He said that no matter how much additional funding is injected into the health system - the current Government has invested more than ever before - it will never be enough. There will always be a new drug to fund or infrastructure to replace. Put out a hundred fires and one hundred and one pop up elsewhere. There will always be someone’s nana who has waited too long for a procedure and news cameras to record her plight. It is the nature of the beast.
Click to view
Click to view
“The submission did not mention healthy eating.”
I don’t how I still have the capacity to be surprised by the behaviour of our public service and their relentless drive to be activists for causes that have nothing to do with their job. But goodness gracious - opposing raffle tickets!?
Click to view
We have a Ministry for the Environment, Department of Conservation, Climate Change Commission, Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority, and countless NGOs dedicated to worrying about climate change. We do not need our struggling health system to be spending its time pontificating about coffee cups.
Click to view
New Zealanders should be furious that Health NZ is so full of busybodies who have decided to spend their time sticking their oar into how Kiwis live our lives e.g. shifting us “away from cars”. The Health Minister is completely right to instruct them to focus on what they are hired to do. They need to get back in their lane. It will be appropriate for Health NZ to make submissions on particular health issues, but their commentary should be restrained and focused on their remit.
The entire beat up about free speech is even more outrageous when you consider that Dr Verrall’s government, and the Labour coalition before it, engaged in unprecedented censorship of health professionals around COVID-19 and vaccinations. The gall to even suggest that a reminder of the parameters of Health NZ’s role in New Zealand is an impingement of rights when doctors were fired for raising the most basic concerns about vaccination side effects, is extraordinary.
I enjoyed Audrey Young’s commentary on the saga in her Insider Politics newsletter this week:
An excellent use of the word “hullabaloo”.
Frankly, the level of coordination between Labour, unions (in particular PSA and Fleur Fitzsimons), and parts of the media is the disturbing part of this story. The hit jobs keep coming. The only thing Government ministers can do is carry on delivering on what they promised voters with the knowledge that they’ll be pelted with accusations and attacks by an Opposition that includes much more than just those on the other side of the debating chamber.
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.
But, Williamson is adamant that this should not mean that ministers or governments give up. Investments must continue to be made, new drugs funded, the massive workforce managed. Health Ministers just shouldn’t expect many pats on the back for it.
New Health Minister Simeon Brown will be well aware of this as I am sure Williamson has provided his Pakuranga electorate replacement with a realistic pep talk on what to expect.
The young minister has already encountered plenty of challenges in his brief time in the health portfolio since being subbed in for Dr Shane Reti. He has had the media focus on his personal pro-life politics despite the Prime Minister making it crystal clear that his party and this Government would not be touching the abortion laws. Funnily enough, the media were not concerned about Dr Reti’s pro-life stance when he was in charge of health.
Brown has also overseen an exodus of senior staff in the health system, but contrary to much of the political commentary this should be viewed as a success rather than a failing. The behemoth health system has been incredibly hostile to the Coalition Government to the extent that former Health NZ CEO Margie Apa had to issue an apology to Associate Health Minister Casey Costello when Opposition Health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall’s sister-in-law was found to be working in Costello’s office without the minister being aware of her connection.
In order to effect change, those at the top must be engaged and leading by example. It is pretty evident that was not happening. Director General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati, Health NZ chief executive Fepulea’i Margie Apa, and Director of Public Health Dr Nicholas Jones all tendered their resignations in quick succession leaving room for Brown to fill the positions with personnel suited to this Government’s approach. Presumably, given Dr Jones simply ended his secondment and the other two resigned, New Zealand has been spared the expense of the redundancies and sackings that result in large pay outs.
With some of the sticks in the mud dislodged, Brown is now on a mission to turn the Titanic around before it hits the iceberg. If anyone can do it, it is him. He is an assertive leader who cannot be easily manipulated. He has an extraordinary work ethic and expects the same of those around him. But most of all, he is not afraid to make decisions that aren’t popular nor to take action that the media will spin negatively.
This week, the Opposition - Labour MP Dr Ayesha Verrall and PSA Unionist (and failed Labour candidate) Fleur Fitzsimons - aided by the media, attacked Simeon Brown for supposedly impinging on the free speech of Health NZ employees. Surprising as Brown has never shown censorious tendencies. It quickly became clear that this was a manufactured outrage and the Health Minister had quite reasonably simply told Health NZ to get back in their lane and focus on their job.
Without the benefit of fair coverage in the media, Brown took to X to clarify the situation:
New Health Minister Simeon Brown will be well aware of this as I am sure Williamson has provided his Pakuranga electorate replacement with a realistic pep talk on what to expect.
The young minister has already encountered plenty of challenges in his brief time in the health portfolio since being subbed in for Dr Shane Reti. He has had the media focus on his personal pro-life politics despite the Prime Minister making it crystal clear that his party and this Government would not be touching the abortion laws. Funnily enough, the media were not concerned about Dr Reti’s pro-life stance when he was in charge of health.
Brown has also overseen an exodus of senior staff in the health system, but contrary to much of the political commentary this should be viewed as a success rather than a failing. The behemoth health system has been incredibly hostile to the Coalition Government to the extent that former Health NZ CEO Margie Apa had to issue an apology to Associate Health Minister Casey Costello when Opposition Health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall’s sister-in-law was found to be working in Costello’s office without the minister being aware of her connection.
In order to effect change, those at the top must be engaged and leading by example. It is pretty evident that was not happening. Director General of Health Dr Diana Sarfati, Health NZ chief executive Fepulea’i Margie Apa, and Director of Public Health Dr Nicholas Jones all tendered their resignations in quick succession leaving room for Brown to fill the positions with personnel suited to this Government’s approach. Presumably, given Dr Jones simply ended his secondment and the other two resigned, New Zealand has been spared the expense of the redundancies and sackings that result in large pay outs.
With some of the sticks in the mud dislodged, Brown is now on a mission to turn the Titanic around before it hits the iceberg. If anyone can do it, it is him. He is an assertive leader who cannot be easily manipulated. He has an extraordinary work ethic and expects the same of those around him. But most of all, he is not afraid to make decisions that aren’t popular nor to take action that the media will spin negatively.
This week, the Opposition - Labour MP Dr Ayesha Verrall and PSA Unionist (and failed Labour candidate) Fleur Fitzsimons - aided by the media, attacked Simeon Brown for supposedly impinging on the free speech of Health NZ employees. Surprising as Brown has never shown censorious tendencies. It quickly became clear that this was a manufactured outrage and the Health Minister had quite reasonably simply told Health NZ to get back in their lane and focus on their job.
Without the benefit of fair coverage in the media, Brown took to X to clarify the situation:
Click to view
Click to view
“The submission did not mention healthy eating.”
I don’t how I still have the capacity to be surprised by the behaviour of our public service and their relentless drive to be activists for causes that have nothing to do with their job. But goodness gracious - opposing raffle tickets!?
Click to view
We have a Ministry for the Environment, Department of Conservation, Climate Change Commission, Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority, and countless NGOs dedicated to worrying about climate change. We do not need our struggling health system to be spending its time pontificating about coffee cups.
Click to view
New Zealanders should be furious that Health NZ is so full of busybodies who have decided to spend their time sticking their oar into how Kiwis live our lives e.g. shifting us “away from cars”. The Health Minister is completely right to instruct them to focus on what they are hired to do. They need to get back in their lane. It will be appropriate for Health NZ to make submissions on particular health issues, but their commentary should be restrained and focused on their remit.
The entire beat up about free speech is even more outrageous when you consider that Dr Verrall’s government, and the Labour coalition before it, engaged in unprecedented censorship of health professionals around COVID-19 and vaccinations. The gall to even suggest that a reminder of the parameters of Health NZ’s role in New Zealand is an impingement of rights when doctors were fired for raising the most basic concerns about vaccination side effects, is extraordinary.
I enjoyed Audrey Young’s commentary on the saga in her Insider Politics newsletter this week:
“there has been a hullabaloo this week simply because the national director of the Public Health Service, Dr Nick Chamberlain, reminded public health experts that submissions to councils needed to be vetted by head office.
Outcries of ministerial censorship by new minister Simeon Brown are completely over the top. Any reasonable member of the public would expect them to stick to giving advice on immunisations, smoking, and alcohol, not whether Wānaka should have a McDonald’s. And if they didn’t make stupid submissions, they might not be vetted.”
An excellent use of the word “hullabaloo”.
Frankly, the level of coordination between Labour, unions (in particular PSA and Fleur Fitzsimons), and parts of the media is the disturbing part of this story. The hit jobs keep coming. The only thing Government ministers can do is carry on delivering on what they promised voters with the knowledge that they’ll be pelted with accusations and attacks by an Opposition that includes much more than just those on the other side of the debating chamber.
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.
2 comments:
It seems that each new govt looks at the health system, blames the previous govt. for all of it's problems and then proudly announces how much more of our money it's going to spend, as though the act of spending more money is in itself the cure for the problems.. A relative who worked in mental health was appalled at how much money was spent on restructuring, often involving flying Aucklanders to Wellington for job interviews, only for them to re-appear with a different job title but the same job description. It seems that additional money always necessitates additional bureaucracy to spent it, seemingly with little left afterwards for front line activity.
Maybe I've missed the point here. Spending money is easy and easily measurable, 100% success is almost guaranteed. Achieving something from spending that money, and being able to prove it, is much more difficult and, heaven forbid, it might not give an acceptable answer, so I can understand why politicians shy away from that.
Just throwing money at a problem in this way is like giving a handout to an entitled, ungrateful person, the money quickly disappears, you don't really know what it was spent on so it's doubtful it will reduce the problem and you can be sure that the hand will still be out the next time.
The allopathic sick-care system is a gravy train for pharma cartels and phoney doctors that push their toxic products. It is built on pseudoscientific models that have nothing to do with reality. Keep emergency medicine, functional medicine, chiropractic, audiology, midwifery and physio and dump the rest.
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