Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

First up health, because we really can't ignore it. What will come as no surprise to many, Te Whatu Ora,  also known as the health department, has shown that the performance of the nation's hospitals has worsened over the past year in almost every department.  ED waiting times are bad; more than 6000 patients who have been pre-approved for surgery have been left languishing, many in pain for more than a year. People are having to fund their own surgeries after being let down by the public health system. You might have seen the story over the weekend the hospital system is also having to deal with a young man with special needs because there is nowhere else to put him. He's not unwell. He's not sick. He's not needing medical attention. But the hospital and the nurses, who are not specially trained to look after this young man with his neurodiverse needs, is taking up a hospital bed because there is nowhere else to put him. Nine months into this brand-new vision for the nation's health services, the head of Te Whatu Ora, Margie Apa, says the system is under strain.  So what is the answer? Is it training more GP's, training more surgeons, training more doctors? Is it importing them? Is it encouraging Kiwis to take responsibility, (shocking, shocking thought) for their own health? Rewarding them for doing so?  Many people who end up in hospital end up there because of chronic health conditions that could be alleviated with a change of lifestyle.  Do we reward New Zealanders who show up for checkups? The number of people I have spoken to who are frustrated beyond belief because there are clinics that people can attend, that they are told to attend so that their health conditions don't get worse. They don't turn up. Vans are put on for them, taxis are provided, but they don't show up.  So a little bit of carrot, a little bit of stick to encourage New Zealanders to be more responsible for their own health, perhaps.  Instead of just bemoaning the fact that, you know, we've got so many people in hospital and there are so many people who require surgeries, do we go back, right back to the very beginning and say, OK, well, why are people in hospital in the first place? Should we be doing more to prevent people needing hospital care anyway?   Do we need to look at things a little bit differently? I'd love to hear from you on that. Perhaps reimagining how we do health in this country because what we have right now is not working and it's not working for anybody. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Insurance claims from the recent weather events have reached $2.47 billion. Insurers have so far paid out about 15 percent of claims. EQC’s insurance expenses were $359 million for the eight months ending February 28, up from $235 million a year earlier. Insurance Council Chief Executive Tim Grafton told Kerre Woodham they've made a good start, but most payments have been for vehicles, not houses. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For some New Zealanders, it's the difference between living with dignity or living on handouts. For other Kiwis, it's a bit of pin money that pays for the grandkids swimming lessons or is handed on to a favorite charity. The National Super is back in the news, with economist Shamubeel Eaqub calling for the Super to be means tested, and for the age of eligibility to be raised to 70. The cost of the Super right now is $55.7 billion, in a year. That's as much as we spend on the education budget. That figure is only going to rise as an extra 1 million New Zealanders hit pension age over the next 50 years. As the French riot over the very suggestion that their retirement age should rise to 64 -quelle horreur! We haven't rioted yet, but it does get people's passions up when we talk about raising the age of the National Super.   So what's fair? What's right? Shamubeel Eaqub is saying look, it needs to be means tested. There is absolutely no reason why wealthy people already living comfortably need taxpayers to pay them a pension. They have enough. They want the age of eligibility, he wants the age of eligibility to be raised to 70. I think that would be fine. If you've worked a desk job like me all your life, or if you've had it, you know, relatively comfortable all your life. If you've been clambering up ladders or crawling under houses or cleaning 15 floor buildings, lugging heavy carts around, I think 70 is way too old to expect you to keep going towards them. So maybe what's fair is that Susan Saint John's policy whereby you get taxed. If you're already earning enough, you'll get taxed. If you're not earning enough, you won't. So that makes it fair. I think the days of saying, look, I've paid for this, I paid taxes all my life and I deserve it at the end, are over. Taxes have come down. In the olden days, when people were paying 50-7 cents $0.63 in the dollar, sure. You know these days, there is no universal benefit other than the Super. But what is the point? Of some people getting it as a bit of PIN money, when there are those who are in real need, who could do with those dollars? What is fair? What is right? What is just? What do you do with the pension? Do you need it to live on? Or is it just nice to have? If you're in your 20s or 30s, when you think about retirement, if. You think about it at all. You know, retirement comes sooner rather than later. One minute you're faffing along in your 20s, thinking you'll never be old, and the next thing ****** me, I am so. If you haven't thought about retirement, it'd be a good, good idea to do so. Do you believe there'll be a taxpayer funded super for the day you hang up your tools? For the day you turn 65. Or are you planning on looking after yourself as best you can? Come the day when the alarm clock no longer rings. And you can look forward to retirement.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Red Cross raised nearly 18 million dollars in the name of cyclone relief. However, only 1.9 million dollars —just under 11%— has been spent in the month since Cyclone Gabrielle hit. This number includes a 1.1 million dollar contribution to the Wairoa District council, to help those with yellow-stickered homes restore them. South Auckland community leader Dave Letele met with Red Cross NZ Secretary General Sarah Stuart Black on Saturday to discuss transparency, and what that money has been used for. Dave Letele joined Kerre Woodham to give an update on the situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Discussions about raising the retirement age have continued to grow, with economist Shamubeel Eaqub suggesting that it should slowly be raised to 70 and means tested. France has been rocked by violent protests over the past month in response to President Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Labour says it will keep our retirement age at 65 while National has pledged to raise it to 67. Retirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson joined Kerre Woodham to discuss the situation. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we get on to the Stuart Nash affair itself, cast your mind back to December of last year, the Chief Ombudsman, Peter Boshier, launched an investigation after multiple claims that agencies were taking too long to respond to the Official Information Act, and the requests around the OIA. The announcement of the investigation came just two months after Boshier found that spin doctors, paid for by you and me, at Government departments appeared to be flouting the law when failing to answer questions from journalists.  Boshier was worried that delays are leading to the perception, especially among journalists, that the OIA is being used as a bureaucratic tool to stifle the flow of information. Both journalists and politicians from other parties complained to Boshier they were waiting months for the Government agencies to finally get around to releasing information. Boshier said the OIA exists to promote transparency and accountability and to enable the public to participate in government decision making and requires agencies to make decisions on requests for information as soon as possible. He hoped his investigation would be completed by the end of 2024, and in his statement, he says I want to lift the rock to see what is underneath.   Well, now with the Stuart Nash affair, we can see exactly what's under the rock, as Boshier put it. An army of bureaucrats scuttling around, covering up information, delaying information, trying to pretend that information isn't important when in fact it is. And who will be sacrificed if the scanty garments of plausible deniability are stripped away from Ministers and Prime Ministers? Oh, it's not the minister's fault. Not the Prime Minister's fault that this was not released. Oh, no, no, no, no, not their fault. It's the bureaucrats and the comms officials who have made the mistakes and they will be named and shamed, and that's where they’ll hide in the first place.   The Official Information Act is legislation. It's law. And when Newsroom made a request to Stuart Nash's office for any correspondence between him and major donors to his electorate campaign, it is obvious that that e-mail should have been part of the parcel of information. It is obvious to his staffers. It should have been obvious to the Prime Minister's staffers. It is ludicrous to say they didn't know.  So, when I look at the breakdown of the relationship I had with this Government, I'm going to say, you know what? It's not me, it's you, Government. Because this is what it's been like all the way through. This absolute gaslighting. Trying to make us think that it's our fault, not theirs. The Stuart Nash affair just highlights exactly what has gone wrong for the past five years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Helping Wairoa residents get back on their feet is the first big ticket spend of the Red Cross New Zealand Disaster Fund. Of the nearly $18 million raised, $1.9 million or just under 11 percent, has been spent since Cyclone Gabrielle hit early last month. It includes a $1.1 million contribution to the Wairoa District Council to help those living in yellow-stickered homes to restore them. Six weeks into the recovery effort and it seems the money raised by generous Kiwis is not getting spent as we thought it would. In a Newsroom piece, South Auckland community leader Dave Letele says he asked three different marae whether they had received support from the Red Cross fund. They hadn't. He is now questioning the transparency of the Red Cross. Dave Letele joined Kerre Woodham. LISTEN ABOVE  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a busy day of announcements for the National Party, with news of a second Auckland harbour crossing being fast tracked and a $200 million nationwide plan to improve the safety of police officers. Oh, sorry no, I've got that wrong. It was the Labour government who announced this. But really, they're being more National than National.  Close your eyes, if you hadn't heard which party it was, a harbour crossing for all vehicles being fast tracked. A $200 million plan being rolled out to make our police safer. Who would have been responsible for that in the past? Surely it would have been National, but this is Labour trying to show, hey, we can be centrist too. Vote for us, we like being in power, do it again. We can be pragmatic; we can be useful as a Government instead of ideological pie in the sky dreamers who haven't got a clue! Look at us!  And while I am pleased that a second crossing is being planned sooner rather than later, I can’t help but rue all the missed opportunities. Why didn't we get cracking during Covid times? I mean, obviously not in the first three months, but you know then the year after, when it became obvious that Covid could be managed and people could be managed and work could continue. Why didn't we use that opportunity to build projects of national significance in the same way we, and so many other countries, did during the depression? To reignite the economy, to keep people in jobs rather than just printing money. And why, when it came to harbour crossings, was so much ideology attached to Labour's initial plans?   Honestly, when you think of a second crossing, we need to get cracking. I can rue all the missed opportunities I like. We can all scream at the amount of money that has been spent on nothing, on pie in the sky, airy fairy ideas, but it needs to happen. And it needs to happen sooner rather than later. So good on Labour for announcing that it’s going to fast-track it. And good on Labour for being more National than National is right now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, it kind of feels like the inevitable has happened, hasn't it? After receiving his final final warning a few weeks back, it wasn't going to take much for Stuart Nash to lose his portfolios and job as a Minister. Especially, as many thought Prime Minister Chris Hipkins's actions over his previous cabinet manual discretions were not firm enough. So, this time around it has been revealed that Stuart Nash sent an e-mail to two of his donors, revealing confidential information from cabinet discussions that was of interest to them. Details about where several ministers stood on the issue of a commercial rent relief package for Covid hit businesses was passed on which once again contravenes the Cabinet manual, which states discussions at Cabinet and Cabinet Committee meetings as informal and confidential. As you’d expect it to be. Members of cabinet are bound by collective responsibility and must not detail who took what position on an issue. So clearly the Prime Minister had no choice but to fire Nash and it was good to see that there was only two hours between the e-mail being revealed and the Prime Minister announcing his sacking from Cabinet. Inexcusable is how the Prime Minister described Nash's actions. Nash crossed a line that is totally unacceptable to the Prime Minister. Well, now we know where the line is. Maybe you felt the line had been crossed before.   Look, I'm not hugely surprised, and I doubt you are either, about Nash's actions. I'm sure Nash is not the only Minister in any Government to have had a conversation with an interested party about policy. Maybe just giving them a bit of a heads up about which way the Government is swaying, although I don't think they're all silly enough to record it in writing, in an e-mail. But we know that Ministers and their departments are lobbied by various different groups all the time. Lobbyists, academics and researchers, business organisations, federations, charities, community and activism groups, depending on how closely aligned and values, I'm sure they have been given the occasional heads up in the past as well, but when we're presented with the evidence so bluntly, it does make you wonder whether the Prime Minister has his Ministers under control. Are they acting with due propriety? Like me, you might not be surprised by Nash’s actions, but should we be accepting it? And the answer is no, we shouldn't by any Minister.   LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know that times are tough for GPs, just trying to get into one in parts of the country is almost impossible. I've been taken back talking to you over the last few months about some of the wait times that you're experiencing when it comes to getting into your GP or being able to sign up with the GP if you're looking for a doctor if you've moved to a new area. It is now even more disappointing to learn that some family doctors are cutting services such as childhood immunisations due to chronic staff shortages and underfunding. They call it a crisis. If you take a look at the number of people turning up at emergency departments and 24-hour care departments it’s hard to disagree.  The General Practice Owners’ Association undertook a survey, and the results show us that GP services are at a critical crossroads. So more than half, 53 percent, of essential family doctor clinics have reduced their services, and over a third, 36.5 percent, have completely withdrawn some services altogether. I'm wondering if this is something you have noticed at your family doctor's clinic?  185 responses from member GPs across the country show that practices are struggling to find and retain doctors and nurses. They’re showing increasing waiting times for appointments, as we know, feeling that they're compromising patient health and are putting a burden on after-hours and emergency departments.   Look, it was also good news to hear that the Government is prepared to train 300 GPs, up from 200. Only problem is where do those extra 100 people come from? General practice isn't exactly selling itself at the moment is it? These junior doctors aren't coming out of med school going yeah, that's for me! That looks fantastic, that looks like good lifestyle choice!  How do we encourage junior doctors to jump into the sector to be those hundred extra people that we can train? Look, we know that by 2030, half of the current GPs will no longer be working. We've known this for a really long time.  So we have to work hard to incentivise junior doctors to come into general practice. And we need to incentivise practices to take them on as well.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.