“And there are five things that make life good. They are the economy, education, health, general security and housing. It is those five things that generally people make their choices on in an election. At the moment, if you look at all those things nothing is going well.”
His comment regarding New Zealand’s level of debt related to the economy.
“We all know that the cost of living is massive.”
He said the Reserve Bank needed to get the level of inflation back on track.
Dealing with the health system, Brownlee said National had made it very clear governments needed to spend and spend well.
“Labour has no health targets and what we have now are longer waiting lists and less staff.”
He said in Christchurch people had to wait three to four weeks to see a doctor.
An audience member said people in Dannevirke had to wait six weeks just to see a practice nurse.
Brownlee’s response was: “How hopeless is that? I don’t think the health system is in great shape.”
National would put targets back into the health system and there would be a big focus on the workforce., he said.
“There are a lot of qualified people out there who are not working in the health sector because it is not worth it so there is a need for an income package.”
Moving on to education, Brownlee said the only really important thing was that children went to school.
“There was great celebration recently when it was announced that up 51 per cent of children were now turning up to school on a regular basis which was deemed to be three out of five days.”
He said funding for 82 truancy officers had been allocated but only nine had been appointed and rather than those officers travelling the country to visit families, their work was carried out on a computer.
Speaking about security, Brownlee said crimes that had not been seen before in New Zealand were now being committed.
“That includes ram raids, of which one is committed every 15 hours. I talked to a top police spokesperson about ram raids and he said they were just a trend and would go away.”
Brownlee said funding for 1800 extra police on the beat had been allocated but it turned out that more than half of them were sitting in an office doing paperwork.
“What we have to do is to create an environment of respect.”
On the subject of housing, Brownlee said rents had risen on average $170 a week over the past year. The problem was a lack of supply.
National’s housing policy would ensure land available for housing was utilised and not just in the main centres, he said.
“National has the most cohesive set of policies that look to the future, rather than policies that are frightening.”
