Ayesha Verrall: Labour health spokesperson defends accusations against Health Commissioner Lester Levy

Labour's Ayesha Verrall has stepped up to defend her accusations against Health Commissioner Lester Levy.

Levy - who was brought in to replace the agency's board after financial concerns were raised - is being grilled by MPs for the organisation's Annual Review. 

Verrall accused Levy of having 'a reputation of cooking the books' - citing examples of past roles. 

She says recent accounts have been presented in a 'non-conventional' way.

"That's exactly what I'm saying - this is pretty fishy. You have this process that is being used to justify health cuts where the Auditor-General says the accounting treatment is not right."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, this is a big thing. Health Commissioner Leicester Levy
has demanded an apology from Labor MP Aisha Verel at
Select Committee today. What happened, Well, Leicester was fronting up
to the Select Committee as part of scrutiny week. He
was talking about Health New Zealand's finances and then Aisha
got up and did some of the old cross examining
thing and that got Lester and a few government MPs

(00:21):
quite riled up because this is what she said.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Doctor Levy, given your reputation for cooking the box, did
any minister one order or.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
I don't think that's appropriate to attack in that manner. Well,
Asa Verel joins us, Now, how Aisa.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Good evening, Andrew.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's pretty full on, isn't it. And one which you
repeated without privilege is the limited privilege in the Select Committee.
But you've said it outside as well, so you're pretty
confident you're telling the truth. But it's pretty full on.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Well. The important issue here is that the Order to
General has identified two transactions and two reversals that have
to be made to Healthy New Zealanders New Zealand's accounts
that show that they had tried to put costs into
the past financial years and that would have the result
of making that look worse and have it and make

(01:13):
the next financial year look better. And the reason this
matters is because New Zealanders have been told that health
services need to health budgets and services need to be
cut because Healthy New Zealands and are deficit. Well, we
found out over two hundred million of that deficit is
due to these unusual accounting treatments and that's actually what
we went into the sellectivity today.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Still well, cook the books suggest criminal activity. That's a
heavy fat.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Rubbish Andrew, that's actually rubbish. That's not a crime. What
it says is that there's.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
A usual I said, the phrase cook in the books
is what you say to forsters.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, it could be that these accounts have been presented
in a way that's non conventional. That's what cooked the
books means. And that's exactly what I'm saying. This is
pretty You have this process which is being used to
justify healthcats, where the Order to General said the accountment
treatment is not right. We also had the chief financial

(02:10):
Officer of Health New Zealand having her job changed and
she had to leave. Plus we had most of the
people in finance at Health New Zealand non disclosure agreement.
This is very strange. It needs to be explained.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
A lot of this, of course very hard for many
people to actually compor a hand. But can I just
suggest that what you're suggesting is that when mister Levy
was in charge of dhb's he made the accounts look better,
and now that he's in charge of Health New Zealand,
he's making the accounts look worse.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well that what I read to lest Levy around that
the treatment of DHBs was a quote already in the public.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Donated, so the impression here.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Back in June, the government told the country that there
was a massive deficit at health in New Zealand and
that a commissioner is being brought in and that said
and train a series of cuts to health services, that
have nurses on strike, that people being told that they
can't even get on wasting lists, and all of this
is because of the finances. So of course it's incredibly

(03:07):
important that we understand the finances. And this is the
point there's been these irregularity. That is totally my job
as a parliamentarian.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I get the impression of them, I shall I get
the impression you're not going to apologize.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, the I'm not going to apologize when the Health
New Zealand accounced land in Parliament on the day of
scrutiny Week, when every other grown entity has them in
Parliament beforehand, it does seem like there are repeated opportunity,
a repeated measures taken by the government to make sure

(03:42):
we don't have the information we need to get to
the bottom of these very important questions for the New
Zealand public. But also if you go to if you
go to leave, they ask the outlined a very different
process to the chair of the sleept We'll see what
comes with that.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
You've also accused Leaster of manufacturing a crisis, but the
thing is he was brought to actually fix a crisis.
He can't manufacture the crisis when he wasn't there to
manufacturer in the first place.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
There are signs of a manufactured crisis across the country.
You look at the fact that the government claimed that
there was a three billion dollar cost of need in
hospital and then they've never actually provided the unreducted documents
to prove that's the case. You look at what they've done,
what the Health New Zealand accounts, which are just detailed.
They said it was going to be a one what
was it a one point for? And then a one

(04:25):
point eight billion dollar deficit and neither of those figures
are any longer on the car the count set and
they were two hundred million dollars out. All of these
things are being used to justify cuts the services that
all ordinary New Zealanders need and deserve. That is exactly
what a manufactured crisis is.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, but using such inflammatory language completely diverts the attention
away from the issues that you are talking about.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Now, Andrew, this is a robust radio show. You It's
routine on this show that you hold people to account.
Are we really saying in New Zealand? It's too tough
to say to a public official cook the box? Is
that really the case? Because that seems to be incredibly fragile.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
If you look up cook the Books and the Oxford Dictionary,
its associated with a legal fraud of behavior. And because
it wouldn't be surprised if Lester Levy wanted to take
a defamation case against you, well, ye all he asked
for was an apology. Well, if you're going to go
around telling people that crooks the whole time. Are they
ever going to do anything great?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, So I think that that's not the point. I
asked him a fair enough question about the treatment of
health New Zealand accounts, and the fact is that what
was presented to our committee last and September, a week
after he appeared, I might add, is very different and
that tells a very different story. I think it's totally
fair for us to hold people to account on this.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Very good and I thank you for your time today.
Thank you Hi Severil, who is not going to say sorry.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
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