The Big Budget Backflip *

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, June 3rd, 2024 - 10 comments
Categories: act, Christopher Luxon, education, health, national, nicola willis - Tags:

That did not take long.

It looks like the focus groups have spoken and barely three days after the budget was presented National has done a 360 degree level of difficulty 7 backflip on one of its major policy announcements.

Which one you may ask?

Was it news that less than three thousand families would get the promised $250 per fortnight tax cut?

Was it news that 9,000 of the poorest families would be worse off?

No, neither of these although either announcement should make National hang its head in shame.

It was the refusal to fund Pharmac to buy more cancer drugs. This was the policy that was a core feature of National’s health policy and the justification for cancelling the fees free prescription policy, even though that policy not only improved the health of the poorest amongst us but also saved us millions in hospital costs and freed up valuable hospital beds.

On Budget day Nationa said that it was not at this stage proceeding with the cancer drug policy but it was still going to cut free prescription charges. That $3 billion tax cut for landlords has to be paid for somehow.

But at a hastily arranged press conference yesterday at the Clevedon Market Luxon and Willis said that funding these drugs is still part of the plan, although they would not say when.

From Stuff:

Nicola Willis said the Government wasn’t in a position to make a detailed announcement on cancer drug funding during the Budget, but will be making one shortly.

Willis said the government has always been committed to funding cancer drugs, and will deliver on that commitment: “We are absolutely going to deliver on it.”

And that is the end of a short, sharp media appearance by the prime minister and finance minister this morning.

I wish National was so easy to get a response out of when it comes to other policies. Like dealing with the really, really strained lower class or child poverty. The budget is estimated to put a further 20,000 kids into poverty during the next three years.

But there seems to be a pattern here. If a well resourced middle class group can kick up a fuss then the Government can be forced to act. But if it involves the poors then they are completely indifferent. Nicola Willis’s grimace could be seen on Q&A last week when she hissed that poor peop-le should just get a job if they didn’t lie being poor.

National has done this before. In 2008 it promised to force Pharmac to fund Herceptin FOR 12 MONTHS. This gained it accolades although later on former National Health Minister Jonathaon Coleman conceded that the policy was wrong. He conceded that nine weeks which were funded previously was actually just as effective as 52 weeks.

At one level I have deep reservations about the policy.

Pharmac do a really good job. You just have to witness the complaints about thiem made by the pahrmaceutical companies to understand how good a job.

But their job is complex. It is a matter of assessing the cost and benefits of a number of different medicines, working out if the cheaper generic drugs are better than the originals, and also the quality and quantity of life benefits. Something that may help a child not lose their hearing has in terms of quality of life significantly greater benefit than giving cancer drugs to an 80 year old.

These are the difficult sorts of balances that Pharmac has to reach. Which is why politicising the decision making and picking individual drugs to support is so retrograde. And why appointing Paula Bennett to head Pharmac should cause concern.

To add to the unease we have Todd Stephenson, an Act MP who has been described as a Pharmac Industry Plant as Minister being given a special role to represent David Seymour in relation to Pharmac matters.

This manipulation of decision making in areas which should be left to the professionals for short term political gain is a feature of this Government.

You just have to think about education where the insistence that structured literacy is the panacea for falling literacy rates neatly blames teachers for the problems and ignores the fact that in New Zealand literacy rates have been declining since 2009 which was the year that National took complete control and the year that poverty rates started to spike.

But this insistence that they know better than those who have spent their working lives trying to understand and improve educational performance smacks of born to rule superiority. And although I have no doubt that a form of structured literacy will work for some students there are a variety of learning techniques and some flexibility is important.

This Government clearly believes that it knows best. Either that or it is willing to exude complete confidence as a tool for political advantage.

10 comments on “The Big Budget Backflip * ”

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  1. Mike the Lefty 1
    3 June 2024 at 4:48 pm

    You shouldn't underestimate the power of social media.

    There are a LOT of people who are condemning National as "lying bastards" for not honouring their pre-election pledge to fund specific cancer medicines.

    Many openly admit that they voted for National because of this single policy, and they are feeling understandably p…d off because National has backtracked on it.

    They backtracked on it because the landlords lobby groups gave National a whole lot of dollars for their election campaign but the people that needed the cancer drugs didn't because they couldn't. So in National's scheme of things the latter are dispensable.

  2. bwaghorn 2
    3 June 2024 at 5:37 pm

    I try and avoid the whole the media are biased train of thought, but I'm yet to see a single loud mouthed political reporter calling it a massive back down/flip flop, they are all just regurgitating the vomit willis is spewing on this topic. !!

  3. Patricia Bremner 3
    3 June 2024 at 5:58 pm

    They are the most self interested governing group we have ever seen in our 82+ years.

    The undoing of sound social policy and the denigration of all things Maori plus the dismissive attitude to climate science is going to cause huge future problems.

    The outright manipulation of the checks and balances of our democracy is verging on criminal. Not only have they failed to implement promises, they have changed things not even mentioned in the campaigns.

    The page Willis presented represented how callous they are. Our Budget plans…

    Make everyone afraid of losing their jobs, by cutting Public Services positions back to 2017. 5000 gone… threaten that 6000 more will go over the term.

    Blame Labour for the resulting loss of tax take and, call planned funding to a date "A fiscal cliff"

    Tell people they will get help with the cost of living, then give a third of tha promiset.

    Put Three Waters on to the Councils' books, so they have huge rates rises and debts.

    While that is happening, fail to underwrite insurance so charges skyrocket, as insurers look for underwriters.

    Try to legislate all blocks and laws away so the extractive industries move in.

    Take away rules around rivers and lakes, so farmer only need to talk to their local.council

    Remove all mentions of the Treaty, Change the treaty Principles.

    Perhaps all of that was written on Willis's one page… in invisible ink.

    Now we know why Luxon has 7 working on TiTok.. they are selling this poison. imho.

    • Kat 3.1
      3 June 2024 at 8:03 pm

      Ruth Richardson's influence here is 150%……..its now the daughter of despondency……

  4. roblogic 4
    3 June 2024 at 6:34 pm

    The Atlas/Tory playbook is to create a fake crisis and then sell off state assets to giant corporations for a few pieces of silver. Then when you are inevitably kicked out of office, get a nice golden parachute from your corporate pals. And you have to be patient, so it doesn't look like obvious corruption.

  5. Darien Fenton 5
    4 June 2024 at 6:07 am

    Totally agree Micky. Our Pharmac model is unique in the world so comparing us with what other countries fund is not comparing apples with apples. I never want us to be in a position where our drug purchasing and supply agency is dictated to by politicians or interest groups (or Rachel Smalley!) Sure it needs more funding. It always will do. But give me clinical decisions over a politician’s any day.

    • Ed1 5.1
      4 June 2024 at 3:45 pm

      And interfering in this way almost certainly results in those selling the drugs being much less willing to negotiate on price – I suspect that is a major reason why they are now having to be unclear as to when the drugs will have been available. Going public on these drugs may have been nice as an election bribe, but they are first interfering in a longstanding scientific process that determines estimated maximum value for dollars spent, but more importantly one that leads to drugs costing us more. If they had merely talked to Pharmac about the priority they wanted for certain drugs then given them a higher budget allocation the same result may well have resulted at much lower cost.

  6. thinker 6
    4 June 2024 at 7:27 am

    Like you said, there's a difficult balance in terms of lots of drugs that can give life to people with different ailments and only so much money.

    We all get that.

    But to deny cancer patients the drugs you promised them for either tax cuts or landlord subsidies – there's a lot of voters of all colours who won't be comfortable with that.

  7. Ffloyd 7
    4 June 2024 at 10:25 am

    But at least Willis gets to keep her job. Phew!