Robin Grieve: The Medical Council's Shocker of a Consultation Document

Simeon Brown was right not to renew the terms of the Medical Council's chair and deputy chair, but he should have gone further. The Council's consultation documents on its proposed cultural competency requirements suggest an organisation more interested in social engineering and promoting critical race theory than in setting professional standards relevant to the delivery of healthcare.

John McLean: Infectious Medical Council Maori Madness

A chance insight into the Ministry of Health’s collective mind

Talking to embedded individuals can provide intriguing insights into elite sentiments on controversial matters.

I recently chewed the fat with one of our neighbors, an English-born doctor idling at the Ministry of Health. When I asked him what the general mood is at that Ministry, his face clouded with anger. He explained that Ministry staff are all furious and terribly distracted over the Minister of Health, baby faced assassin Simeon Brown, firing the chair and deputy-chair of the Medical Council.

Bob Edlin: Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council.....

Simeon Brown applies his scalpel to the Medical Council – but Treaty ideology has spread through the health system

The Post reports:


Health Min­is­ter Simeon Brown has removed the lead­er­ship of New Zea­l­and’s med­ical reg­u­lator, accus­ing the Med­ical Coun­cil of pur­su­ing an “ideo­lo­gical agenda” and becom­ing dis­trac­ted from its core respons­ib­il­it­ies.

David Farrar: Good insights on the Medical Council

Grant Duncan writes:

Its draft “Statement on Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety” begins with the obvious – “Aotearoa New Zealand has a culturally diverse population” – but leaps ahead to assert: “Some dimensions of identity result in power and privilege whereas others result in underprivilege, which can lead to discrimination or marginalisation”. No scientific grounds are given for that statement, and anyway it’s simply ungrammatical: it uses an abstract noun – identity – as if it were a thing with “dimensions” that can “result in power”. Unfortunately, such poor writing gets a pass in some university courses.