Nearly all New Zealand's hospitals are failing to meet the Government's emergency department wait time targets with thousands of patients experiencing delays longer than six hours to be examined. Photo / 123rf, File
Ailing services
Finance Minister Grant Robertson keeps directing the band while our Titanic health system continues to sink. He harps on, defending the indefensible, arguing the Government’s record on health spending in the face of immeasurable grief and suffering. It is an egregious situation for all concerned; patients, families, doctors and nurses. The problem is not the amount of money being spent. The issue is where it is being spent. The lack of wisdom and planning is obvious to anyone who is not a politician. Billions have been squandered on political idealism while a perfect storm of issues has been building up. Money is being spent on political idealism on an industrial scale, driven by star-gazing politicians, unrealistic academics, over-paid consultants, and an army of utopian advisers and committees. It’s a massive machine driven by ideology rather than the human realities of running a first-world hospital system in the present. Russell Hoban, Ponsonby.
Honest appraisal
Definition of obfuscation: the act of obscuring something to make it more difficult to understand. When Grant Robertson was asked about our declining health system, he cited increased funding and increased staffing as the reasons for being “pretty proud on our record in health”. Wouldn’t it be great if he were to say, “I agree we are in crisis, some of which is our own making. We are working as fast as we can to fix it, taking the advice of health professionals.” Wouldn’t it be great if Jacinda Ardern, instead of deflection (“How can you criticise our record on inflation when you want to cut taxes?”) says, “We have made some decisions that have contributed to inflation. We are working hard to get it down again.” Eric Wolters, Tauranga.
Locked in
Real Living’s delay in paying out the McFarlane family the $120,000 owing following their mother’s death (NZ Herald, October 25) is standard retirement village practice. All licence-to-occupy agreements state that vacating residents (or their estates) will only get their money once the vacant unit is bought and paid for by new residents. The payout is entirely dependent on new residents turning up, and if no one offers to buy a new licence-to-occupy for that unit (or if it suits the operator to prioritise the sale of other units) then the village operator is under no obligation to ever return the original resident’s money. Brian O’Neill, Chatswood.
Hailing heroes
It is great to see recognition for those who risked everything to save lives on White Island (NZ Herald, October 26). What is disappointing is that it was not the focus, before a protracted and expensive exercise to find someone to blame. Nobody knew that island was going to erupt, even though it was not an impossible proposition. Health and safety has only served to erode common sense, not mitigate every risk, and who can assume to be able to do that? John Ford, Taradale.
Roughshod road
Much as I am happy to see the back of our latest mayor, and I look forward to seeing some of Wayne Brown’s proposals come about, I totally agree with the letter from Glen Stanton (NZ Herald, October 25) regarding moving the Auckland port to Whangarei. I travel from Auckland to Whangārei frequently. All the work, which has taken several years, and the expectation of at least an increase in passing lanes in the Dome Valley, has been a huge waste of money and time. There are no extra passing lanes, and the volume of huge freight trucks has more than doubled in the last few years. The condition of the road is appalling, as are most of the roads from Auckland to the north. Once freight has been offloaded in Whangārei, there is no rail link, hence these roads are going to have a huge increase in the freight trucks, big and small, hurtling down narrow two-lane roads. Their weight alone causes damage to already shoddy surfacing, and the frustration of drivers will inevitably cause more road deaths. No one in their right mind can now label State Highway 1 north as a “holiday highway”. Julie Paul, Remuera.
Ideas factory
Tales of would-be entrepreneurs feeling glum and lost are all about us. Folk, once-eager, report feeling bereft of support and the ideas able to sweep them on to Cayman Island bank accounts, weighty share portfolios, and even Herne Bay villas. The ideas part is key. These do exist, lurking in a place never front and centre in the public mind; in the journals of academia. Research findings dropping there have always helped researchers claw their way up the university pay scale; the long-established “Publish or Perish” ethos. While the journals target niche readership, they can point to workable ideas. Is it possible to keep the best of these here, for locals to develop and coax the university ethos across to “Profit or Perish”, with the universities avoiding perishing with injections of those profits. Yes, there will be misfires. Theranos anyone? But, an obvious starting place is our world-class agricultural infrastructure. Take the relentless worldwide demand for food, and the need for better ways to produce it, and linking the titans of university research with our entrepreneurs might do us all nicely. Denis Edwards, Pāpāmoa Beach.
Sustainable work
We need foreign workers to help push the boat; let them in writes Fiona McAllister (NZ Herald, October 25), while also insisting, rightly, the Government have a plan for the “unemployable”, to get them off the benefit. Surely it’s the pressure of needing workers that forces employers to develop training programmes and offer higher pay and other incentives. What else can be done to get the non-workers into jobs? They need more education, better life skills, particular job skills, good role models and support...or will whip-cracking and punishment do the trick? We all agree we want the unemployed working. We also want immigration at a rate our infrastructure and labour force can cope with. In this new era of radical climate change do we want to make boat speed our prime concern? Sustainability is more the point. B Darragh, Auckland Central.
We’ll meat again
I don’t think the threat of artificial meat (NZ Herald, October 26) taking over the world is keeping farmers awake at night (unlike taxes). Anyone who is turned off by meat is hardly likely to find the prospect of artificial meat any more appealing, especially when the advertisers proudly proclaim their artificial blood looks just like the real thing. Let’s compare notes in a decade. Wendy Clark, Pukekohe.
Open-ended hole
In reply to Matt Heath’s excellent article on holes in the Monday Column (NZ Herald, October 24). Being a Mainlander, I wondered if some thought could be given to the Otira Tunnel. It is 8.5km long. Work started in 1907 and it opened in 1923. Construction teams of men literally used pick and shovel under the Southern Alps through the longest mountain range in New Zealand. It was the longest tunnel in the British Empire at the time of its construction. Remarkably, the surveyor lines produced from each end varied by only 19mm for line and 29mm for level. Amazing accuracy long before the days of lasers. Carl Rosel, Freeman’s Bay.
To paraphrase
Australian billionaire Gina Rhinehart has refused to apologise for a deplorable comment her father made in 1984. He died several years later. When I was at school we were taught that an apology was appropriate if we were responsible for the wrongdoing, otherwise an expression of regret was more relevant. Rhinehart could stifle her critics by saying she can’t apologise because she wasn’t there; however her father’s comment was regrettable and should not have been said. James Gregory, Parnell.
Virtue signalling
If you don’t like your employer’s business ethics with regard to their environmental and other social issues such as gender and race, then change your job. This applies to sports players also. I have zero sympathy for Australian netballers who now face pay cuts due to financial difficulties as a result of losing a fabulous sponsorship deal. Glenn J Pacey, Glendowie.
On Russia
Adolf Hitler, at the end of his power, proposed a so-called “Nero Decree”. It’s not hard to see that Putin has a similar mindset. Neville Cameron, Coromandel.
On hospitals
May none of us ever become acutely unwell. My heart goes out to the staff who are having to manage this nightmare. Carole Burley, Mt Wellington.
On electricity
With the impending increase in electricity pricing, may I suggest that electricity supply companies spent a lot less money on expensive TV ads. Then they may be able to reduce the price to the consumers. Jock Mac Vicar, Hauraki.
On meat
If it’s “animal-free and plant-based” then it surely isn’t meat. Can’t we find another name? Pseudomeat? Alan Milton, Cambridge.
On emissions
The amount of pollution caused by the Ukrainian/Russian war alone would make our own, and possibly Australia’s combined, seem like that just caused by a campfire by comparison. Leyland Barr, Murray’s Bay.
On cartoonists
Don’t we have the very best cartoonists here in New Zealand! Let’s have a big “shout out” to Emmerson, Parton, and Body. A big thank you for proving a picture is worth more than any amount of words. Jean Goodall, Matamata.
Prebble: How the world lost the inflation battle
If you are waiting for any admission from this Government that they got anything wrong, you will be waiting an awfully long time. Anyone ever heard the PM or GR admit any fault - ever? Tony M.
That (some) other countries got it wrong too, doesn’t make me feel any better. It sounds like a Grant Robertson as he keeps harping on about (some) other countries are experiencing what we are so that makes everything okay. Warren B.
The fact that funding for lending continues in this inflationary environment is an outrage. The proffered excuse that they have to keep doing it because they said they would until December is lunacy - driving inflation with a programme that has been entirely detrimental since about June 2020 because they are afraid of going back on their word? Jonathan S.
It’s about time someone started talking about the Crown debt. Erik P.
There is so much misleading information in this opinion piece but to suggest that “Truss and Grant Robertson are using the same playbook” is possibly the most ludicrous. Susann S.
Why is it ludicrous? Truss and Robertson both show what happens when ideology, a lack of common sense and a belief in your own infallibility (despite no experience) collides with the real world. Greg M.
This is what happens when the RBNZ governor compares a financial institution to a tree. Mark Y.
And when the Finance Minister gives him a second responsibility leading to the Reserve Bank Governor taking his “eye off the inflation ball”. Warren B.
Three arrests in the Eastern District were related to reported breaches of the Gangs Act.