'You will share information with your legislative steward, the Ministry of Health, and with Treasury.

''In a statement issued as National's spokesperson for Health, Dr.

Reti claimed Labour was 'reinventing history.

' 'When National and Labour released their strategy for health in the 2023 election, both parties had exactly the same figure—an additional $12.

57 billion for Health NZ over the forecast period.

National has gone even further and invested a record $16.

7 billion in the [three budgets to 2026] for Health New Zealand, plus an additional $604 million for more medicines.

' He added that following the election, new estimates of cost inflation and population growth were made, which were not funded by the government, leading to the deficit.

He said the government owed the public an explanation and suggested that Health NZ should reinstate the DHB approach of publishing monthly accounts and the breakdown of staff and costs.

'I have said repeatedly that those meetings should be public; they were made public while Labour was in government and then reverted to being predominantly in private since the government changed, which is odd because Shane Reti campaigned on them being public as well.

'Asked about Levy's track record, Hipkins said he would judge him on the job he had been appointed to now.

'I'm not in the habit of slagging off public servants who decide to do service for our country.

I think the exiting board of Te Whatu Ora has been treated shabbily.

I am going to judge Lester Levy on the decisions he makes in this role now.

'Executive Director Sarah Dalton, from the Association of Senior Medical Specialists senior doctors' union, questioned the government's $130 million a month overspend claim, saying her organization saw an understaffed system.

'I'm in the middle of meetings with our members all over the country, and there is not a single service that is well-staffed and able to provide the kind of care the people of New Zealand want and expect to be able to access in our health system.

So taking to our health budgets with an axe does not seem an appropriate response when we do not have enough doctors, nurses, or allied health workers or the people who support them to do their work.

' Her organization had done a 'deep dive' into this year's health budget provisions and found there was very little new money, with lots of smoke and mirrors in the way it had been presented.

Former chair of Te Whatu Ora Rob Campbell, who was fired from the agency's board last year after making politicized comments about the National Party, said he agreed with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon that they could not keep putting money into a system that was not working.

He said the issues in Te Whatu Ora were, however, much wider than just financial or governance control.

Campbell said he believed there were issues of mismanagement and underfunding, but the government should be looking at the Ministry of Health to find out why the system was not working.

He said the Ministry of Health was the key element in setting targets for Te Whatu Ora, setting its budget and allocating money, and had presided over the running down of the health system over many years.

'The Minister of Health remains the steward of the new system and the key element in setting policy and the amount of funding that is available.

The Ministry of Health is the place they should be looking to say 'why isn't this working, and why haven't we been told.

''Verrall said the issue came back to the government's choices, and this year's Budget did not fund the health system in line with inflation.

'Predictably, in a country with increasing population and inflation in the health sector, they are now behind where they need to be in terms of funding the health system to keep up with demand.

'Labour has hit back at the government's accusations that its health reforms have been an expensive botch-up with an overspend of $130 million a month.

The government is installing Health NZ Te Whatu Ora's board chair Lester Levy as a commissioner, replacing the organization's board.

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora has missed a self-imposed deadline it gave for placing graduate nurses into the hospital system.