Budget 2025: East Coast MP Dana Kirkpatrick highlights $219m for local roads
'This is critical because as we know, many of the roads destroyed in the cyclone are still to be fixed, such as those up the Coast and in our rural areas.'
Kirkpatrick said the Budget had delivered 'a massive support package' to give children the best opportunity that the power of education could bring, including:
Two million additional teacher aide hours each year from 2028.
Every school will have support to co-ordinate learning support requirements ranging for 0.2FTE to 1.0 FTE.
Extending the early intervention support for children who need speech language therapy beyond the limit of 5-year-olds.
Expanding the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme so every child receives the support they need.
Record investment had bee made in health – $1.37 billion for Health NZ baseline funding to do more hips, knees, urgent care around the country and telehealth.
'$1b for hospitals also helps,' she said.
'This is the biggest issue in our community right now and one that I get more emails and messages about than anything else.
'We are focused on putting the patient at the centre of the health system and we are looking at a record investment in health of more than $30b.'
Kirkpatrick said there was much in the Budget for businesses.
'Take the Invest NZ fund, which will allow anyone who buys a new asset to claim a tax rebate of 20% of the cost of that asset off their tax return.
'This is outstanding policy that helps businesspeople get ahead, invest more, hire more people and grow their businesses, which is absolutely necessary in our current environment.'
Kirkpatrick said the forecast for getting out of debt had reduced.
'We are using savings to fund new initiatives where we can.'
Kirkpatrick said the Budget had a prudent approach that balanced the need for social investment, growing the economy and investing in the core business of health, education and crime reduction.
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RNZ News
26-06-2025
- RNZ News
Concerns health legislation changes could 'weaken' voices of Māori communities
Co-chairperson of Te Tiratū Iwi Māori Partnership Board, Hagen Tautari worried the changes could lead to a loss of an authentic whānau voice. Photo: Supplied/Sarah Sparks A group of Iwi Māori Partnerships Boards (IMPBs) are concerned changes to New Zealand's health legislation will weaken the voices of local Māori communities and centralise decision-making in Wellington. Earlier this month Minister of Health Simeon Brown announced the government will be [ introducing legislation for a 'suite of amendments' to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act. Brown said the legislation would clarify and streamline the role of IMPBs, shifting their focus away from local service design and delivery, to engaging with communities on local perspectives and Māori health outcomes. "Local IMPBs will continue to engage with their communities but will now provide advice directly to [the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee] HMAC. That advice will then support decisions made by the minister and the Health New Zealand board." Hagen Tautari, co-chairperson of Te Tiratū Iwi Māori Partnership Board - which represented the wider Waikato region - said the changes would lead to a shift to centralised decision-making in Wellington and would undermine the community driven process the IMPBs were part of. Removing the boards' ability to influence change and putting that responsibility back on the Ministry of Health would lead to the loss of an authentic whānau voice, he said. "The previous minister had spoken about powering up the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards, the current minister has instead powered down them to a degree." Previous Minister of Health Shane Reti had indicated he was keen to give IMPBs a much broader remit . The 15 IMPBs were established in 2022 initially to support the Māori Health Authority and to advocate for whānau and communities in their regions. Tautari said they do "critical work" to ensure whānau voices were collected and used to influence service design. "When they removed [Te Aka Whai Ora] some of that responsibility was taken on board by the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards and it wasn't an ideal situation, but it was better than the alternative of having none of that. So now by reducing the powers of the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards it's a further erosion." The boards have penned a letter to the minister outlining their concerns endorsed by the larger Te Manawa Taki IMPB collective, which comprised Te Tiratū and boards from Tairāwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Rotorua, Taupō and Taranaki. Tautari said they supported the "intent" of the minister to ensure all New Zealanders receive timely and quality healthcare. But that intent needed to have the correct vehicle to turn aspirations into action. The minister had possibly put too much emphasis on Health New Zealand leading that work, he said. "By eroding what we are doing they are effectively making Te Whatu Ora a substitute for what the IMPB's are doing... they won't be able to do that because they don't have the mandate and I don't think they actually have the knowledge and the intel to actually manage that." Another of the proposed changes was to enhance and strengthen the role played by the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee (HMAC) which provided advice to the minister and the board of Health New Zealand. Tautari said changes were major, placing extra expectations on the committee. "We certainly support the committee, but I feel that they are removing such a strong and powerful ally when they depower and reduce the roles of the Iwi Māori Partnership Boards. So I certainly support the minister's intent, I just think he's gone about it in a way that I don't think is conducive to progress." It was important the IMPBs continued to advocate for and hold fast to Te Tiriti because at the end of the day it was not going anywhere, and Māori were not going anywhere, he said. "I think it's incumbent on all of us who work in these areas to understand that Te Tiriti is a constitutional foundation and any reforms must reflect the Crown's enduring duty to uphold Te Tiriti obligations in both law and practice and not just through policy alone." The minister of health has been approached for comment. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
21-06-2025
- RNZ News
Media in the middle of political skirmishes over sickness and health
Last weekend's Sunday Star Times digs into the political battleground of healthcare. Photo: Sunday Star Times Mediawatch : This week the latest Ipsos Issues Monitor survey showed 'inflation/cost of living' was - again - the top concern of Kiwis. No surprise there - or that 'healthcare/hospitals' was in second place. "It continues on its upward trend, reaching its highest level of concern (43 percent) since tracking began," Ipsos said. That - and the fact that more of those surveyed chose Labour as the party most capable of managing health - would have stood out for the government. The same is true of how the issue plays out in the media. Under the headline The political problem of health Health Minister Simeon Brown told the Sunday Star-Times last weekend the job "matters to every New Zealander from the moment they're born to the moment they die. It's a huge responsibility, but there's also significant opportunity." He'd just announced an opportunity for private hospitals - instructing Health NZ to make long-term deals with them for elective surgeries. "We haven't been ideological about it, we've been focusing on pragmatic solutions to ... maximise what's delivered both in the public and private system," Brown told Newstalk ZB the same day. The next day, New Zealand Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan reported official papers showed Treasury reckoned further cuts to health would be needed to meet the demands of the government's health delivery plan. But that didn't come up when the prime minister appeared that day on Newstalk ZB for his regular Monday morning chat. The host Mike Hosking said he couldn't agree more when the PM said people don't care who's doing their long awaited op when they are staring at the hospital ceiling. But then Hosking told the prime minister about an interview last week with a Christchurch surgeon who works in both the public and the private systems. "We need to be more flexible in public (hospitals). They even come round at one o'clock and say it looks like you'll finish after 4 or 4.30, so we won't let you do your second case," Chris Wakeman told Hosking last week. "You wouldn't close your factory at 4 o'clock if you still had work to do," he added. Later, Mike Hosking read out a text from an unnamed listener who claimed nurses and anaesthetic technicians insist operating stops early if it looks like it's going to go past 4pm. The following day Mike Hosking asked Brown if surgeries that might overrun 4pm were routinely postponed. "Look, there are heavily unionised contractual arrangements in the public system and so you do end up with inefficiencies throughout the system. Those issues need to be dealt with by Health New Zealand to make sure that it is more efficient," Brown replied. "These union agreements ... drive inefficiency and a lack of productivity. These are issues that do need to be resolved as part of (Health New Zealand) negotiations with the unions." Health Minister Simeon Brown Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER "Absolutely not. The limits are more about management decisions on staffing costs, availability of recovery beds and how to distribute operating theatres between acute and elective work," Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists told Mediawatch . "The barrier to providing more elective surgeries is a refusal to pay staff required to work longer hours ... and inability to provide sufficient staff to run our operating theatres to their maximum capacity." "We don't have anything in place that would stand in the way of doctors opting to work in a different work pattern or longer hours. And in fact, many of them frequently do. "Typically surgeons and anaesthetists work 10 hour days. A number of hospitals sometimes run what are sometimes called twilight theatres in the early evening or on weekends. "I don't think the way that the discussion has been presented is entirely fair - and it is somewhat misleading. "It is concerning to us that 'private' is seen as the answer when in fact they are already near capacity for what they can do. And we also have significant doctor shortages." Sarah Dalton Photo: LDR / Stuff / Kevin Stent Hosking [ returned to the issue] with Health NZ's Chief Clinical Officer Dr Richard Sullivan on Thursday. He said the proportion of "early finishes" in theatres doing elective surgery is declining - and under the government's 'elective boost' programme they had been doing some surgeries on Saturdays and Sundays too. "It's more than just the unions. You'd need a quite a big workforce to run full Saturday lists all the time. That's not to say we shouldn't look at that, but we need the most efficient way of getting people through our theatres," Dr Sullivan said. Hosking told his listeners the bottom line in public hospitals was: "If it's 4:30, we're going home." There's a bit more to it than that. While there is some extra capacity in theatres, many more people would have to be paid for more hours to do more out-of-business-hours. They don't have all the staff to do a lot more of elective surgeries, in either public or private hospitals And as the Herald' s Thomas Coughlan reported earlier this week, Treasury reckoned the Health Delivery Plan targets could mean increased spending cut targets in the year ahead. Health workforce pay increases would be limited to a degree described as "unprecedented," Treasury documents also stated. In the Herald , Brown rejected Treasury's conclusions. He said government provided Health NZ additional funding in three successive Budgets and Treasury had not consulted the Ministry of Health or Health NZ before reaching its conclusions. "Why do we still have 10 days' sick leave?" Hosking also asked the PM last Monday. He said the question had been put to him by "my tech guy" working at his house. The tech guy got a headline-making response on that from the nation's leader. "So we had five sick days until Jacinda [Ardern] decided we needed ten for Covid. Can we agree that it's gone-ish - and therefore we might need to do something about sick leave?" Hosking asked. "We might need to do things about pro rata and sick leave as well, because you know, people who are on part time contracts are getting full-time 10-day equivalency. Brook Van Velden is working through some of those issues," Luxon replied. The possibility of that went straight into Newstalk ZB's news bulletins. When the prime minister did his turn on RNZ's Morning Report soon after that, he was asked if he would support a cut in sick leave. "Well, I think there's probably a need for us to look at it ... and just make sure that we've got that setting right," he replied. ZB's political editor Jason Walls was puzzled. "Sick leave is an entitlement that everybody has. So it's not just some beltway story. It is an interesting thing for the Prime Minister to bring up. It was just Mike's mate that was talking about it." But Mike's mates behind the mic at Newstalk ZB were teed up to talk about sick leave all day. "A very strong hint that 10 days of sick leave might be going the way of the dodo," was Kerre Woodham's take when she followed the Mike Hosking Breakfast . "I get that it's a godsend if you are prone to infections during winter, but really spare a thought for the employers." Employers such as perhaps Nick Mills, a hospo guy in the capital who's also the host of Wellington Mornings on Newstalk ZB. "I go with the flow. But I'm in an industry where people take the absolute mickey," Mills told his listeners in the capital. "They're just teasing it a bit at the moment on the fact that it's going to be for only part- time employees, but that's going to change," he said. One hour later they were hearing more on this on ZB in Canterbury from the local host, John MacDonald. When Matt Heath and Tyler Adams took the ZB mic for the full national ZB network at noon, they had a similar sense of what was common sense. "10 days a year? Does the average person walking around need 10 sick days a year? I don't think so," Heath said. The questions for the workplace relations minister Brooke van Velden followed. On ThreeNews and Checkpoint she batted back questions about whether it was a gender issue. She was also taken aback that this was a talking point at all. "The only reason we're talking about this is because Mike Hosking was talking about it this morning. There was nothing from the government side to say we had an announcement to make," she told ThreeNews . In the end it will be months before all this is fully aired in Parliament, long after Mike Hosking's tech guy first put it on the agenda. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
17-06-2025
- Scoop
Move To Bolster Health Services With Private Care Welcomed, Could Go Further
The Health Minister has directed Health NZ to offer private hospitals 10-year contracts for elective surgeries. ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson welcomes this, and says the approach could be taken further: "This is good news for patients, and for the taxpayer. "ACT has always championed government partnering with the private sector on health. The attitude of politicians should be 'whatever gets the job done, for a fair price', not 'how can we prop up the bureaucracy'. "When private hospitals have long-term certainty of revenue, they can have the confidence to invest in more staff and equipment. This means Kiwis get treated faster, and it increases the total capacity of our health system. Private hospitals can pick up the slack when the public system is backed up with more urgent care. "We could go further. We could contract out more diagnostic procedures like endoscopies, colonoscopies, and MRI scans, and expand the variety of services contracted out to include specialist services like glaucoma or prostate surgery, and even non-surgical interventions like pain management or follow-up care for diabetes or arthritis." "ACT can see a future where the Government is primarily a purchaser, not a provider, of health services. Private operators have stronger incentives both to provide quality care and to keep costs down. If they don't deliver, they risk losing their contract. "If we fully rejected Labour's squeamishness over private healthcare, we could be far more ambitious in our health targets. In 2023, 28,000 New Zealanders waited longer than four months for elective surgery. That number could be zero." "Most New Zealanders don't care who provides the service, they care about getting off the waitlist and back to living their lives. Using every bit of capacity across the system means more elective surgeries today, without waiting years for Wellington to spend millions building more hospitals."
