Written By:
Mountain Tui - Date published:
10:47 am, August 1st, 2024 - 21 comments
Categories: Dirty Politics, health, national, national/act government, nicola willis, Shane Reti -
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Excerpt cross posted from Mountain Tui‘s substack post.
The curious case of Health NZ versus the National Party continues as a former Board member accuses the government of spreading intentional “disinformation.”
Let’s do a quick recap of how we got here –
Well where are we now?
It seems likely that the news reports are all accurate. Successfully recruiting more nurses contributed to a bulk of the balance.
If you watch his press conferences, Luxon frequently boasts about how many nurses have been hired in the last 12 months. The other elements of backpay, pay equity etc. apply too.
Apparently, in trying to meet the big five health goals that Reti established earlier in the year (ED wait times, vaccinations, cancer treatment, shorter elective surgery waits, first appointment to see a specialist,) they asked the Board to focus on that, and as a result, more practitioners were hired.
The CEO spoke about this in the last weeks, i.e. Health NZ was able to successfully reduce nursing shortages from double digits to about 6%.
In any other world, this would be good news. But in our new National-ACT-NZ First Coalition government’s mind, it was deaf maddingly bad, leading to a “blowout” from their underfunding.
And let me tell you, it’s a real inconvenience when your remit is health and that involves having to hire more frontline staff.
Yesterday, a Health NZ ex-Board member accused the Prime Minister of spreading “disinformation”. This clip below shows how it went down, but RNZ essentially reports that Luxon sidestepped responding to Walker’s comments, when asked.
Unfortunately, what the PM and his Health Minister have said just doesn’t match up.
There now appears to be a clear pattern by the Luxon government of misrepresenting Boards and their communications:
1/ Some of you may remember it happened to the Kāinga Ora board, whose response was buried by Chris Bishop, before Newsroom reported on it after the fact. Under the terms of his KO review agreement, Bill English and his team was allocated ~$500,000 from the emergency housing fund to write a report that correlated to the Government’s opinions, and with the specification English didn’t even need to involve KO.
That directive was confirmed by a frustrated Board who pointed out innumerable errors in English’s findings and that he appeared to hardly even engage with them. Naturally, no action was taken, and the headlines won the day for Luxon and Bishop.
2/ It also happened to Kiwirail. Last year, Nicola Willis did the media rounds claiming Kiwirail was effectively un-judicious in trying to buy Ferraris when we only needed a Toyota or few. She directed the Board to go look for second hand ferries.
But the Select Committee and subsequent reporting revealed significant details such as that Kiwirail had procured ferries that were rail enabled, future proof and fit for purpose for the Strait and at a 40% less than market price cost. The price and specifications were excellent and most of the blowout was related to the need for seismic upgrades for the Wellington side port.
The new ferries would have accommodated 40 rail wagons, 3000 lane metres for vehicles, and 1800 passengers accommodating the projected volume increases across the Strait. There will be a penalty in the order of $300mn, on top of the ~$500mn loss already incurred from cancelling it, not to mention the inflation when we do have to buy.
3. It’s now happening to Health NZ as we speak. And while ferries and KO builds might be mostly out of sight and out of mind to Kiwis, our health system isn’t. And our doctors and nurses are valued and their voice ultimately does matter.
Governments that routinely lie to the public aren’t the type that Kiwis deserve.
And the Directors of those organisations also don’t deserve to be set up and unfairly maligned either.
I think most of us expect better standards of integrity in those who sit in government.
Labour better wake up here. There’s signs they’re starting too.
It’s clear what we are dealing with here is not an incrementalist government or even one that agrees remotely with the rules of government or our society.
We’ve seen this week that they’re happy to bullshit us to our face about the health services, while they funnel hundreds of millions into tobacco tax cuts and a ministry to investigate waste.
As Mountain Tui has catalogued their manufacturing crises left, right and centre and destroying institutions and infrastructure as they go.
This is a blitzreig government similar to the Lange/Douglas one. That government faced internal qualms eventually. This one is filled with people who’ve never had a qualm about anything. The plan is clearly to turn functional departments into basket cases and privatise them quickly.
If they go further and faster than their manifesto, it’ll be done before we mobilise opposition. And they probably figure they can’t be fought on all fronts- the media and public will grow tired of an oppositional narrative.
But they must be opposed. Effectively and soon.
Labour’s attacks on the tobacco partnership in the government and their health lies is a start.
Is it possible that this cruel and vile coalition realises they will very likely be a one term government? And is this why they are moving as quickly as possible to implement their agenda and ideology – run down/sell off/reverse positive changes of the past couple of decades/weaken the country's treaty foundations etc?
Is this why they don't care about alienating significant sectors of our society, such as health?
I don't think they are stupid. Corrupt, cruel, racist, incompetent, arrogant, and out of their depth, yes. But I think they know what they are doing, and they just don't care.
"But they must be opposed. Effectively and soon." Yes, but are significant numbers of us going numb or focusing on just trying to get by and is it already too late?
At times I’ve heard people talking about a tipping point when people will mobilise against them, but it never seems to arrive.
Agreed, they know exactly what they're doing.
Aside from all the social media schtick and online ads their backers funded to get elected probably comes a run sheet, talking points, strategies etc to get the job done once in.
Those moves on tobacco being a case in point and wonder how Reti gets viewed by his fellow health professionals now.
No, I don’t think people are going numb.
I’m not an expert, but I am a citizen and I am angry. This is a foreign takeover. We are not instinctively a small government country. We look to the government, not the waffle house when trouble comes.
The lies here are outrageous. I agree Dr Verral has performed well so far. But across the board this American middle management cynicism and tobacco PR strategy of lies, misdirection and confusion needs to be met with the NZ way.
I’m not sure if Hipkins can sell that, but perhaps he can be the Principal in the office and wheel out a bunch of DPs and APs to sell an optimistic plan.
The Greens need to sort their shit, frankly. It’s all about them. If they are sincere in their cause get back to service. Tana is worse than Kopu frankly, but politically it’s a leadweight on their attack.
This government don’t know what they’re doing- they know what they want to do. If they face concerted opposition they panic and flap and fail. Time to be clear and get stuck in.
HOW, do people mobilise against them?
There lies the problem.
The majority of NZers don't know how and no one is taking the lead.
Join a union.
Or donate to a union.
Seems like an inadequate answer, but being united is the a big part of the solution.
I think that the tipping point will be when the member for Epsom takes over from the NZF list member
Look I'm no fan boy of the labour party, but the reality is Dr Ayesha Verrall is a bloody fine MP doing a bang up job. As the spokesperson on health for the labour party, she has front footed a response to this bullshit from day one.
A couple of press releases.
https://www.labour.org.nz/news-4_500_jobs_lost_and_counting
https://www.labour.org.nz/waitlists_up_and_workforce_down_under_national
Or if you'd prefer video
The failures of the press are not the failures of the labour party, nor it's response.
Oh yes! Here’s Verrall’s question to Reti in the house I posted in a previous thread:
She asked: “Does his private health insurance cover injuries sustained while being thrown under the bus by the prime minister?”
Wow. Stunner. More please. It’s time to get angry and stop as much of this crap now as possible and promise to reverse the crony laws for their friends’ personal ventures after the next election, if they can’t be stopped.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350360916/trade-minister-hot-water-after-shouting-youre-not-mexico-now
What Deficit? – Reti is full of shit. He knew the books before he came in, and it's been 9 months, and he's been in opposition for 6 years, is he really such a lazy bastard to not keep up with the books? There were no surprise for the Tory idiot.
Ultimately my response is that Reti is a traitorous bastard to all the descendants of the 28th Battalion. What descendant wants people to enter poverty over a 5000 dollar health bill? Apart from Shane? I mean if Shane loves that model so much – why not emigrate to the USA and do us all a favour?
Because, the only high of private health insurance for the working class, was purdue pharma.
Didn't previously know BHN Adam so thanks for the link. Always interesting to hear real people explaining realities which strip certain MPs from hiding behind the curtain curtain of lies and misinformation. I have bookmarked the site.
These vandals are destroying public health before our eyes–time for direct action–and I mean that in all senses, not just health sector unions.
A fighting class left approach from the NZCTU involving members, non members, families and community organising. Protest action should ideally be taken against the Natzos, ACT and NZ First MPs and industrial action on their supporting companies, not long suffering patients in the queue.
Even the dimmest CoC voting munter will need medical care (hopefully for a gall stone the size of a golf ball), so it is a universal issue.
Perhaps the Government should employ more State servants and contractors to enable effective management and advice.
Another symptom are Seymour's elitist private charter schools.
On RadioNZ yesterday there seemed to be massive, well argued opposition to them before (what I assume was) the select committee, yet there is no doubt they will be ruthlessly implemented.
Does Winston really support them? I doubt it. Surely it is time for NZF to show a little backbone-they have the swing votes to make a difference and stop some of these things becoming law.
Yup sponging off the taxpayers is a very ACT way of doing business.
What about the reports, albeit anecdotal but verified by close associates, of nurses in the last few days being accepted for jobs but 12 minutes later having the position removed, shit like this is happening all the time , but medical staff are under threat of termination if going to the press.
The conviction and sentencing to come in 2026.
A comment to Ayesha Verrall:
I think Shane Reti has a point when he includes patients as a management layer in the health system.
As we've seen from Dargaville, trends in the health system now mean that patients face self-treatment when attending the emergency clinics.
The corollary of this is could be ER departments where patients use the tools available to self-treat their conditions.
Under those circumstances, I think it would be entirely fair to include them as part of the treatment team.
You are kidding of course?
A layer is being removed here.
Doctors at Hutt Hospital are being asked to make beds and clean medical equipment, on top of a busy patient workload.
An email sent to all ED staff and seen by RNZ lays out which cleaning tasks are expected of clinical staff, and which are to be done by cleaners.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/523906/hutt-hospital-doctors-told-to-make-beds-clean-sinks#:~:text=Doctors%20at%20Hutt%20Hospital%20are,to%20be%20done%20by%20cleaners.
To say that Luxon is spreading disinformation is not news, it's axiomatic. What lies behind his inane parroting of slogans is the neoclassical economics he most likely swallowed wholesale and uncritically in business school 30 odd years ago – and which in itself is a form of disinformation.