-staff places like rural Taranaki to have access to health professionals through our bonding scheme. At a time when things were very tough around the world, out of all of the 27 countries that the OECD measured, we were third-highest for health funding. So the rhetoric we hear today does not have any data or facts behind it. It is political bias and it is misinformation.

What we understand is that New Zealanders need to have confidence in whoever governs their country. We have been returned for a third term, and that is not a statement of arrogance, as other people would say. It is just the fact that New Zealanders have had confidence in this Government and, principally, it is because of the gains that we have seen achieved over a number of years in the face of great challenge and great difficulty. We have seen more children involved in early childhood education. We have seen more people receive surgery. We have seen more doctors and nurses be trained and be involved in the health profession. We have seen many, many achievements, and that is why today the Minister of Health has decided to put commissioners into the Southern District Health Board, because the gains that we expect for the benefit of New Zealanders and the taxpayer are not being seen in that district health board.

Health budgets are under pressure all around the world and in this country. We in Taranaki have had the tremendous advantage of having a new hospital built. From all the accounts that I hear from people who have gone into that hospital for surgery and appointments, the facility and design itself have facilitated a far higher ability to offer health care and get more people to that place and receive the benefit of that hospital. All of that is absolutely necessary, and if we want to see New Zealanders cared for in such a way that we desire, then in order to have those efficiencies and those modern buildings we have got to have strong financial management of this economy. By and large I think that is what New Zealanders have seen in this Government. They are seeing the benefits of prudence. They are seeing the benefits of discipline. They are seeing the benefits when the Prime Minister made a whole list of Better Public Services targets and the work that we have done to achieve them. Thank you.

You cannot have a healthy population unless you have a healthy environment and the National Government’s hands-behind-its-back approach to the logging and mining of swamp kauri in Northland is all about promoting an unhealthy environment of extracting the maximum commercial advantage from nature without any care about the consequences. It is really State-sponsored negligence by both the Government and the Ministry for Primary Industries in allowing quite blatant breaches of the Forests Act and the illegal export of these ancient kauri logs, which can be tens of thousands of years old. The Forests Act 1949 was amended in 1993 after a long campaign by the public to protect indigenous forests. It was amended to ensure quite strict controls on the export of indigenous timber and timber products and there are prohibitions in the Forests Act on the export of indigenous timber unless it is in a manufactured or finished form. Those controls were put in place to recognise that our indigenous forests, whether they are standing trees or whether they are buried in wetlands in Northland, are finite, that they are vulnerable to overexploitation if the timber can be exported and a larger market created, and that they should be carefully managed because of their value to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Some of these trees would have fallen at the end of the last Ice Age. They have remained buried in wetlands. Some of them are fairly intact because they are not exposed to the air. They have got a value as taonga, as Dover Samuels and others have called them, and, yet, under this Government the Ministry for Primary Industries is turning a blind eye to the export of whole ancient kauri logs. That is because ancient swamp kauri has a reputation as being one of the oldest timbers able to be worked in the world and it has got a huge value in places like China, where it can sell for anything between $2,000 and $10,000 a cubic metre. So what we have seen is a gold rush mentality over the last decade because of these very high prices for the timber and that has led to industrial-scale mining of the buried kauri forest in areas around Dargaville, Kaitāia, and throughout the north.

It is only in Northland that we get these buried kauri forests. They are finite yet the Government is just closing its eyes to the plundering of wetlands and the plundering of these forests. Judith Collins says she does not care about wetlands. That is because her husband’s company Oravida is too interested in taking the swamp kauri from these wetlands. But wetlands have been hugely reduced in New Zealand. We are down to less than 10 percent of their former extent. We should be protecting our wetlands under the Resource Management Act; not having local councils also being irresponsible and allowing them to be dug up with huge bulldozers and earth-moving equipment.

It has been the work of citizens in Northland, and groups like the Northland Environmental Protection Society, and the far north branch of Forest and Bird, which has exposed the scandal that is going on here. They have sought numerous requests under the Official Information Act and the work that the Northland Environmental Protection Society has done shows that of the 53 notices of intention to export that were filed with the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2013, 81 percent of those notices were missing quite substantial information about the milling statements and the source of the timber. In the Forests Act there is an absolute prohibition on native timber being sourced from indigenous forest land or dug up from wetlands and then being exported. So it is really important that the Ministry for Primary Industries knows the source of the swamp kauri, and yet when this information is missing from the notice of export statements, how can it know that?

The Minister was saying earlier in the House that there is close monitoring, yet I understand that the Ministry for Primary Industries often requires only a photograph of the area to be logged or a map. It is not actually sending its staff out on-site to determine where the kauri is coming from. And then we have this prohibition on the export of logs and the export of anything over than finished or manufactured products. Yet what are we finding? On websites like Alibaba there are a number of advertisements for logs. What we are seeing is big planks of swamp kauri that are rough-sawn timber that have had a brief bit of stain applied to them. Those are being exported as table tops. The Ministry for Primary Industries needs to actually enforce the Act and prohibit these log exports.

Thank you for the ability to make a contribution to this general debate. I just want to make one remark before I start, and that is for the Opposition members who wanted to have a snap debate on an issue as important as the Minister of Health’s decision to put a commissioner into the Southern District Health Board. The Opposition has not really made much of a mention of that issue over the last hour or so, so I thought I would start off my contribution by just clarifying a few points that were raised. Firstly, with regard to the Southern District Health Board, I think I would like to congratulate the Minister on taking this decision. I know it is about the third time in the past 3 decades a decision like this has been taken. It is not taken on a light basis. I think that it has been, from what I have heard from my constituents, welcomed by the community, particularly the rural health centres—

💬 Dr David Clark: How about the cuts in the member’s electorate? Are they welcomed?

Actually, while we are talking about cuts, the total funding to the Southern District Health Board is at a level of about $852 million. There has been an increase of $134 million over the last 7 years, including $15 million last year. There are 66 more doctors, 195 more nurses, and 2,557 more elective surgeries—a 30 percent increase since 2008. So while we are talking about the data, it is looking pretty good from this side.

But I would just like to reinforce the point that health is a sensitive topic and it is something on top of the mind for everybody. I think that our community, certainly, would like to reinforce the support behind the Government, and the Minister of Health in particular, for taking this step. I would like to offer my personal optimism for Southland and Otago and the confidence that I have on behalf of my electorate for Kathy Grant and her team, and I look forward to working with her in the near future. It is a project that she has willingly taken on board that will not be a short-term fix, but she is more than qualified, from all that I have heard of her expertise and background, to lead this through.

Seguing into the purpose of my speech: the Better Public Services, which are a key feature of this Government’s policies across the Public Service, are around actually putting people at the centre of policies and at the centre of the outcomes of public departments. That is actually a key feature of what the Minister of Health has done in this decision that he has announced today, unlike the Labour Party, which was more focused on making sure that Government departments kept getting more money each year with no real delivery in outcome. An example I will use is education. Over the 9 years when Labour was in Government it almost doubled spending on education with no real gain in achievement. We have increased spending in education by about 45 percent. The achievement rates, right from early childhood education participation to national standards participation to high school National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) levels 1, 2, and 3, are going up and up each year. It is through the remarkable contributions of Cabinet, and particularly Ministers working across the social sector portfolios—

💬 Chris Bishop: Hekia Parata.

The Hon Hekia Parata, the Hon Anne Tolley, the Hon Nikki Kaye—these are real people who are looking across the Public Service and making a strong contribution for real New Zealanders.

Just talking about the national standards data for NCEA level 2, in the latest data we have seen we have had an increase from 85.7 percent to 86.8 percent over the last year. Since 2010 we have seen NCEA level 2 participation rise by 7 percent.

💬 Dr David Clark: What about the TV screens? Where was Mr Bishop? Come on, fess up. Play a continuous loop of him. He dropped the Minister in it.

It is interesting that Mr Clark over there is still talking about Mr Bishop and not talking about the real issue at hand, which is actually the Southern District Health Board and his constituents. I think if you would ask your constituents, Mr Clark, about the Government’s need to put in a commissioner, they would be very supportive of it, because they did not see those gains under Labour. They saw the former Labour Government muddling around with health and no real gains.

This Government has increased elective surgeries and increased the number of doctors and the number of nurses—real, tangible gains across the board. So our rural hospitals are in good heart. They are led by capable boards. They are led by capable chief executives, passionate medical staff, and passionate volunteers, as well, across the board, from our midwifery care right through to GPs and to other aspects of rural hospitals. That is why they are united in support of the steps this Government is taking to try to get some real results for the people of Southland and Otago. Again, I would just like to reiterate my congratulations to the Minister on behalf of the people of Clutha-Southland. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.