Tears, anger as Māori Health Authority scrapped in urgent debate

The Māori Health Authority has been killed off by the Government amid tears and bitter protest from Opposition MPs.

Set up in 2022 after two landmark reviews, the authority was disestablished in just a matter of hours last night and this morning as Parliament passed all stages of the law under urgency.

The Government had attempted to wrap up the debate last night but faced numerous questions and challenges from Opposition MPs, who expressed frustration at the fast-tracked process.

The law change passed with the support of coalition partners National, Act and NZ First, who campaigned on removing the MHA. Labour, Greens and Te Pati Māori voted against.

Speaking in Parliament, Health Minister Shane Reti said the law change laid the foundations for a future health system that was “based on need”.

He said his dream for the health system was not “bureaucratic structures and endless plans” but “identifying need and responding to it”.

Reti reiterated that some Māori health expertise and resources would be retained after MHA closed, including the Hauora Advisory Committee and iwi-Māori partnership boards.

Concluding his speech, he said: “We can choose form or function. I choose function. We can choose activism or actions. I choose actions. We can choose outrage or outcomes. I choose outcomes.”

Labour Party MP and former associate health minister Peeni Henare directed his criticism over the law change at Reti personally.

He said he had known Reti all his life as his family doctor in Whangarei and the physician who delivered his son.

“Dr Reti also entered Parliament together in 2014. And yet here we are, sadly. One built the whare. The other dismantled it.”

Henare, who became tearful when closing his speech in te reo Māori, said that Reti had promised to lay out a “grand plan” to replace the MHA during the debate but had failed to clearly spell out an alternative.

The MHA had not been given an opportunity to make change, he said, and was given only 18 months to reverse decades of health inequity.

Green MP Huhana Lyndon also cried during her speech, saying she was grieving the loss of the authority.

She said the mainstream New Zealand health system had never worked for Māori and would never work for Māori.

She spoke about the MHA’s chief executive Riana Manuel and the impression she had made at an international conference on indigenous healthcare.

“Te Akai Whai Ora meant something … and yet we have a Government that doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about the institution of Te Aka Whai Ora.”

Act Party MP Laura Trask said the MHA had provided another layer of bureaucracy that was “failing to prove its worth”.

She cited a review of the authority which raised concerns about how it was not focused on skills and expertise and had simply removed staff from Te Whatu Ora.

She said that her party believed in localism and that healthcare should be delivered according to need, not race.

Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said her party would relentlessly hold the Government to account over its record on Māori health.

“Enjoy the feeling of being anti-Maori,” she said. “Because this is not something we will let you forget.”

The MHA’s functions will be transferred to the Ministry of Health in March and will close its doors completely on June 30.

Isaac Davison is an Auckland-based reporter who covers health issues. He joined the Herald in 2008 and has previously covered the environment, politics, and social issues.