Committees — Select Committees

on behalf of the Leader of the House: I move, That the House establish a committee, to be called the Pae Ora Legislation Committee, to consider, and report on, the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill and any associated business that may be referred to it; that the committee consist of eleven members to be nominated by parties to the Speaker as follows: New Zealand Labour six, New Zealand National two, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand one, ACT New Zealand one, and Te Paati Māori one; and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The reason we are seeking to have a stand-alone committee, or a special committee, to consider this legislation is because it does two very important things. The first is, of course, it restructures the decision-making structure for our health system, a health system that has struggled to really deliver the needs for New Zealand for many years. It will be very health focused in that respect, and we expect a lot of people with an interest in the health system—which, frankly, is all of us, but a lot of people actively involved but otherwise connected to the health system—will want to have their say on those things about the health system and what might change about it.

But here’s the second thing that it does too: it makes some very important innovations, one of which is the legislation itself provides for the way the Crown will meet its Treaty obligations in a way that has not been provided for in any other piece of legislation. So it sets out a set of principles that are drawn from the Waitangi Tribunal principles that were a part of the interim report on the Wai 2575 inquiry into the health system.

It also establishes the Māori Health Authority, an independent statutory body to provide leadership and stewardship for the health of our Māori people as part of the expression of that Treaty partnership and the Crown’s obligations to Māori under the Treaty. As part of that, it also gives recognition to iwi Māori partnership boards, which are bodies that are in existence but have not been recognised in statute and, really, have not been well defined up until now. And, although the legislation doesn’t add a great deal to prescription, as I will foreshadow, actually, it will be the role of the Māori Health Authority—in its early stages, the interim body—to work with the existing iwi Māori partnership boards to put some meat on a lot of bones that are there and to give some texture and depth to what they do.

So the reason for a special committee is to make sure that we have a committee equipped to take those two very important and, I think, very dominant strands from the community as they and this House consider this piece of legislation. And so it will be the intention of the House, passing this motion, to draw from the existing membership of the Health Committee and also the existing membership of the Māori Affairs Committee to make up the committee that will consider this very important piece of legislation. So, on that basis, I commend this motion to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this motion. I think it’s extremely important to set out for people who may be watching—for people who may wisely not have spent their life or much of it following parliamentary procedure—to just explain what’s actually happening here and why it’s important. This Parliament has passed many, many laws, and many of them, as the Minister just pointed out in his first reason for a new committee, have been very important. It goes without saying that Parliament passes laws that are important, some more important than others, but very important. The reason that he wants a totally different committee from the Health Committee to consider the health bill, as he just said, is that this bill is about meeting Treaty requirements, and it seems to follow that somehow it will not be possible for the current Health Committee to consider the legislation and think through the issues.

So, just to be clear, the Minister is asking Parliament to form a new committee to consider a piece of health legislation that is not the Health Committee, because the legislation is about meeting Treaty obligations. Well, a lot of people thought it was about healthcare, but he says it’s about Treaty obligations. And he wants to form a new Health Committee, or a Pae Ora Legislation Committee, actually, to consider this legislation, and it’s going to have some members from the Māori Affairs Committee and some members from the Health Committee. Why was it not possible for the Health Committee—the committee that has been appointed by Parliament to consider health matters—to do it? This is what it comes down to. This Government has bought into a belief system where a person’s membership of a group where their ethnic or other identity is more important than the common humanity that unites all people together. They are saying that if you’re not Māori, you maybe aren’t qualified to think about this Pae Ora bill, and the only way that it can be properly considered is if they decide to have a new committee that has more Māori people on it, because they have insights that other people don’t.

I wanted to get up and talk about this because it’s just a procedural motion. Forming a new committee is not usually an extraordinary thing. It’s been done before—for example, it was done for the Abortion Legislation Bill. But I’m not aware that there’s been a committee formed in this House because it was thought that some elected representatives were incapable of dealing with some matters based on their ethnic background. That’s what they seem to be saying. This is monumental, because the background of this country, New Zealand, is that people have come from all different places for all different reasons, coming towards one thing: they wanted opportunity, they wanted common humanity, and they wanted the chance for tomorrow to be better than today and to be born free and equal. Some people came to get away from the feudalism, from the class system of England of old, in order to have an egalitarian society where people are born free and equal and have opportunity. People have come here from the People’s Republic of China to get away from the oppressive Chinese Communist Party regime. People have come to this country from India to get away from the remnants of the caste system.

Mr Speaker says the debate is narrower than that—I don’t think it is. I think the fact is that today this Government is saying that there are more important things than the common humanity, that some MPs are more equal than others, and that we have to have a special committee to consider an issue relating to Treaty issues because the people on the Health Committee, because of their demographics, can’t do it. That’s what they’re saying. And where they’re taking us, within the confines of this Parliament and its procedures, is a massive shift. It’s what Elizabeth Rata from the University of Auckland says is the difference between a nation State filled with citizens born free and equal, on the one hand, and an ethno-state where you’ve actually got to look up your family tree to find out what your political rights are, on the other. That’s how significant this motion is.

I’d appeal to the people on the left. I’d appeal to, particularly, people on the old left, who remember a time when progressive politics in New Zealand was about fighting for our common humanity; fighting for a time, fighting for an ideal that each person is bound by a common humanity that’s more important than any superficial difference between individuals. That’s what the old left used to be, but today the new left wants to make identity everything. It wants to commodify people into identities and it wants to say that your superficial characteristics give you insights and capabilities and perspectives more important than being a member of the human race and sharing that common humanity.

And the next reason we oppose this motion is, as if that’s not bad enough, the way that this Parliament operates is that it slowly accumulates a series of precedents. It gradually accumulates the idea that what happened last time is a justification for what happens next time, perhaps with a mild extension. Well, the fact of the matter is that if we go down this pathway and we start saying that, actually, some members are better qualified, based on their demographic characteristics, to address a matter than others, then we are going to find ourselves in a very poor place. We’re going to find ourselves in a place where some members are not equally capable, and therefore some people who elect some members don’t have equal political rights. This comes back to this simple idea of—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now the member will now come back to the motion, not projections going forward. It is a narrow motion.

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. But surely a reason to oppose a motion is concern for the precedence that it will set. I’m very much focused on the motion, but the effect it may have on Parliament and, actually, the effect it will have, because the precedent will be there, is surely—wouldn’t you agree, Mr Speaker?—relevant to this particular motion and the formation of this committee.

💬 SPEAKER: If the member stays close to it.

Yeah, well I’m staying very close to it, Mr Speaker.

We need to preserve the ideas that another Labour Prime Minister went to Paris and signed up to. I’ll appeal to the old left, liberal traditions of the Labour Party not to do this. Once upon a time a Labour Party Prime Minister went to Paris and signed a UN agreement, and I completely agree with it. I think that it was about 1947 or 1948. The Prime Minister, I think, was Peter Fraser, and the agreement was the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights. And that declaration begins that all people—it actually said “all men”, but I’m sure they meant all people—are born free and equal. This motion that this Government is passing through Parliament is pregnant with the assumption that all people are not free and equal; that some are more equal than others, and that some are better able to consider how we get better healthcare, not based on the matters before them, not based on any particular expertise they may have, but based on background. There’s no other reason not to just send this to the perfectly capable Health Committee that considers every other matter in healthcare.

And I challenge the people on the other side to get up and defend this motion, because there are two ways that they can do it. They can either get up and say, “Yes, we believe that people aren’t born free and equal, that some people have a different perspective just based on their demographic background, and that those differences cannot be surmounted by thinking and learning.” If that’s their argument, that’s fine, but that’s very troubling. The other way is they could just be honest and dump this divisive motion. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I move, That all of the words in the motion after the word “called” be replaced with “the Epidemic Response Committee to inquire into, hear submissions, and report on the Government’s response to the COVID19 outbreak, that the committee consist of 11 members to be nominated by parties to the Speaker as follows: New Zealand Labour four, New Zealand National four, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand one, ACT New Zealand one, and Te Paati Māori one, that the committee be chaired by the Leader of the Opposition or her delegate, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.”

This Parliament does need a special committee; it just doesn’t need the one that the Minister moving the motion provides. We have been going through a very, very concerning pandemic, and this Government is much more interested in shuffling the decks on the Titanic of the health system that they have overseen and run into the ground and then decides that one’s ethnic background is important enough to set up a special committee but the pandemic is not. Well, I disagree and I have had experience of special committees. I was the deputy chair of the Epidemic Response Committee and I can confirm, as most of the people who were in the House in the previous Parliament know, that special committees do have a place and have an important role to play. Derek Cheng of the New Zealand Herald reported shortly after that committee got up and running that if one looked at question time, one would get a pretty jaundiced view of Parliament, but looking at the Epidemic Response Committee that is the best democracy in action. It was actually quite a pity, having not concluded the business of that committee, for the Government to send a Minister down late one night and decide that the committee should be quietly deconstructed and disappeared.

So let’s look, though, at the arguments that could be put forward for a special committee. It might be, for example, that the Health Committee has such a volume of business that it cannot cope with a significant reform bill that is before it, and that’s certainly been a reason for setting up a previous special committee in the last 20 years or so—I think the ACC legislation around 1999 or 2000 went through that. Very helpfully, the clerks of the committee have just recently published an indicative work plan for the Health Committee; it ain’t that busy. I’m not being critical of my colleagues, who I know work very hard on that committee, but they have basically two items of business: it’s the annual reviews of the entities that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Health—

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s going to be good.

So that’ll be good. That’s pretty standard business as usual, and a plethora of petitions, which are important to the petitioner and potentially to the Parliament, but certainly not time bound. They have one bill—one bill—before it, which will be deliberated and reported back in the next couple of weeks. So it’s hardly a case of the committee being so busy.

Now, sometimes there are things that transcend the scope of a committee. I think abortion legislation had that. It had health elements, it had justice elements—it had a number of elements and that was an appropriate thing to do. I look at the Standing Orders, at Standing Order 189, “The subject select committees and their subject areas are”—and do members know what they say about the Health Committee? It has one word: “health”. So the Health Committee has one role: oversee health. So, if we look at the bill, what does the bill do?

💬 Matt Doocey: Oh, it might be a health bill.

Well, it’s pretty controversial but it’s not that difficult. Mr Doocey has hit the nail on the head. He’s a genius; Waimakariri residents are very lucky to have him. It’s a health bill—ta-dum! It reforms and eliminates the 20 DHBs and a number of other structures and it establishes—wait for it—Health New Zealand.

💬 Matt Doocey: Oh, it’s in the name.

I know, it’s a revelation! And, of course, it establishes a Māori Health Authority—Health Authority. Now, the fact that it has the word “Māori” in front of it and that it will be focused on that very important element of reducing and eliminating inequities in our health system does not in and of itself warrant this course of action. There were a number of other courses of action that could have been taken. The Health Committee and the Māori Affairs Committee actually convened jointly last year to consider the progress of the Government’s plan for Smokefree 2025. I think it was the first time possibly in history—the parliamentary history—that two select committees were joined together for that purpose and it went very well and it was encouraged. I’m not sure if it was actually in the Standing Orders report of that Parliament, but indeed I recall having conversations about that being a good practice, and which should be encouraged. Why on earth that wasn’t considered for this, rather than what Mr Seymour has described as a potentially dangerous, divisive, and precedent-setting step, simply beats me.

There was also the possibility, which goes on every single week, that people with a particular interest or expertise in the subject before the select committees get subbed on to the committees.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

I know. Who knew? Who knew that a member of the Māori Affairs Committee could go on the Health Committee? Well, apparently that was beyond the wit of the Leader of the House and the Minister of Health, who have decided that that’s not the approach that they’ll take. And as well as not actually looking at that, they’re not very good at maths, because, of 11 members of the committee, the National Party is being asked to consider and vote on having two of its members on the Health Committee. I wonder what they thought that would be: one from the Health Committee; one from the Māori Affairs Committee? The maths does not stack; there should be at least three National Party members on this committee. I think the only other—I may be wrong—committee with 11 members already has three: that’s the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Health has 10 currently and three of those members are National Party members, so why on earth would the Health Committee be replaced by a special committee with increased numbers but fewer National Party members? I don’t think it’s actually a mathematical problem the Government has with National Party members; I think it’s another problem.

But the biggest problem with this is the incredibly poor signal it sends to the public of New Zealand that the Government believes that we are a House of Representatives and we need to look like the community we serve, but to consider that only certain people of a certain ethnic background or colour or culture can consider empathetically a bill that isn’t actually dedicated to that purpose—it has a much wider purpose, and that is the health of all New Zealanders—and can only be considered by a committee with a requisite number of people of a certain ethnic background creates an incredibly concerning precedent. I must say, in my wildest dreams, I never thought I would be speaking on a motion such as this. And it isn’t hyperbole or overstating the fact that when Martin Luther King Junior said that we should be judging people on the content of their character not the colour of their skin, he was referring to the risk that this in a Western democracy would be creeping insidiously into our Parliament.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: What did Martin Luther King say about the Treaty of Waitangi, because you haven’t mentioned that once in your speech?

Well, oh, I see, OK—so now Martin Luther King isn’t a good enough for Andrew Little. Apparently, Andrew Little knows better about race relations than Martin Luther King Junior does. Well, that sums it up. We need a committee all right. We need special committees to report on very important issues in this country; it’s just not this one.

Order! I’m going to call Dr Elizabeth Kerekere but before I do that, I’m going to indicate that we will continue debate on the motion and not on the amendment, because it has not been tabled. I want to say, as it was read, my inclination is that it is not in order, but I will consider that during the next speech.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. We strongly support the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill and its efforts to uphold the Government’s obligations to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, through a complete restructure in the establishment of a Māori health authority. So we get, on the one hand, the creation of a new select committee as part of that kaupapa, especially that goal to have 50-50 Māori membership on that.

On the other hand, though, this is an administrative process, and so the question is: where is this really special bill going to be best looked after? So I stand here less to oppose the motion—although, I’m sorry, I have to—but more to uphold the mana of the Health Committee. It is often said in this House how hard the Health Committee works. We do this under an incredibly good chair, and we work really collaboratively across all of our parties. We have a strong culture, and the Green and Te Paati Māori reps are already Māori. So we’ve got two already in there, if you’re trying to get those numbers right there. And, of course, the rest can sub in, as we do already with any number of other bills that we have to deal with.

Also, it already is a 50-50 model, and if we don’t have a majority in the decision, then changes don’t matter—not that they don’t matter, but they don’t get voted. So we work primarily through consensus and I think that it’s a—I really, really enjoy that work, and the people that are there, I know, are there because they’re really, really committed to health. The bulk of us come from health backgrounds.

I guess I’m wondering why you would take away the biggest health bill that may come in any of our lifetimes away from the group that’s set up to deal with it. Even though, technically, if it happens, I will still be the Greens rep on it, but for me it comes down to mana—the mana of the Health Committee, the work it has always done, the work that we will always do, and I hope that it would still come back to there. And, if not, I will put a plug in that it should still be primarily led by the Health Committee leadership.

Nō reira, I don’t have any quotes from leaders overseas.

💬 Hon Meka Whaitiri: Do your mana wahine one, whanaunga.

Yeah, mana wahine, Māori women, and just shout-out to all the people, though, who work for health. It is a big deal, this bill. It is a huge, huge thing for all of our people. We want the best people on that, and I’m just here to say I think the Health Committee is the best place to start. Kia ora.

I am going to rule on the motion that has been put before me. This motion is to set up a committee to consider a specific bill, and related matters. It gives it a name, a purpose, and powers to that committee, and my ruling is that any amendment to it should not go completely outside, as this proposed amendment does, and to set up a committee to consider a completely different matter, as the member’s amendment does. If it, for example, changed the name, changed the membership, changed the powers, then that would be allowable as an amendment. But to set up something which is designed to deal with a bill, and something to do with a pandemic, is, in my opinion, just too far away. So I’m ruling the amendment out of order.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. And can I just start by echoing Dr Kerekere, tautoko to what she said; this is a real attack on the mana of the Health Committee, which is chaired by Dr Liz Craig. And, look, I think it’s fair to say that Dr Craig and I have had our differences over the course of the year. Frankly, actually, I don’t really blame her for those differences. She’s actually a very diligent and erstwhile chair of the committee. I actually blame factors beyond her control for our differences.

💬 David Seymour: Name them!

No, I won’t name them, because I’ll get into trouble. But she’s a very diligent chair, and this is an attack on her and the mana of the committee that I serve on alongside Dr Kerekere and other members. I think Dr Kerekere put it best: this is the paradigmatic piece of legislation in this Parliament to do with health reforms. In the Minister’s own words, it’s a once in a generation. Every 20 years or so, a Government turns around and does a big-bang reform of the health system, and we’ve come up to the 20-year mark—here we go; this is this Government’s attempt. In a funny sort of way, it actually reverses stuff that Labour did the last time they were in Government, which you will remember, Mr Speaker, from your time as a senior member of that Cabinet, back in the Clark administration. We’re sort of all the way around again to the abolition of DHBs, which were established by the Clark Government. So it’s a big-bang reform, it’s a massive piece of work, billions and billions of dollars of assets and operational expenditure and capital expenditure every year, and it’s not going to the Health Committee.

So one has to sit back and think: what is the point of the Health Committee if the Health Committee’s job is not to consider the big legislative reforms that the Government has put before the Parliament? It actually is ludicrous when you think about it. And, as Michael Woodhouse pointed out in his contribution, is the committee structurally incompetent to deal with the health reforms? No. Have we proven that we can work hard and conscientiously on difficult pieces of work? Yes; we’ve just dealt with the abortion safe areas legislation, which was a conscience issue people had very strong views on. We’ve just diligently sent that back to the House, or are about to, for consideration. We’ve just dealt with the drug-testing legislation, which, again, there are various views around the House on—some people find it controversial. We have diligently worked our way through that. We’ve dealt with various things to do with medicinal cannabis over the last 18 months or so. Off the top of my head, we have invigilated and investigated the Government’s pandemic response.

So this is not an incompetent committee; this is a committee that knows what it’s doing, with a second-term member of Parliament who is the chair—so someone who’s been through the committee before, knows what she’s doing as the chair, and has taken that experience into being the chairwoman of this Parliament, in her second term. It’s got a member in his third term—that’s me. It’s got Dr Shane Reti, who’s the deputy leader of the National Party and health spokesperson and a qualified doctor. In fact, to be honest, when you look across the Labour backbench—and I’m being very complimentary here about the Labour backbench—I think they’re all doctors. You’ve got Dr Liz Craig; you’ve got Dr Gaurav Sharma, who was a GP in Hamilton; you’ve got Dr Tracey McLellan, who is not a GP but has a doctorate—I believe it’s in psychology.

💬 Hon Member: Emily Henderson.

No, Emily Henderson is not a member of the Health Committee. Emily Henderson probably wishes she was a member, but she’s not. This is just the Health Committee. You’ve got Neru Leavasa—he’s a member. I think they’re all doctors. So get this: the Government, which has a whole variety of semi-talented backbenchers, new to the Parliament, who have health expertise, who are doctors, who know what they’re talking about—the Government is not sending the big-bang health reforms to that committee; it’s setting up a whole new committee! Well, how ludicrous is that when you think about it? This is not an incompetent committee. It knows what it’s doing. And it has specific expertise about the subject matter we’re debating, which is big reforms to the health system.

Now, in relation to the issue to do with the Māori Health Authority and the belief that we should have some special expertise on the committee, that can easily be dealt with through the ordinary status quo. Labour has members up the wazoo on the committee—I think they’ve got six members. They’re constantly coming and going! There’s a variety of people coming and going during the committee meetings. That’s totally fine. People bring on their own people. The National Party does the same. So the Labour Māori caucus, who, I know, are very concerned about this, can sub on to the committee. Again, this is not a Government which has a shortage of members on the backbench—as we know only so well. We have 33; the Government has 65. That’s double. There are a lot of new Labour Party backbenchers who can sub on to the committee, including from the Labour Māori caucus, if they wish to do so. It is just peculiar that we are going through the process of establishing a new committee.

And, when you think about it, we do this on very specific occasions. I’ve gone back and had a look at when the Parliament does this. It’s not used very often. We did it quite a lot in the first term of the last National Government. We did it for the emissions trading scheme, we did it for the Auckland governance reforms, and we did it for electoral legislation. So I would say they are an order of magnitude larger and justify, potentially, a special select committee. And the other thing is that they all have ramifications and aspects, with the possible exception of the electoral law thing, that crosscut multiple portfolios. So the emissions trading scheme—there’s an argument you could send it to the finance committee, there’s an argument you could send it to agriculture, there’s an argument you could send it to environment. And that’s the whole point; it cuts across so many different subject matter—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Government admin.

Government admin, Michael Woodhouse points out. You know, it cuts across so many different areas, so Parliament has said, “Look, this is just too difficult. Let’s just establish a special select committee. ” Fair enough. Auckland governance—same thing. OK, look, you can make the argument it should go to the Local Government Committee, as it then was back in 2009. The Government of the day took the view that it was so big and so massive, and there were so many submissions—and I remember being here, I think, at 11.30 one night on a Saturday debating an endless amendment moved by the current Speaker, who was then—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: 30,000 SOPs.

30,000 Supplementary Order Papers. Those were the days! I wasn’t an MP, but I remember—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Interesting history, very important, but not relevant.

Well, I was making the point that, in relation to Auckland governance, that is an order of magnitude bigger than the health reforms.

So Parliament doesn’t do this very often, and it needs a very good reason to establish special select committees. And I do not believe that the case has been made for that. This is not an incompetent select committee. This is a committee that knows what it is doing, that has expertise on the committee provided by many members of the committee, and they know what they’re doing, and it is just ludicrous that the Government thinks we need a special committee to consider big health reforms. We can do this job. That is what we are there for as a committee. The Health Committee is there to consider health matters. What does it say, and what message does it send, when the Parliament sets up a special committee to consider Government reforms to the health system but won’t set up a special select committee for the global pandemic that we’re enduring—COVID-19?

I have moved on multiple occasions, in a variety of different fora, for Parliament to set up or re-establish a form of the Epidemic Response Committee—I prefer to call it a COVID-19 committee—because that is genuinely an issue that crosscuts across multiple different subject matter committees and is of an order of magnitude of significance and importance that, I would say, warrants a special committee. And the Government, on multiple occasions, in a variety of different fora has said no. OK; that’s the Government prerogative. It’s unfortunate, actually, but that’s their prerogative. But yet here we are with the view that we need a special committee to consider the health reforms and the Health Committee can’t do it. One of the arguments that the Leader of the House has made is that he considers the Health Committee to be adequate enough to consider the global pandemic. Well, if the Health Committee is adequate enough to consider COVID19, which is of an order of magnitude more significant and more important than the health reforms, then surely we are adequate and competent enough to consider the Governments health reforms? So we will not support this motion. It is not needed. Let the Health Committee do its job.

I am going to call Brooke van Velden, but I am going to warn the House that the last speech and the one before it were both internally repetitive and with large sections of irrelevant material. This is a very narrow debate, and I don’t want to be hearing the same arguments over and over again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to the motion to set up a special select committee to hear from submitters on this Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill. I’ve got a few reasons to do so, but the first reason is just the Health Committee is established in order to actually discuss health-related issues. I have to also acknowledge the speech that’s just come before us from Elizabeth Kerekere, acknowledging that a lot of the members of our committee do very, very diligent work. A number of them have a background in healthcare, and another number have a background as the health spokesperson of different parties. So I want to acknowledge the hard work that all of these members of the committees do.

But if I look at the specific numbers of the committee that the Government wishes to establish, they want to set up this new committee with 11 members—six from Labour, two from National, one from ACT, one from the Greens, and one from the Māori Party. Currently, you know, that doesn’t actually look too different. Under the current Health Committee—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m just going to remind Mr Bridges that he’s meant to be wearing a mask.

Whoopsie. Currently, the Health Committee has 12 members. You know, that’s not that different; that’s one member off. But our membership of the Health Committee is one ACT member, one Greens member, one Māori member, three National, and six Labour. So, really, the difference here is that we’ve gone from a committee that could, in fact, be 50-50 Labour and Opposition, if you take the Greens to be part of the Opposition outside of the membership, to a committee that can, for all intents and purposes, pass through the select committee with no Opposition voice whatsoever, because the majority of the committee will be Labour members.

I think that is rather disappointing, because if you look at what the select committees are actually supposed to be established to do, they are there to hear from submitters and to make changes to legislation where they see fit, so that the health departments and any other departments that need to be brought in to the debate can have their voices heard and have the debate that’s fulsome.

I think what is happening here is that this Government is just acknowledging, by establishing only 11 members, that they don’t actually want to hear any differing opinion in the select committee. They don’t actually want to hear from GPs who might have a different view. They don’t want to hear from the DHBs who might be disestablished. They might not actually want to make any changes to the legislation whatsoever. And in doing so, by putting a majority of Labour members in place, the Government Minister of Health, Andrew Little, will be able to pass through no changes whatsoever, even if they did need to be made based on the genuine concerns that come from submissions. I don’t think that is a good precedent to be setting in any case.

But the second point that I’d like to make is—and if you’d let me, I’ll read from the Standing Orders: Standing Order 187, and it’s about non-voting members. It says that “The Business Committee may appoint a member to serve on a select committee but without the right to vote on any question put to the committee or participate in any decision taken by leave of the committee. Such membership may be permanent, for a limited time, or for consideration of a particular matter. The Business Committee may end such an appointment.”

So I’d like the point to be made that it is quite possible that if the Government truly wishes there to be a different form of representation than proportional representation, which is supposed to be done under select committees—you know, we’re supposed to put in place select committee membership that the people voted for, representative of the people’s views; a diversity of viewpoint. If the Government would, in fact, wish to put in place a different proportionality of representation based on race, then why was this not brought to the Business Committee? I mean, if you look at that, the Business Committee may have actually said, “Well, it’s possible that we could appoint a number of members for a short time to look specifically at Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) and that it could be disestablished at the end of such appointment.”

I also note that the Standing Orders was changed recently to say that any person who’s a member of Parliament can actually just go on to a select committee and ask questions if they want to; you know, you don’t actually need to be a permanent member of the committee to do that. You can turn up and ask questions, and I’m sure Dr Liz Craig would be very willing to allow more scrutiny of any type of health bill under that particular manner.

I just reiterate that point that there are other avenues that we could have gone down to make sure that a health bill is recognised as a health bill, that proportional representation isn’t done away with, and that if other members want to join the Health Committee, they have a right and an obligation to do so if they truly believe they should be there. But the membership of this committee—being 11 members, with a Government majority that is different to the Health Committee—is put in place specifically so that the Minister of Health does not need to feel challenged on any aspect of the health reform by any members of his own party. I believe that this is a divisive change. It sets a negative precedent. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I move, That the question be now put.

I see there’s a very senior member who’s seeking the call. I call the Hon Simon Bridges.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I oppose this motion, and it’s worth just recounting what it does. It sets up a special, separate committee in relation to a special, separate Māori health authority that this bill is setting up, and, as I understand from what I heard on the television in my office, the reason that this special committee, this separate committee, rather than the Health Committee, is required is because the Government thinks that it is desirable to have Māori representatives in a disproportionate number listening to the debate and being part of the debate. I say that, actually, that is entirely wrong, and I want to flesh out why that is.

I’m a Māori man—right? My whakapapa through my grandmother Naku Joseph is Ngāti Maniapoto and it goes back, and I could probably get out the family tree and show that Nanaia Mahuta, who’s made some interesting decisions public today, is a distant relative. That is my whakapapa from a little marae, Kinohaku in Ōpārure, and I set that out because what I do accept for Māori—and dare I say it, I’m not looking at anyone in particular right at the moment, but Māori and Māori men do in disproportionate numbers have certain health conditions. That’s true, and I outed myself in my book recently—and I’m not doing a free advertorial here for National Identity—

💬 SPEAKER: Oh, go for it.

—by Simon Bridges in all good bookstores. I’m not doing that. I made quite—

💬 SPEAKER: What’s the website?

There isn’t one, but, you know, if you went to paperplus.co.nz or whitcoulls.co.nz, I’m sure you’d find it. Anyway, that’s not the point—that is not the point.

In that book, I made it quite clear that I have gout arthritis—right? That is something that people may associate with, I think, William Pitt the Younger and various other 17th century politicians in the United Kingdom, and they, disastrously, prescribed port, Mr Speaker, which, as you would know, I don’t partake in. But that was the situation then. So it’s not universally a Māori issue, but it is true that in New Zealand, a couple of hundred thousand - odd sufferers of gout arthritis, disproportionately, are Polynesian men: Māori and Pasifika males.

I have in my direct family a family member who suffered at birth from club feet. The wonders of modern medicine and our skill set mean that you would never know that, and he can function in the way that anyone else can. But that is another condition or issue where Māori are disproportionately affected, and I think I’m right in saying that some of that is genetic.

So I simply make the point that I’m Māori and there are health issues that I accept affect Māori in ways that are different and disproportionate as Māori. But let me tell the House what I as a Māori man with a Māori health ailment expect from a Māori health system, and I do want to bring this into this particular point of a separate committee, given it’s a separate Māori health system we are setting up. What do I want? What do I expect? I’ll tell you what I expect: I expect someone to fix the issue—a doctor who knows what they’re doing and is competent and will deal with it.

The point of that is at the moment, at the Mount Medical Centre in Tauranga, I go to a couple of doctors. One is Singaporean and one is from the United Kingdom, and the point simply is this: I don’t give a tuppence—to use another old-fashioned phrase—where they’ve come from or what their ethnicity is. As long as, medically, they know what they’re doing and they’re competent, that’s all that matters to me as a Māori man with particular Māori health ailments.

The point about that is that when it comes to this motion, which I think is strange and I think is wrong and hasn’t been thought through by the Government, is simply that the very same point I’d make about medical issues, as a Māori man, is also true when it comes to Parliament and select committee representation. I don’t actually think it makes any substantive difference, the ethnicity. What we want, fundamentally, is people on that committee who, yep, have empathy for the issues—and I’m sure there would be if it wasn’t going to this special committee but was going to another committee. There would be Māori—dare I say it, probably Māori men—on the committee.

But, ultimately, what we want, going through the issues in this bill, are competent people who know what they’re about, who have empathy, and who understand the issues at play. Whether it’s me with my health ailments, where I don’t need a Māori doctor to deal with those but I just want a competent one, or whether it’s this select committee, where we don’t need only Peeni Henare, Tāmati Coffey, and one or two others of Māori whakapapa, what we actually want is people with empathy and competence to deal with the issues.

The reality is there’s a committee that’s exactly right for this bill—it’s perfect in every single way—and that committee, of course, is the Health Committee, chaired by Dr Liz Craig. I emphasise the doctor there. In this House, we do give people their correct honorifics, generally speaking. But she is a doctor, and my clear understanding is that she is a medical doctor, and there are other medical doctors on that committee, probably of different ethnic make-ups and backgrounds. That, in the end, is good. It’s good to have diversity, some different perspectives, some different backgrounds.

But, actually, it’s not only wrong thinking, but I think it’s probably wrong to say, “You know what? This just has to be over here with Māori because it’s a Māori issue.” To me, that’s a segregated way to think about it. It’s segregated in the health system, in terms of the substance of this bill, but it’s also a wrongful approach when it comes to the actual parliamentary process. What it’s suggesting is that “for Māori, by Māori, only Māori” is the way to go, and I’ve never thought that was right. I think Chris Bishop, Ian McKelvie, the Hon Jan Tinetti—they would all also bring a perspective to this bill that would be right and it would be valid in this bill.

So I simply want to sum up by saying this. This bill is about a separate Māori health authority. This process in this motion is about a separate Māori select committee. I have some empathy for the fact that we would want Māori on this committee, but as a Māori with health issues who goes to any old doctor, I also say that—you know what?—it doesn’t need to be just that way, and having the right people with the competence, as the Health Committee does, is the right answer for this bill, with subbed-in Māori members.

If Tāmati Coffey wants to go along to that committee and be part of it, I’d certainly be happy having voting rights and being on that committee. But, actually, as the ACT member previously has said on this bill, even if that wasn’t the case, what is also true is that he could be there as a non-voting member who is able to ask questions and able to ensure that a certain perspective as a Māori man, and maybe there’s another member, a Māori woman that had a different perspective who should be there as well—he could do that.

So I think this is maybe from some good intent, but it is a wrong motion. It’s a motion that, just like this bill, shouldn’t have come forward, and certainly I, for one, as a Māori man, oppose it.

I move, That the question be now put.

Yes, I think the House is in a position now to decide the question.