Medical bill racial: Shipley

By EUGENE BINGHAM and AUDREY YOUNG

Special medical privileges for Maori are a potential result of the Government's decision to bring the Treaty of Waitangi into its health reforms, says National leader Jenny Shipley.

The legislation risked establishing two classes of patients based on skin colour, she said yesterday.

The Government countered by accusing Mrs Shipley of "playing the race card."

The exchange came as the Coalition disclosed the extent to which it might insert treaty rights into other social policies, such as employment.

Labour Minister Margaret Wilson told an audience of business executives that the Government was under pressure to protect traditional Maori rights in the proposed code of minimum conditions for workers.

Mrs Shipley warned of the dangers of building treaty protections into social legislation, particularly the Public Health and Disability Bill.

The bill, which sets up partly elected district health boards, will require health administrators to interpret the law in a manner "consistent with the treaty principles" and establish "partnerships" with local mana whenua.

Mrs Shipley told the Weekend Herald: "It lays a danger of us establishing two classes of citizens in New Zealand. Health must be delivered to try and close gaps, but we should not start putting in law that there are different rights on the basis of race.

"We will be arguing very strongly that this takes New Zealand on to new grounds."

Mrs Shipley's attack promises a testy time in Parliament next week when the legislation is debated.

Health Minister Annette King immediately hit back at the National Party leader, saying: "I think she has decided that the way to win back votes is to take on the redneck, Richard Prebble approach.

"I find it offensive - she is playing the race card."

But Mrs Shipley said she hoped to be able to debate the issue without such remarks.

"It will be outrageous if a person like myself is not able to lead public debate on the basis that someone will make an accusation of racism."

There were important points at stake, she said. "If it is passed in this form, Maori and only Maori would be able to go to court and argue that regardless of clinical advice [they] should be considered differently.

"I wouldn't for a minute argue that there is not disparity, but if we put the treaty into social policy we will have court debates [that have] nothing to do with needs. It will get into a rights issue."

Mrs Shipley cited the example of Northland man Rau Williams, whose family went to court to argue that he should be treated for renal failure, a comparison that angered Mrs King.

"It wouldn't matter if it was Rau Williams or Bill Smith," the minister responded. "Treatment is based on your need, not on the colour of your skin, and this bill doesn't make that happen either. "Decisions to receive treatment will be based on how sick you are."

Mrs King said the bill would give Maori the right to make decisions.

"At the governance level of the board, you ought to acknowledge there was another treaty partner.

"What the bill does do is say that Maori people should be alongside the boards helping to make those decisions ... They are wanting to have some say about the health services for their people."

Cabinet papers show that the Government received legal advice that the treaty clause could increase the risk of litigation but decided to go ahead on the basis that it would demonstrate the Coalition's "whole-hearted commitment" to Maori.

The issue of Maori insistence on a treaty clause in the minimum code of workers' conditions surfaced at a conference in Wellington.

The Labour Minister told an executive audience: "This provides a very interesting policy issue as to how that would work and what it actually would mean in this context."

Mrs Wilson had earlier rejected calls for such a protection in the Employment Relations Bill.

"I just didn't think the work had been done sufficiently to know what the consequences would be. But it's an issue. Can't be ignored.

"I want to put a ring fence around historical claims so I can get some movement, to get some settlement. However, the treaty is a living document that isn't only redressing the past. It is also redressing current relationships."