Dear John,

Local Body Elections

I do hope you have completed your Local Body voting papers that you have received in the mail and that you have posted them before 4 October or dropped them into your nearest vote box? See where you can drop off your voting papers here. 

Voting ends at midday on Saturday 8 October 2022. Voting is an exercise of your democratic right and as has been said before, a strong voter turnout leads to a robust election result. A high voting turnout means that the Mayor, councillors and local boards do in fact represent the majority in the area to which they are elected.

Mood of the Boardroom

Confirming what many people have suspected, The New Zealand Herald’s annual Mood of the Boardroom survey, revealed a general agreement from business leaders that the, “Government is spending a huge amount of money only to deliver an appallingly low level of outcome.”

Concern has been expressed and the National Opposition agrees that “We seem to have lost our ambition as a country. We are unclear what we stand for and what our place in the world is.”

The National Opposition continue to question the Government’s spending policies. More spending does not stop worse outcomes, and not only are policies poorly designed, but some are irrelevant to improving people’s lives. For example, the Government is spending $370 million on merging the state owned Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand and there is no cost benefit analysis or rules for this merger and as another example, the Cost of Living payment which is very badly targeted. It has been shown in back-office papers that more than 6000 people who’d given an overseas address to Inland Revenue, continued to receive this poorly-targeted payment.

Then there is the Jobs Tax. This is the Government’s income insurance scheme that would pay people 80 per cent of their wage for up to six months if they lose their job.

Many employees’ job contracts already have redundancy provisions in them and there’s our existing welfare safety net, too. I have read many comments asking why this employment insurance scheme is necessary when we already have full unemployment benefits available through the Ministry of Social Development?

Under the income insurance scheme, there will be a 1.39 per cent levy on everyone’s wages. That’s a cost of $834 each year for every person earning the average wage. In addition, the employer will pay a 1.39 per cent wage tax for every employee which is another $834 per averagely waged employee. This will put up the cost of employment and the immediate results of this are likely to be more expensive products and services and decisions by employers to cut employee numbers and/or to stop hiring new employees.

Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora)

There have been articles across news media suggesting the new health authority Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) launched in July this year, is operating in a style more suited to a corporate culture than a government one.

The media too, have made these accusations because of the new health authority’s decision to keep the media and the public out of its board meetings. 

Previously the legislation governing the now-abolished district health boards (DHBs) required them to hold their board meetings in public, which allowed journalists and members of the public to attend. Sensibly the legislation also allowed for private sessions for matters deemed to be confidential or commercially sensitive.

Now Health NZ says that as a crown entity, it is quite different from the DHBs it replaced on July 1.

But surely transparency is critical for the credibility of New Zealand’s health system which is intended to be universal for all New Zealanders who collectively see healthcare as both a right and a public good rather than a commodity or privilege?

DHBs were responsible for the healthcare of geographically defined populations. They prepared reports to their governing boards on how they were doing this. Under the previous National-led government targets for treatments, surgeries and hospital ED wait-times for example, were set and reported on regularly to the District Health Board members and also made available to the public. Generally hospital wait times began to improve using these measures but this reporting and accountability was hastily scrapped in 2018 by the current Government.

Although it is only three months since Health New Zealand began, the early signs are that perhaps less is being written or less is being required to be reported to the Health NZ board. With less access by the public and other interested parties, it has the immediate effect of reducing transparency and this means that accountability is reduced.

You and I cannot easily judge the effectiveness of the change in our health system in terms of how many more procedures and surgeries are now being done or whether Emergency Department wait times are improving or whether urgent treatment for diseases like cancer are accessed early enough by all those suffering them. Nor can we determine that access to treatment is equal over the whole of New Zealand which is apparently the whole point of Health New Zealand?

The return to a National-led government that can rebuild and properly manage our economy, in turn bolstering public services like health, will improve the lives of all New Zealanders.

The National Opposition want to re-create New Zealand to be a more confident, positive, ambitious and aspirational New Zealand than the one we have today.

Best wishes,
Judith

Hon Judith Collins
http://judithcollins.national.org.nz/