In today's headlines with Susie Nordqvist, compensation could run into the billions for abuse in care survivors and small businesses in biggest sales decline since Covid.
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
OPINION
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Welcome to the Politics Briefing in what has been a confronting week for Parliament. The extent of abuse and harm that occurred in state care and faith-based institutions was laid bare in the Royal Commission report presented yesterday. MPs delivered some excellent speeches which appeared to have been well-received by abuse survivors in the galleries.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Opposition leader Chris Hipkins both rose to the occasion and Hipkins pledged a bipartisan approach. Children’s Minister Karen Chhour spoke with the empathy and anguish only a victim herself could have mustered.
But as colleague Derek Cheng sets out in his analysis, acceptance of the report’s findings press hard up against some of the Government’s agenda - be it boot camps, repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, or removing rights of gang members.
Luxon did well to appoint Erica Stanford as the lead minister in the Government’s response. She is collegial, open-minded, empathetic and willing to be guided by survivors. Inevitably, however, problems will arise if and when her Cabinet colleagues don’t share her views.
Health system gets emergency treatment
Earlier in the week, Luxon and Health Minister Shane Reti replaced the remnants of the Health NZ board with a sole commissioner, Lester Levy, which is welcome news. The Government blamed the $130 million monthly deficit since March on the previous Government’s “botched merger” and a bloated bureaucracy. Former Labour minister Ayesha Verrall says it is entirely the fault of the current Government, calling it a “manufactured crisis” and putting it down to under-funding.
Newly appointed Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy. Photo / Dean Purcell
None of them alone is right but Levy is experienced enough in trouble-shooting to navigate his way through the political quagmire. Talking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning, Levy confirmed that one of the cost overruns was because the rate of attrition of nurses had been less than anticipated and more than anticipated had been hired. He also said the front line and those supporting the front line would be protected.
The Auditor-General’s diagnosis
But one of the most telling reasons for the crisis is in the Auditor-General’s advice to the health select committee in February this year, which said: “Health NZ has no performance framework that ties together its activities (outputs) with how the health system performs (in terms of access to, quality, and effectiveness of services) and the health outcomes being achieved. As a result, there is no clear performance story. Given the amount of funding and importance of health service for New Zealanders, that is problematic.”
It went on: “The underlying issue of concern is whether management has the systems and information to effectively plan and exercise oversight. This is pertinent to both financial management and service delivery.”
Clearly, the restructured health system still has some major structural problems. A single decisive commissioner may be able to address that more quickly than a board without the right information. In a Herald opinion piece today, former health minister Andrew Littlesays he has worked closely with Levy and has confidence in him.
There’s no one like Lange
Then-Prime Minister David Lange and deputy Geoffrey Palmer in August 1989. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Meanwhile, I’ve had a lot of feedback on an interview I did with David Lange in 2004 that we reprised this week. It’s a long read but it really is worth it. It is so entertaining and it makes you think. There was certainly no one like Lange.
Quote unquote
“Would she sanction someone who didn’t show up to work with no explanation?” - Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni yesterday to Social Development Minister Louise Upston, who failed to turn up to the House for the first reading of her own bill, resulting in it being discharged.
Micro quiz
Former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Don McKinnon is representing New Zealand at the funeral of which Southeast Asian leader? (Answer below.)
Brickbat
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Goes to Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters for using the word “retard” in Parliament when referring to Te Pāti Māori comments. (IHC says he should apologise and talk to a group of intellectually disabled people about living with attitudes like that.)
Goes to Speaker Gerry Brownlee. “Brevity is important, for this is an information session, not a propaganda session,” he told Parliament in Question Time after a needlessly long answer by Conservation Minister Tama Potaka on Cathedral Cove and New Zealand’s natural beauty.
Quiz answer: Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party since 2011.
Stay with us at nzherald.co.nz for breaking news, analysis and live-streaming of important events. Deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan will bring you coverage from the Green Party conference this weekend in Christchurch, where the fate of independent MP Darleen Tana may be decided. Parliament is in the first week of a three-week sitting block.
For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.
