Seymour Admits He Never Checked Impact on Māori with Diabetes
David Seymour Associate Minister of Health confirmed in answers to Written Parliamentary Questions that he supported removing Māori and Pacific priority access to Type 2 diabetes medicines, without any equity analysis, without modelling of Māori complications, and holds no data on how many Māori currently rely on the pathway they're removing.
Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the admissions were negligible.
"They don't know who they're harming. They don't know how many Māori with diabetes rely on this. They haven't modelled the complications, the amputations, the renal failure, the early deaths. And they're proceeding anyway.”
Pharmac's own Board paper confirms the proposed changes will create new barriers for Māori: more testing, more clinical visits, more hoops. It may leave up to 7,000 fewer Māori and Pacific people eligible.
The advisory groups warned against it. The clinicians warned against it. The Minister proceeded anyway.
"This is what race-blind policy looks like. Treating everyone the same in a system built on inequality doesn't create fairness. It locks it in. Māori face the highest rates of diabetes-related complications in Aotearoa. These criteria exist because of that gap. Removing them without evidence is a Tiriti breach, full stop."
The driver isn't clinical. It's political. The Board paper cites Cabinet Circular CO(24), a Government directive that doesn't mention Te Tiriti once, as the reason for reviewing ethnicity criteria across health funding.
Te Pāti Māori would protect equitable access to diabetes medicines because Māori health policy must be driven by need, evidence, and Te Tiriti obligations.
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