The issue here is centralisation will not remove the bureaucracy, only reposition it to Wellington or Christchurch and take away our local voice. The downgrade of the Lumsden Maternity Centre is a prime example of this, where a decision was made by someone in Dunedin, removed from understanding what the needs were on the ground. Now, almost two years later, all we have seen is a whole lot of promises made and very little delivered. Our health system is already very centralised, as the Government has a high level of control, determining our District Health Board (DHB) funding, governance and so on.