Kevin Hague on 'antidemocratic' response process to Horn Report

Green Party Health and Wellbeing spokersperson Kevin Hague today called on Health Minister Tony Ryall to make public a clear process and deadline for the public and interest groups to have their say on the report of the Ministerial Review Group ("the Horn Report"), and for the submissions received to be made public.

Speaking to the conference of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners in Wellington, Mr. Hague said that the Minister's lack of clarity around the deadline for submissions and his intention to not make submissions publicly available were "fundamentally antidemocratic".

"The Horn Report raises some really important questions about the future direction for health services, which we surely want to engage New Zealanders in a debate around. New Zealanders might well question the Minister's sincerity in seeking their views when the Government has refused the opportunity for a proper feedback process through the Health Select Committee and the Minister has failed to make clear the process and deadline for submissions."

Mr. Hague said that he had heard reports that the Minister intended to close off submissions this week, and called on Mr. Ryall to urgently clarify this.

"The reality here is that many New Zealanders who may have wanted to make submissions probably don't know how to or when they need to be in. What's more unless the submissions are made public then there is no possibility of any real debate. It certainly appears that the Government is scared of what those submissions will say."

Mr. Hague said that unless the Minister made submissions public then submitters should find other ways of doing that themselves.

For further comment:

Kevin Hague 027-291-7628