Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, July 13th, 2008 - 54 comments
Categories: election 2008, john key, labour, tax -
Tags: government waste
The idea that a government would purposely spend money in a wasteful manner is patently absurd. Voters want more government services and lower tax, any dollar of wasteful spending not only takes away from a government’s ability to meet those desires but also gives voters an active reason to vote against the Government. That’s a huge incentive to spend public money as efficiently as possible.
So, it should have been no surprise to hear Trevor Mallard on Agenda today talk about how, during the Budget process, the Government goes through expenditure line by line, looking first at where resources can be moved around so new policies can be funded from the existing funds – ie. provide more services for the same amount of tax. That is totally at odds with the baseless line from John Key following the Budget that ‘ government spending hasn’t been reviewed in a decade’.
No wonder, then, that National has been able to identify virtually no waste it would cut, while the Government has been able to shave $40 million plus off spending for the same or better output by developing a single core benefit. While the Government has actually got on and done the work, Key has just been telling porkies to the public to win votes.
As it becomes more and more clear that there is simply nowhere near enough government waste to pay for the big tax cuts Key is promising, we have to ask where he will get the money from. There are only two options: borrowing or slashing public services.
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RedIllogix
Thanks for the sermon. I will put it together with all other sermons.
I acknowledged a similar point that someone made elsewhere – that we are all inter-dependent, that some form of governing structure is both a natural human condition and necessary. etc.
That is not my point, which is quite specific. Read a little more closely.
Bill Brown, so how did society keep going when people paid no tax to the govt, which was not that long ago?
Hey I’m no historian so I can’t give specific examples, but I can’t imagine that the average “man in the street” at that time was better off than I am. And I’m very much just an average man in the street.
Did they have an extensive road network?
Did they have hospitals where I could get, like, radiation therapy?
Did most of their kids NOT get sick and die before they became adults?
Did they have schools just down the road where you could send your kid – just because?
Where and when did this nirvana exist?
bill brown, good attempt but not quite there. You referred to keeping society going, not the state of society. You are changing your own question midway through.
But never mind – perhaps back then there were no plasma screens sure, but apparently there was a hell of a lot less crime!
Govt does not keep society going, as you claim. That is patently absurd. Society exists and keeps going by the mere existence of a group of people. Govts and other things arise from that, effectively as a subset. And that in fact goes right back to the point I have been trying to make – that the current philosophy is backwards.
Govt is a subset of society, not the other way around.
Thanks vto, I didn’t think that that situation existed. I would have been surprised.
By the way, I wasn’t attempting anything to be “not quite there” about. I was just interested to hear about a society like ours which didn’t rely on redistributing income.
Were you speaking to someone else about the plasma screens? Sorry you lost me there.
I never said that the government keeps society going. I said, and I quote myself:
“…the government redistributes that money to society to keep society going.”
And thus I agree that, to quote you:
“Govt is a subset of society, not the other way around.”
There is a perfectly good reason why all patient data is not centralised. It’s called “Privacy”. You know, that thing where people don’t want someone knowing everything about them? Like where a female patient doesn’t want her family GP to know she’s had an abortion etc. So what we have in NZ is the NZHIS, it records patient demographics and key alerts (via the NMWS system) like whether the patient has HIV or an allergy to penicillin, but doesn’t act as a patient record. It’s up to the hospitals and GP’s to keep that record, and to keep it seperate, and if data is needed from one to another then there’s a process to go through. I’m not saying the process couldn’t be electronic and Counties and Waitemata DHB’s are doing some good work on this, but there you go.
I’m trying to remember the other things that were suggested for improving the health system, but the other commentators were right, mostly they were vague and unuseful generalisations. The suggestion of a centralised procurement system for medical supplies would be worthwhile but has been done in some areas and on that experience would yield about $1m per DHB per year.
HS: No the commonwealth fund did not find that we had the second best health system in the world, to extrapolate this publication to get that as a take home message is incorrect.
Most blatant case of calling black white yet seen on this blog. NZ is clearly ranked 2nd overall in table on page one and the extensive analysis following.
…your attack on Macdoctor…
Attack? Hardly – I simply asked Macca to supply one skerrick of evidence to back up his ludicrous claim that most of the extra health spend is wasted. Both he and yourself have failed dismally: if exposing blatant lies from purported professionals (one of whom cannot spell navel) and self-proclaimed “insiders” is an attack, then either tidy up your game or brace yourselves for further “ak-attacks”.
If you sit down and talk to any medical professional in primary or secondary care they will tell you there is waste in the system as there is in all health systems around the world.
Agreed. Just as there is in any large organisation. But lashing out at entire sectors with baseless and hyperbolic invective is no way to behave – let alone identify problems and improve things.
AK: You call me a liar and thats not abusive? You clearly have no clue as to what is happening in the health system. You accuse me of supplying no evidence yet supply absolutely zilch to support your completely baseless viewpoint. Let’s face it – I’m the one with the first-hand knowledge but, of course, I’m just a dumb doctor, what would I know about the health system.
Your attitude is exactly the same as the dim bureaucrats in my last post. I therefore conclude that you are probably one of those said bureaucrats, so I will stop posting now and go and do something more productive – like bang my head on a brick wall.
It didn’t distract from your point – it totally annihilated it.
What you said was that it was possible to do both anyway but that we should borrow to do the capital investment because it was ‘inter-generational’. I’m pretty sure previous governments have said the same which is why we have 15 to 20% of GDP as government debt. The interest we’re paying on that would almost pay for Nationals tax cuts which is why I said that such borrowing decreases living standards. If we weren’t paying that interest we would be better off both individually and as a country but we are and that dictates higher taxes now. Once we’ve paid them off we can have lower taxes.
Macca: I will stop posting now and go and do something more productive – like bang my head on a brick wall.
Excellent therapeutic choice for your condition.
(But do remember that on remission the resultant claim forms must be double-checked and fully compliant and if there is any damage to that wall the appropriate PCT47s will have to be logged on in the correct field prior to approval by your CAD and entered against both the Risk Register and IPP.)
Patients, brother
AK
Your link is not functioning. As I said previously if the report is the same that has been trumpeted here before as saying that NZ is the second best health system in the world that is an incorrect assumption to take from the report.
And once again in Macdoctor’s defence you asked her/him for a few examples off the top of her/his head, they were supplied and were all reasonable suggestions which you proceeded to deride and attack leading me to assume as she/he did that you may indeed be one of those dim health bureaucrats that cause us both some dispair.
Mr Draco, your economics is simplistic. And arguing over that was not the point of my points.
HS: Sorry about that, here’s the link again, this time including 2007 (where we are now ranked third equal with Australia)
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/1027_Davis_mirror_mirror_international_update_final.pdf?section=4039
Oh and yes, it is the same one I have posted here before.
And the unmissable table showing our overall rating is very clearly displayed on the second page of the executive summary. Not to mention a further table on page 5 (reproduced below)
Which means that you are knowingly repeating your blatant, barefaced LIE.
Without a shred of justification.
I still suspect you are burt
But I KNOW you are a blatant LIAR
(and a “doctor” that can’t even spell “navel” or “despair”)
Pathetic.
“The top-performing and lowest-performing countries have been relatively stable over time (Figure 3). The U.S. ranked lowest in editions of this report released in 2004 and 2006. Last year, Germany led the six nations. This year, U.K. performance improved to first with inclusion of data from the 2006 survey of primary care physicians, reflecting in part the dedicated effort made in the U.K. to implement a health information system that supports physicians’ efforts to provide quality care and a payment system for primary care physicians that rewards high quality.
Figure 3. Overall Ranking
AUS
CAN
GER
NZ
UK
US
Overall Ranking (2007 edition)
3.5
5
2
3.5
1
6
Overall Ranking (2006 edition)
4
5
1
2
3
6
Overall Ranking (2004 edition)
2
4
n/a
1
3
5
Health Expenditures per Capita, 2004*
$2,876
$3,165
$3,005
$2,083
$2,546
$6,102
Note: 1=highest ranking, 6=lowest ranking.
* Health expenditures per capita figures are adjusted for differences in cost”
AK
No AK you are perpetuating the lie that this report as you said earlier today showed NZ to have the second best health system in the world.
“And Labour has excelled: the Commonwealth Fund, the hugely respected authority on the matter, found our health system to be the second-best in the world last year ”
Poppycock the report is first and foremost a survey and is of 6 healthcare systems only
(That the UK is rated number 1 I find laughable as unless it has improved out of sight I find it extraordinary that a survey has found the NHS superior to health services in NZ, Australia and Canada.)
Which means that you are incorrect in stating that
“And Labour has excelled: the Commonwealth Fund, the hugely respected authority on the matter, found our health system to be the second-best in the world last year ”
‘I still suspect you are burt ‘
No my name’s John actually
‘But I KNOW you are a blatant LIAR’
I hope I have dissuaded you from that suspicion.
Good evening
far out you guys on the left must feel like your banging your head agaisnt a brick wall trying to exlain to these kiwi blog cast offs. Makes it a bit difficult for every one when crosby\textor–>key makes “personal attacks” this weeks buzz word. How about instead of sitting around calling things personal attacks you do something to disprove them huh?
Bill Brown, the answers to your questions are:
Did they have an extensive road network? Yes, over 80% of our road network was built before 1900.
Did they have hospitals where I could get, like, radiation therapy?
They had hospital but, like, radiation therapy hadn’t been invented.
Did most of their kids NOT get sick and die before they became adults? Yes, except for the ones that got sick and die because vacines hadn’t been discovered for most life-threatening childhood illnesses.
Did they have schools just down the road where you could send your kid – just because?
Yes, just because it wasn’t compulsory. Actually, because they didn’t have school buses half the kids went to boarding schools.
All of the above were funded by local government or churches until early in the twentieth century, a level of government where local needs can actually be met.
Where there was central government funding it was for buildings, from revenue from customs duties and land sales. Sales taxes and income taxes came when central government assumed responsibility for health and education.
So neither of you is strictly correct.
AK
Are you there.
Still awaiting some explanation of why I am a liar for taking issue with the conclusion you drew from the report you were trumpeting ?
I was going to point out the ak that the world contained an awful lot more than six countries, but you beat me to it.
I don’t know what your experience is, but I’ve heard very good things about the middle eastern countries – especially the oil barons like Saudi Arabia – that they have health systems second-to-none. Then lets not forget some of our Pacific cousins like Japan; the medical technology available there is astonishing
Phil
Many are magnificent but very expensive and as always outcomes are dependent on the individual skills and competency of the people working there who’s care you are under.
Variance in care within countries health systems is also fairly high.