The Week in Politics: Health horror stories and claims of racism in Parliament

Analysis - It should have been a really good week for the government but a string of health horror stories got in the way.

With tax cuts kicking in on Wednesday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis joined Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at Monday's post-cabinet press conference.

They wanted everyone to know the good news.

The tax relief, as the government calls it, was explained once again with Luxon saying 94 percent of households and 83 percent of individuals would be better off.

Willis gave an assurance that "cost of living relief is on the way" and said the tax bracket changes and other measures meant 727,000 households would benefit by at least $75 a fortnight and 187,000 by at least $100 a fortnight.

The media was not particularly interested in a policy which has been churning over since before the election, except wanting to know when there would be more tax cuts. The answer was that there would be periodic reviews.

Questioners wanted to know why Dargaville Hospital was closing overnight because it did not have enough staff, what the nursing shortage was and what disciplinary action could be expected at Health NZ given the dire state of affairs which led to the remaining board members being sacked and replaced by a commissioner.

The background to this was a spate of reports about serious problems with hospital staffing.

'Far North doctor shortage acute', Stuff reported. 'No on-site doctor at Northland hospital', came from 1News, 'Patients travelling hours amid doctor shortage', reported RNZ which also published an article titled 'The effects of doctor shortages through the eyes of practitioners and patients'.

And the most recent - Stuff's report headlined 'Year-long MRI waits due to staff shortages'.

There was not a lot Luxon could say about all this. In fairness, the state of the health system is not the government's fault because it has been years in the making but it did promise to fix it and it does have to respond to situations such as that in Dargaville.

The prime minister reeled off responses about an extra 2900 nurses being recruited in the last 12 months and said getting hold of more clinicians was a top priority. "I think we've taken action pretty quickly," he said.

As for Dargaville Hospital, his response was: "I expect the minister to engage with Health NZ to make sure it is a safe operating practice."

Luxon moved on to talk about the government's foremost blame-shifter - the "botched merger" that was the creation of Health NZ.

That opened up a whole range of questions about Health NZ, the deficits that led to Lester Levy being appointed commissioner and how was it that chief executive Margie Apa and her team were still in place?

Luxon and Willis did not hold back.

There had been a lack of financial control and "no great understanding or literacy around cash flow analysis whatsoever", said Luxon.

Willis said in her view the board did not even know what questions to ask to get the information the public was entitled to about Health NZ's finances.

"Your frustration is our frustration," she said. "We've had a situation where we were unable to get accurate information as to whether or not this agency was on track to deliver on budget."

This apparent level of incompetence seemed strange, given that among the board members were former senior National Party cabinet minister Amy Adams and the former Inland Revenue chief executive Naomi Ferguson.

They both resigned in July.

Richard Harman, in his website Politik, noted that the board "which the prime minister and finance minister dismissed on Monday as not being up to the job" had appointed two of the country's most qualified accountants as its advisors.

Harman said Marc Rivers and Jonathan Oram were appointed as independent directors to the Health NZ Audit Committee in October 2022. The committee included Adams and Ferguson.

It would be interesting to know what Adams, Ferguson, Rivers and Oram thought when they heard Luxon and Willis talking about the board not knowing which questions to ask and that there was "no great understanding or literacy around cash flow analysis whatsoever".

It leaves the impression that there is a lot more still to be told.

When it came to what might happen to Health NZ's executive team, Luxon replied that "everything is on the table".

That led to speculation that Apa's days could be numbered, and Stuff's Tova O'Brien included Health Minister Shane Reti in her list of potential casualties in an article headed 'PM expresses confidence in his health minister despite several red flags'.

"From the health minister to the chief executive of Health NZ, there are some very big jobs tenuously teetering on the brink," she said.

"Minister Shane Reti is one disaster at Dragaville Hospital away from making the prime minister's unwavering confidence in him look extremely wavering."

O'Brien said there were other red flags Luxon should be considering when it came to having confidence in the minister.

"It was advice from Reti that Luxon relied on when he repeatedly claimed there were 14 layers of management between the CEO and senior leaders at the top of Health NZ and the patients they serve," she said.

"Problem is, as The Post revealed, the organisational chart actually shows the patient was included in the supposed 14 layers of management, as was the board chair and the chief executive, their chief of staff and someone simply called 'team member' who could feasibly be a nurse or a doctor."

Those discrepancies between what Luxon said about management layers and what was shown in a list later provided by Reti's office was also raised at the post-cabinet press conference.

Luxon simply said he had relied on advice from the minister, and he expected media would put questions to Reti about that.

It was also raised in Parliament by Labour's health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall, who asked Reti whether his private health insurance covered "injuries sustained while being thrown under a bus by the PM".

While numerous failings within Health NZ have been identified, former National cabinet minister Steven Joyce, writing in the Herald, mentioned one which hasn't been previously referred to.

"All the feedback from within Health NZ is that empire-building is rife and the internal politics have been fierce, not just within the organisation but between the new agency and the Ministry of Health," he said.

"The ministry seems bereft at having lost control of the Frankenstein it helped create. And we all know about the revolving door in the Health NZ boardroom."

As if it did not have enough problems.

Complaints of bullying, racism

It has been a weird week in Parliament, with complaints of bullying, racism and a row between ACT MPs and Speaker Gerry Brownlee.

RNZ reported Children's Minister Karen Chhour saying she was under "constant personal attack… it just feels like this environment is so toxic. How can we actually do our job?"

Stuff reported "Karen Chhour breaks down in tears over 'unsafe workplace'".

Parliament is a toxic place, it always has been and probably always will be. MPs routinely try to bully each other. Some revel in it, others do not handle it well. Some survive better than others - just imagine, for example, how Winston Peters would react to being bullied.

Claims of racism arose when ACT said its confidence in Speaker Gerry Brownlee was "falling by the day" because he was failing to address racial harassment.

It followed a heated exchange in Parliament when ACT leader David Seymour asked to table correspondence between the ACT Party whip and the Speaker, RNZ reported.

"You appear to give a green light to racial harassment in this Parliament," Seymour told Brownlee.

ACT had written to Brownlee asking the Speaker to refer an incident involving one of its MPs to the Privileges Committee.

The MP, Laura Trask, a select committee member, had felt "shaken, saddened and angry" when MPs from the Greens and Te Pāti Māori opposed her chairing a sub-committee on the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

The section deals with commitments to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

"She was told by other members that it would be better if it was someone who was Māori or Pasifika because submitters 'could not see themselves in her'," Seymour said.

"In no workplace in New Zealand is that acceptable. The Speaker has an obligation to stand up to that. He hasn't."

The chair of the select committee of which Trask is a member, Labour's Carmel Sepuloni, said opposition to Trask chairing a sub-committee was based on her relative inexperience, not her ethnicity.

ACT MPs then refused to remove their party branded lapel pins to protest against the Speaker's handling of their complaint, RNZ's report said.

Brownlee had previously ruled against displays of party logos, and he stood his ground.

The pins are tiny and this may seem a nit-picking issue, but it became important when Brownlee prevented ACT MP Todd Stephenson from asking a question because he was wearing one alongside Seymour and other MPs, the Herald reported.

Seymour jumped in.

"If you are seriously saying that you are not going to let people ask and answer questions in this House because they're wearing a pin as they've been allowed to year after year, I think more and more people are going to ask what your priorities actually are," he said.

Later during question time Brownlee would not allow Chhour to answer a question as a minister because she was wearing a pin. He said another minister would have to respond.

Social Development Minister Louise Upston gave answers that "were vague but deemed fair", the report said.

Seymour said it had been against the rules for another minister to answer questions which had been put to Chhour.

Darleen Tana

The Greens, meanwhile, continued to be mired in their seemingly endless problem of what to do about Darleen Tana.

Following the Greens' annual conference at the weekend, Tana has been given a last chance to resign from Parliament, RNZ reported.

Tana resigned from the party over what they knew, or did not know, about allegations of immigrant exploitation of migrants at their husband's company, which is now in liquidation.

The caucus unanimously decided Tana should go, but it also wants them out of Parliament altogether. The Greens say Tana is not fit to be there.

Tana is now an independent, and has said they are going to stay.

Tana has been given three weeks to respond to a letter asking her to resign from Parliament, and if they do not, the Greens will hold a special meeting of party branch delegates on 1 September to decide whether the waka-jumping legislation should be used to expel Tana.

The Greens have strongly opposed the legislation in the past and whether they should use it against Tana is reported to have raised strong feelings within the party.

There has been collateral damage as well - three members of the Pasifika Greens resigned at the annual conference over the way Tana has been treated.

Marie Laufiso, Alofa Aiono and Vasemaca Tavola said party leaders had intentionally smeared Tana's character, mana and integrity.

They also accused the party of showing "blatant disregard" for the Pasifika network following the death of Fa'anānā Efeso Collins.

The last word goes to Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry, quoted by Newsroom: "That's just the definition of insanity, in my mind." He was explaining his council had to spend $570,000 to implement the previous government's speed restrictions and was now going to have to spend another $570,000 to reverse them.

*Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament's press gallery, 22 years as NZPA's political editor and seven as parliamentary bureau chief for NZ Newswire.