Putting Patient Need Ahead Of Treaty Ideology
"We fund the health system to deliver services, not ideology. But Labour saddled Health New Zealand with Treaty provisions that effectively divided patients by race and distracted from quality, timely care.
"ACT says services should be delivered on the basis of patient need and value-for-money – not race. We scrapped the Māori Health Authority, and now we're patching up the rest of Labour's Treaty-obsessed health reforms.
"We're stripping out requirements for health entities to be focused on Māori health outcomes, mātauranga Māori, and 'cultural safety'. These settings have led to compliance nightmares where even Chinese acupuncturists are required to demonstrate expertise in tikanga.
"Perhaps most importantly – and incredibly, forgotten by Labour – we're introducing an objective for services to be effective and timely. And we're restoring accountability to taxpayers with a requirement for specific targets in the Government Policy Statement on Health.
"Kiwis waiting for a hip operation or stuck in the emergency department don't care whether their practitioner has a tikanga-centric worldview. They just want quality healthcare, quickly. That's what we're delivering."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Elation as Whanganui gets voice in fast-track seabed mining decision
A decision on the application will be made by a panel created for the purpose. Whanganui councillor Charlotte Melser, who opposes Taranaki seabed mining, said the council now had the opportunity to influence the decision. 'It means our foot is in the door to have our say about how this proposal would negatively impact our district. I was elated,' she told Local Democracy Reporting. It was critical for the council to have a voice in the fast-track process because the legislation provided limited opportunities for public input, she said. Under the act, only relevant local authorities, identified iwi authorities and selected others can make written comments on applications. 'It cuts out the voices of community, scientists, environmentalists, divers – some of the people that know that marine area better than anyone,' Melser said. Whanganui councillor Charlotte Melser says it is crucial for the council to have its say about how a South Taranaki seabed mining proposal would negatively impact Whanganui. Photo / Tuakana Te Tana (single use only) 'We've had to fight tooth and nail just to get this far because Whanganui is not directly in the project zone.' TTR wants to extract up to 50 million tonnes of seabed material a year. It would recover an estimated 5 million tonnes of vanadium-rich titanomagnetite concentrate and then dump unwanted sediment back into the sea. Its application says the project would bring regional benefits, including 305 jobs with the miner and port upgrades at New Plymouth and Whanganui. TTR withdrew from an environmental hearing to apply for marine consents via the new fast-track approvals regime. The councils named as relevant local authorities can nominate a representative to the decision-making panel, provide written comments on the application and speak about those comments if a hearing is held. They met iwi, TTR and the expert panel's convenor, Jennifer Caldwell, on July 7 to discuss the expertise needed on the panel and the timing of its decision-making. Whanganui council chief executive David Langford summarised his council's position in a letter to Caldwell before the meeting. The key concerns were environmental, particularly the negative impact of the sediment plume, which would affect the Whanganui district; cultural, particularly the conflict of the proposal with Treaty obligations and settlements; and economic, specifically the adverse impact of the proposal on the district. 'Our council would like to emphasise the need for expertise to consider the potential economic disbenefit of the proposal with regards to its conflict with offshore wind farming in the Taranaki Bight.' Whanganui District had been identified as one of the best locations in the world for wind energy, and the council was pursuing opportunities for renewable energy investment, including offshore wind farming, Langford said. 'Our view is that this one project could stand in the way of other projects which would not only provide significant economic benefits for our district (and beyond), but also better align with the Government's strategic objectives around climate, energy and industrial transformation goals (for example, to double New Zealand's renewable electricity production by 2050).' The scale and nature of the proposed extraction, along with the resuspension of seabed sediments, could affect ecological and cultural features that each had a potential economic impact, he said. The complex and contentious nature of the application would mean a considerable amount of time would be required to reach a decision. 'Not only is the fast-track process and its underpinning legislation new, but the proposed mining activity is also a world first.' It would be important to include the council throughout the process. 'We do not believe we should be precluded from any step of this process on the basis that our council has filed a motion opposing the project – our relevance remains, regardless of our position.' In December last year, Melser's motion opposing the project won the unanimous support of fellow councillors. A public-excluded meeting of Taranaki Regional Council was expected to decide this week on a collective council nomination to the panel. Caldwell is expected to appoint a panel by late July. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
1News
20 hours ago
- 1News
'People will be disgruntled' — leak of National MP talking up Labour policy
National MP Sam Uffindell told a meeting of retirees if the Government didn't take action on reforming retirement villages legislation people would be disgruntled. He was concerned that retirement village residents would believe National hadn't yet delivered and that Labour was doing something about the issue. Audio of the meeting was leaked to 1News, featuring Uffindell praising a private member's bill from Labour MP Ingrid Leary. If drawn out of the tin in Parliament and passed, the bill would require retirement villages to pay, within five days, 10% of what was owed to residents or their families if they moved to higher care levels or died — and the rest within two months. When asked about reforming the current legislation, Uffindell told the meeting in Mosgiel: "Ingrid Leary... has quite cunningly put forward a member's bill which would address some of this. And she's savvy enough to have garnered up a lot of attention around retirement villages. ADVERTISEMENT "And so that's in the pipeline as well. We need to arrest or take the key parts out of that [which] are workable and make sure we build that into something." The Tauranga MP went on to say that he knew voters were concerned. "But importantly, it needs to go through the House before the end of this term, because if it hasn't, we're going to have a whole bunch of disgruntled people and retirement villages who all vote and all talk to each other about it. Who will go, 'oh, National hasn't actually delivered and Labour was going to do this'." Uffindell also told the meeting that he raised the issue with the Prime Minister. "Maybe every three months or so… the Prime Minister will invite eight to 10 backbenchers up to his office. We sit around and have pizza and Pepsi Max. PM standard diet drinks – a lot of that stuff. Anyway. Went up there. Sat around and he asked us a bunch of questions about a number of different things... One of them he brought up was the Retirement Villages Act. And what we thought about that and [National MP] Tom Rutherford and myself, obviously Bay of Plenty heavy in retirement villages, we said, 'look, we need to do it this term. You know, this is a big issue for a lot of our folks'." He described Casey Costello, the Minister for Seniors and Tama Potaka, the Associate Minister of Housing as "very accessible", saying they agreed with him that they wanted to bring the reforms forward. When asked about his comments today, Uffindell said: "[The] Retirement Villages Act review is a really big concern. I go around to a lot of the retirement villages in Tauranga, and I know Tom does in the Bay of Plenty, and you hear a lot of the concern from those residents there. ADVERTISEMENT 'Ministers Potaka and Costello are looking at how we can improve the current arrangements. We're open to all good ideas out there, and New Zealanders would expect nothing less. National's determined to make sure that we get the legislation right for the retirement villages residents." Lose votes to Labour? Asked if he believed that National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the Retirement Villages Act, Uffindell said: "Look, this is a big constituency out there, and they want this issue addressed, and they want us to get on, and that's why our ministers are getting out there and looking at ways that we can improve the Retirement Villages Act so it delivers. And I'm committed to doing my part to delivering for the residents in retirement villages here in Tauranga." Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: "There was work underway under the previous government around retirement villages. What we said before the election is we'll continue that work and we are. Tama Potaka and also Casey Costello, as the relevant ministers, are leading that work and we'll have more to say about that in the coming months as well." He didn't directly answer the question about whether National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the act. "We've been committed since before the election to continue the work around retirement villages and I'm proud of the work the ministers are doing,' he said. "They're very engaged on the issue. They've been talking a lot with people affected on all sides of the proposals and we'll have more to say about that shortly." Leary: 'Do it because it's the right thing to do' ADVERTISEMENT Responding to the leaked audio, Labour MP Ingrid Leary said: "It's great to hear that National Party MPs are supporting my bill, that's the right thing to do. But they should be supporting it because it's the right thing to do, not just because it's politically expedient. 'I think Christopher Luxon needs to show some leadership. We need a law that mandates fair repayments, nothing about incentivising because the only thing that will work in this case is actually requiring the operators to give the money back." She said the Prime Minister should listen to his backbenchers, acknowledging that Uffindell raised the matter in his office on level 9 of the Beehive. Leary said she believed there was a lot of public support for her bill. "I've spoken to numerous seniors and their families who are just really concerned and anxious about having access to their own money. They live with the uncertainty of not knowing when they'll get repaid, if they'll get repaid or if their families will be able to get the benefit of what is their own money,' she said. 'So I really want to see things move quickly. People have been waiting for decades for a change and currently there are people living in retirement villages who really want to see a change and are worried that they may not be around when the law change finally happens. We need to honour and respect them and make sure that we do the right thing by them."
RNZ News
21 hours ago
- RNZ News
Submissions for bill criminalising migrant exploitation set to close
Several high-profile cases of migrant exploitation have been uncovered in Auckland in recent years. Photo: RNZ / Blessen Tom Public submissions for a bill that seeks to criminalise migrant exploitation close on Monday. Immigration Minister Erica Stanford introduced the Immigration (Fiscal Sustainability and System Integrity) Amendment Bill on 7 April, proposing several amendments relating to offences, penalties and proceedings, among others. The bill passed its first reading on 24 June and was referred to the Education and Workforce Select Committee. Introducing the bill in Parliament, Stanford outlined 10 amendments the bill sought to make in the Immigration Act 2009, noting its focus on tackling migrant exploitation. "The bill addresses a gap in New Zealand's migrant exploitation settings by creating a new offence, which is to knowingly seek or receive a monetary premium for an offer of employment," Stanford said. "Charging premiums for employment is an increasing form of migrant exploitation and it causes real harm. Often premiums are in the realm of tens of thousands of dollars," she said. "Currently, the legislation does not cover premiums that are paid before the employment commences, premiums that are made offshore, or situations where a premium is sought or received by someone other than the employer," she said. "This change makes it even clearer that this behaviour is not tolerated in New Zealand. It will enable us to prosecute more instances of migrant exploitation and hold exploitative behaviour to account." The bill proposes inserting a new section in the Immigration Act 2009 that creates a new offence. "It will be an offence for an employment-related person to knowingly seek or receive a premium in respect of the employment or potential employment in New Zealand of a victim," the draft bill reads. "New section 351A(1) applies before the victim starts work in New Zealand and whether or not they actually start work in New Zealand." Under the proposed section, a person is defined as a victim if they are domiciled in New Zealand or based overseas and fall within the category of an unlawful worker, a temporary entry class visa holder, a potential temporary entry class visa holder or a potential residence class visa holder. If approved, section 351A would make it an offence to charge premiums for employment, irrespective of whether a worker has started employment. At present, the offence only captures situations in which people are actively working in New Zealand and where the employer is the one charging the premium. The proposed bill widens the scope to include a potential employer, agent or any person involved in the recruitment of a victim. The penalty for the new offence will be imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years, a fine not exceeding $100,000 or both. Arunjeev Singh, general secretary of the New Zealand Forum for Immigration Professionals, criticised some of the bill's content, arguing it gave "unfettered power" to immigration officers and went beyond the relationship of an employer and employee. Other immigration advisors told RNZ they questioned whether such legislation could be enforced in another jurisdiction if passed into law.
