11th July 2023

Dr Shane Reti explains why he'll shut down the Māori Health Authority if National is elected to the government. Mihingarangi Forbes also speaks to panelists AUT Dean of Law Khylee Quince & Te Pati Maori candidate Takutai Tarsh Kemp. Watch the video version of the episode here. The National Party's health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti explains why he'll shut down the Māori Health Authority if National is elected to the government. Mihingarangi Forbes also speaks to panelists AUT Dean of Law Khylee Quince & Te Pāti Māori candidate Takutai Tarsh Kemp. Subconscious bias in healthcare is a large reason for the inequities between Māori and non-Māori, National Party health spokesperson Shane Reti says. If the National Party were to win the election, Reti would disestablish Te Aka Whai Ora - Māori Health Authority and instead "ramp up" cultural-competency training for the sector. "Nothing I've seen in the past year has convinced me otherwise," he told MATA. "There may be some improvements. All the improvements I'm seeing are in structure, not actually in function—and actually, what Māori need are in functional outcomes." He again called for the minister to release the independent review into the authority. "This needs to be a balanced assessment of the review, but I'm hearing it just shows challenges." Asked if there were any areas in health where there was no inequity between Māori and non-Māori, Reti said in "almost any area" of health you pointed to, "Māori do worse" than non-Māori. "I think a large part of those inequities are actually grounded in subconscious bias, and for me, the way to address that subconscious bias is actually through cultural competency—both through medical and nursing school training, at an organisational level, at a college level..." Māori health providers also need to be empowered so care could be delivered "close to the home and close to the hapū," Reti said. Asked how he would roll out cultural competency so it reaches everywhere, if he was to become the Minister of health, Reti said he would make it a general policy statement… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details