PRESS RELEASE
Health Planning Without a Compass: IMPB Calls on MPs to Rethink Pae Ora Amendments
MPs are being asked to rethink a key clause in the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill, with the Āti Awa Toa Hauora Partnership Board warning that the change would strip away the strategic compass guiding Aotearoa’s health system.
Manahautū Hikitia Ropata says the amendment removes the requirement for the Government Policy Statement (GPS) to consider any national health strategy and poses a risk to equity and long-term planning.
“This clause allows every health strategy to be ignored – Māori, Pacific, disability, women’s, rural, mental health, even the New Zealand Health Strategy itself,” Ropata says.
“If you strip out strategy, you strip out evidence. And without evidence, the health system loses its compass.”
Ropata says most people will not realise what has been lost until the effects become visible in worsening inequities.
“Technical changes can remake a system quietly, without public scrutiny. MPs need to look very closely at what it means to plan national health priorities with no reference to evidence, population trends, or communities most affected.”
Last Friday, the Health Select Committee recommended that the Bill be passed. But the Board says this particular clause requires urgent reconsideration.
“This amendment breaks the link between long-term health planning and the political direction of the day,” Ropata says.
“It means IMPBs could be left monitoring ongoing inequities the Government Policy Statement is not even required to consider addressing.”
The Board notes that its region – Kāpiti, Porirua, Te Awa Kairangi and Pōneke – is seeing rising immunisation rates amongst whānau thanks to iwi-led and kaupapa Māori providers.
“We pay tribute to our mana whenua iwi, Te Āti Awa and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. Progress is happening because evidence and Māori insights are finally being taken seriously. Removing this safeguard undermines that progress and weakens the Crown’s Te Tiriti obligations.”
The Āti Awa Toa Hauora Partnership Board is urging MPs across all parties to pause, reconsider, and amend the clause before the Bill progresses further.
“New Zealanders deserve a health system guided by evidence and shaped with communities — not one drifting without direction,” Ropata says.
“A system without a compass does not drift by accident. It drifts straight back toward the inequities we have spent generations trying to fix.”
ENDS
Hikitia Ropata (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou) is the Manahautū of the Āti Awa Toa Hauora Partnership Board, which monitors health system performance across Kāpiti, Porirua, Te Awa Kairangi and Pōneke. She has worked in Māori health and public health strategy, leading iwi–Crown partnership development and equity-focused system change.