This week in politics: Health horror stories and allegations of racism in Parliament

analyze – It should have been a good week for the government, but a series of Health Horror Stories It got in the way.

and Tax cuts start on WednesdayFinance Minister Nicola Willis attended Monday’s post-Cabinet press conference alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

They want everyone to know the good news.

The government once again explained the tax cuts, with Luxembourg saying 94 per cent of households and 83 per cent of individuals would benefit.

Mr Willis assured that “cost of living relief is coming”, saying the tax rate changes and other measures meant 727,000 households would benefit by at least $75 a fortnight and 187,000 households would benefit by at least $100 a fortnight.

The media is not particularly interested in policies that were already in the works before the election, except to know when further tax cuts will be made. The answer is that they are reviewed regularly.

The questioner wants to know the reason Dargaville Hospital closed overnight There were not enough staff, how serious the nursing shortage was, and what disciplinary action the New Zealand Ministry of Health would take in the dire situation, which ultimately led to the remaining board members being fired and replaced by a commissioner.

The move comes amid widespread reports of serious staffing problems at hospitals.

Stuff reported that there was a “serious doctor shortage in the Far North” and 1News reported that there was “no on-site doctor at Northland Hospital”. “Doctor shortages mean patients have to travel hours to get there”According to RNZ, the newspaper also published an article titled “The impact of physician shortages from the physician and patient perspectives”.

Recently, Stuff reported a story headlined “Year-long wait for MRI test due to staff shortages”.

Luxon had nothing to say about any of this. To be fair, the state of the health system is not the government’s fault, as it has taken years to build, but it did promise to fix it, and it does have to respond to situations like Dargaville.

The Prime Minister responded by mentioning the recruitment of an extra 2,900 nurses in the past 12 months and said recruiting more clinicians was a priority. “I think we’ve acted very quickly,” he said.

As for Dargaville Hospital, his response was: “I expect the minister to work with the New Zealand Ministry of Health to ensure the hospital is operating safely.”

Luxon went on to talk about the Government’s main act of buck-passing – the “failed merger” of the formation of New Zealand Health.

This raises a series of questions about the New Zealand Ministry of Health, which has been hit by the deficit. Lester Levy appointed Commissioner Why are CEO Maggie Apa and her team still in office?

Luxon and Willis did not back down.

Luxon said there was a lack of financial controls and “no in-depth understanding and knowledge of cash flow analysis”.

Willis said she didn’t think the committee even knew what questions to ask to get information about the finances of the New Zealand Ministry of Health that the public had a right to know.

“Your frustration is our frustration,” she said. “We have a situation where we don’t have accurate information to determine whether the agency is delivering on its mission and on budget.”

This apparent incompetence seems odd given that the board includes former senior National Party cabinet minister Amy Adams and former Inland Revenue commissioner Naomi Ferguson.

They both resigned in July.

Richard Harman noted on his website Politik that the committee was “disbanded on Monday by the prime minister and finance minister as unfit for the job,” but that it had appointed two of the country’s most qualified accountants as advisers.

Harman said Marc Rivers and Jonathan Oram were appointed as independent directors to the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s audit committee in October 2022. The committee includes Adams and Ferguson.

It will be interesting to see what Adams, Ferguson, Rivers and Oram think when they hear Luxon and Willis talking about how the board doesn’t know what questions to ask and “simply doesn’t have a good understanding or literacy around cash flow analysis.”

This gives the impression that there is still much to be said.

When asked what might happen to the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s executive team, Luxon responded: “Everything is on the table”.

This has led to speculation that Apa’s tenure may be numbered, with Stuff’s Tova O’Brien listing Health Minister Shane Reti among the potential casualties in an article titled “PM has confidence in health minister despite some red flags”.

“From the Minister of Health to the CEO of the New Zealand Ministry of Health, some very important positions are at stake,” she said.

“The Prime Minister’s unwavering faith in him appears to have been severely shaken by a disaster at Dragaville Hospital for Minister Sean Reidy.”

O’Brien said there were other red flags Luxon should have considered when it came to building confidence in the minister.

“Luxon was relying on Reti’s advice when he repeatedly claimed there were 14 layers of management between the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s CEO and senior leadership and the patients they served,” she said.

“The problem is, as revealed by The Washington Post, the organizational chart actually shows that patients are included in the so-called 14 layers of management, including the chairman of the board, the CEO, the chief of staff and someone simply called a ‘team member’ (probably a nurse or doctor).”

The discrepancy between the management hierarchy Luxon described and that shown in a list later provided by Reti’s office was also raised at a press conference following the Cabinet meeting.

Luxon said only that he relied on the minister’s advice and that he expected the media to ask Reti questions about the matter.

The issue was also raised in parliament by Labor’s health spokeswoman Ayesha Verrall, who asked Reti whether his private health insurance would cover “injuries from being thrown under the bus by the prime minister”.

Despite the many flaws within the New Zealand Ministry of Health, former national cabinet minister Steven Joyce, writing in the Herald, has pointed out a problem that has never been mentioned before.

“Feedback from within the New Zealand Ministry of Health suggests that there is a lot of imperialism going on and a lot of internal politics, not just within the organisation but also between the new agency and the ministry,” he said.

“The Ministry of Health seems to be frustrated at losing control of the crank it helped to create. We all know about the revolving door in the New Zealand Ministry of Health board room.”

As if it didn’t have enough problems.

Bullying, racism complaints

It’s been a strange week in Parliament, with people complaining Bullying, racism and the row between ACT MP and Speaker Gerry Brownlee.

RNZ reports that Children’s Minister Karen Chhour said she “There are constant personal attacks… It feels like this is a terrible environment. How can we do our jobs well?”

Stuff reports that “Karen Chhour breaks down in tears over ‘unsafe workplace'”.

Parliament is a toxic place, it always has been, and it probably will be. MPs often try to bully each other. Some enjoy it, others don’t cope well with it. Some people adapt better than others – imagine how Winston Peters reacts when he is bullied, for example.

ACT said the allegations of racism arose amid its “diminishing” trust in Speaker Jerry Brownlee over his failure to tackle racial harassment.

The row erupted in parliament after ACT Party leader David Seymour called for correspondence between the ACT whip and the speaker, RNZ reported.

Seymour told Brownlee: “You appear to have given the green light to racial harassment in Parliament.”

ACT has written to Brownlee asking the Speaker to refer the matter involving one of its MPs to the privileges committee.

Select committee member, MP Laura Trask, was “shocked, saddened and angry” when the Greens and Te Pāti Māori MPs objected to her chairing the subcommittee to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

This section deals with commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

“Other members told her it would be better if the author was Maori or Pacific Islander because the author ‘didn’t see himself in her’,” Seymour said.

“This type of behaviour is not acceptable in any workplace in New Zealand. The Speaker had an obligation to speak out against this behaviour. He did not do so.”

Labor’s Carmel Sepuloni, who chairs Trask’s select committee, said opposition to Trask’s subcommittee presidency was based on her relative inexperience, not her race.

The ACT MP then refused to remove his lapel pin with the party’s logo in protest at the Speaker’s handling of his complaint, RNZ reported.

Brownlee, who had previously ruled against displaying party symbols, stood by his position.

The pins are small and it seemed like a quibble, but the issue became relevant when Brownlee stopped ACT MP Todd Stephenson from asking a question because he, along with Seymour and other MPs, were wearing the pins, the Herald reported.

Seymour jumped in.

“If you actually say that because people wear a badge year after year, you’re not going to allow them to ask and answer questions in this house, I think there will be more and more people asking what your top priority is,” he said.

Later in Question Time, Brownlee would not allow Chhour to answer the question as minister because she was wearing a pin. He said another minister had to answer it.

The report said Social Development Minister Louise Upston’s response was “vague but considered fair”.

Seymour said it was against the rules for another minister to answer questions posed to Joel.

Darlene Tanna

Meanwhile, the Green Party continues to be mired in seemingly endless problems How to deal with Darleen Tana.

Tanna was awarded the Green Party’s annual conference at the weekend. Last chance to resign as a member of parliamentAccording to RNZ.

Tana resigned from her husband’s company over allegations of exploitation of immigrants, with or without their knowledge. Now liquidated.

The caucus unanimously decided that Tana should step down, but also wanted them to leave parliament completely. The Green Party said Tana was not fit to stay in office.

Tana is now an independent and says They will stay.

Tanna has three weeks to respond to a letter calling for her to resign from parliament, and if they fail to do so, the Greens will September 1 to decide whether waka-jumping legislation should be used to remove Tana.

The Greens have strongly opposed the legislation in the past, and there has reportedly been strong reactions within the party over whether it should be used against Tanna.

And the collateral damage — Three Pacific Greens MPs resign Discuss Tana’s treatment at the annual meeting.

Marie Laufiso, Alofa Aiono and Vasemaca Tavola said party leaders were deliberately trying to defame Tanna’s character, influence and integrity.

They also accused the party of “blatantly ignoring” the Pasifika network following the Pasifika protests. Death of Faanana Ephesus Collins.

“To me, this is just madness,” Hart Mayor Campbell Barry was quoted in the Newsroom as saying, explaining that his council had to spend $570,000 to implement the previous government’s speed limits and now had to spend another $570,000 to undo them.

*Peter Wilson is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Corps, having been NZPA’s political editor for 22 years and NZ Newswire’s parliamentary bureau chief for seven years.