David Farrar: The Health Research Council

In late August 2024, the Minister of Health, Dr Shane Reti, issued updated guidance to the Health Research Council (“HRC”) after years of scandalous funding was revealed. Dr Reti wanted it to fund cures, not Kaupapa, and definitely not spiritual curses. Especially given $126 million is spent in annual “health” research and the government’s books are not in a great way.

Dr Reti wanted the HRC to:

“have an increased focus on Government priorities and improved health for New Zealanders when being considered for funding.”

Dr Reti then expected:

“…a sharper focus on real-world projects leading to improved health and/or health system outcomes, such as improving timely access to quality healthcare for New Zealanders.

With the first funding for 2025 announced, did the Health Research Council heed Dr Reti’s memo or did they chuck it into recycling and continue as if Grant Robertson and Dr Verrall were in charge? Sadly for Dr Reti the answer seems the latter with the first 78 grants for 2025 out.

Here are some “low lights”:

• $481,400 to research if a “…significant gap exists in Aotearoa’s equitable assessment of food security, as current strategies are influenced by colonial, capitalist ideologies that focus narrowly on financial access to food.” Can someone please tell me how “colonial capitalist ideologies” on food reflects a single priority of the Government’?

• $411,819 to provide practical knowledge about the roles that Māori men had and can have during child birth “by gathering experiences and stories from tāne Māori, speaking to experts in hapūtanga and the roles of tāne and working in collaborative ways with multiple stakeholders, the project team will identify actions and work to implement change.” While common sense how will this lead to “real-world projects leading to improved health and/or health system outcomes”? It is surely the domain of Social Development and Te Puni Kōkiri and not ‘health research? 

• $265,000 to develop a culturally appropriate marae-based psychedelic-assisted therapy for Methamphetamine use disorder, delivered by Māori using a Māori rongoā treatment model. The Health Research Council continues to fund psuedo-science faith healers and naturopathy under the politically correct “rongoa” label. A quarter of a million for faith healers dispensing magic mushrooms to treat meth. What could possibly go wrong?

• $407,980 for a “culturally appropriate model that rangatahi can use to describe their hauora, that also accommodates different ages, cognitive and learning abilities, will improve health outcomes.” This project reflects deep concern the HRC is funding projects that go over the same ground as previous studies have. An inexhaustive search revealed 16 previous projects worth $6.8 million related to rangatahi and is not cognitive and learning abilities related more to education? 

• $101,050 for reconceptualising musculoskeletal care from a Māori worldview. At first this sounds legitimate until you read the lay summary: “The health system of Aotearoa, New Zealand is not meeting the needs of Māori. The injury and rehabilitation realm of health is no exception. It is a responsibility enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and national legislation such as the Pae ora (Healthy futures) Act 2022 to provide equitable, culturally appropriate and responsive health services…. to explore how best indigenous practices such as rokoā, and a western practice such as physiotherapy, can better support injury prevention, care and rehabilitation..” A shorter summary is six figures decolonising physio using Māori pseudo science (rokoā). Fantastic and just what Dr Reti did not want to see.

The Health Research Council continues to fund on the basis of race with roughly half going for Māori /Pasifika and the balance on ‘medical research’ that you and I naively think ought to be its priority. As many of the grants go over the same ground as previous ones, the HRC is using our money to reinvent the wheel delivered by academics that is not the real world.

The way forward for Dr Reti and for Nicola Willis is clear. That is to follow what Judith Collins is doing with the Marsden Fund. If those handing out tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers money can;’t be trusted to reflect government priorities, then you just have to remove their discretion – or abolish them.

I want taxpayer money for health research to go on treatments for cancer, not fighting “colonial capitalist ideologies” on food.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.