New Zealand First's Mark Patterson fronted to the select committee on Friday as part of scrutiny week at Parliament. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Rural Communities Minister has clashed with opposition and coalition MPs alike over the Waikato Medical School, Jobs for Nature, and school buses.
New Zealand First's Mark Patterson fronted to the select committee on Friday as part of scrutiny week at Parliament.
School buses
Labour's Jo Luxton questioned Patterson about the Ministry of Education's decision to discontinue bus routes from Hawke's Bay town Maraekakaho to three Hastings secondary schools.
He said he had met with the Education Minister Erica Stanford with rural women, and it was a work in progress, but the formula for rural buses had not changed since 1991.
He agreed the situation in Maraekakaho was "unacceptable".
"I do, absolutely I do, but how do we have a system that's flexible enough to accommodate those examples ... it's too inflexible at the moment and there needs to be some ability to innovate within that model."
An official said the school bus routes went "in and out of eligibility for running" each year thanks to population changes, and while it was disappointing "there is always a bit of movement around the margins".
Patterson said he had not been "directly lobbied by the school" but if they wanted to get in touch with him "I do think it deserves more flexibility and the ability of other services to be tacked onto it so that it does make it economic".
"I would point out that the Ministry of Education spends $263m a year on school buses, so it is a big expense - and that's an absolute necessity ... but it's got to be economic."
Rural health
When Green MP Scott Willis questioned Patterson about rural health, the minister listed $164m going into rural after hours care, six prototype rural "hubs" that would be rolled out to about 70 total locations, the first of four rural training hubs having been established in Hāwera.
"And you will also be well aware of the Waikato medical school," Patterson said.
Construction on the school had broken ground the same day.
"Very aware," Willis responded.
"Great news!" the committee chair, National's Suze Redmayne, gushed.
Patterson said he had been "a doubting Thomas on this", telling Willis he had "obviously been lobbied hard like you had, by the University of Otago".
The Universities of Otago and Auckland - the two other medical schools - had pushed back against the Waikato model, saying a better solution would be to train more doctors at the existing schools rather than spend up on constructing a new one.
"Well, I mean, we're an economically rational party," Willis said, eliciting barely controlled snickering from the coalition MPs.
That became full-blown guffaws when Patterson replied: "It's not April Fool's day, Scott."
The minister said the rural immersion courses in Otago and Auckland were only attracting about a dozen students, and only three or four of those a year would go into rural practice, whereas the Waikato school would be "full rural immersion, so the students that go in there will come out and go into rural so that's, I think, a massive step in the right direction".
"Now that I fully understand the concept and why the current system isn't delivering I think this has the potential to be a bit of a game-changer."
However, he said the bonding scheme did not appear to be attracting many rural students.
"That's not being taken up at a very high level, students want to retain some flexibility - so whether more bonding is the answer I don't know."
National had campaigned on a second bonding scheme, which as of May appeared to have been abandoned.
Patterson also said the rural support trust was close to signing a "delivery agreement" with the Health Ministry.
Jobs for Nature
Willis also asked if modelling had been done on the impacts of the Jobs for Nature scheme coming to an end, and Patterson said he had asked for some to be done.
Willis pushed further on that programme having been used to help control wilding pines, and what was being done to solve that problem now the scheme had ended.
"There has been extra investment above the baseline which is something like $2m, but I'll be honest with you Scott, not enough, I genuinely believe not enough.
"This is a problem that we have to get our arms around ... but it's not just funding. It's also how do we use grazing, potentially fire as well ... it's kind of an all of the above thing."
As he promised it would be part of his advocacy as part of next year's Budget, Redmayne interjected to "make it clear, because it came up yesterday in the committee as well, that the Jobs for Nature funding was a time-limited budget so it was not cut by this government".
"All due respect, madam chair, that is semantics," Patterson snapped back, "it's the total that's going in, the economy going in, and it's outcomes-based and we are losing that battle at the moment and we cannot lose that battle".
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