Putting patient need ahead of Treaty ideology

Welcoming the first-reading passage of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Amendment Bill, ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson says:

"We fund the health system to deliver services, not ideology. But Labour saddled Health New Zealand with Treaty provisions that effectively divided patients by race and distracted from quality, timely care.

"ACT says services should be delivered on the basis of patient need and value-for-money – not race. We scrapped the Māori Health Authority, and now we're patching up the rest of Labour's Treaty-obsessed health reforms.

"We're stripping out requirements for health entities to be focused on Māori health outcomes, mātauranga Māori, and 'cultural safety'. These settings have led to compliance nightmares where even Chinese acupuncturists are required to demonstrate expertise in tikanga.

"Perhaps most importantly – and incredibly, forgotten by Labour – we're introducing an objective for services to be effective and timely. And we're restoring accountability to taxpayers with a requirement for specific targets in the Government Policy Statement on Health.

"Kiwis waiting for a hip operation or stuck in the emergency department don't care whether their practitioner has a tikanga-centric worldview. They just want quality healthcare, quickly. That's what we're delivering."