An article in a small provincial paper”The Marlborough Express’ recently caught my eye. It  was a story about  threats to cut surgical and orthopedic services at the Wairau hospital in Blenheim.

Alarm bells rang for me. Have not we been here before?  Thankfully some of us have long memories.  It was in the late nineties the previous National government decided to gut the regions by closing or cutting health services. Their aim was to centralise services to a few major centres leaving our small and in some cases not so small regions with basic health care and a requirement for the patients to travel long distances for treatment .

The people’s response was quick and very definite – no way! Thousands  gathered, marched and held hands around their hospitals, in Kaitaia, Whakatane, Thames, Masterton and Reefton.  Others held large public meetings where hundreds turned out including Blenheim.

It was only after the election of the Labour government in 1999 that the drive to strip the regions of their health care was stopped. We rebuilt and remodeled hospitals and health services from Kaitaia to Invercargill and many places in between.  I was fortunate enough to get to open many of the new facilities.  Unfortunately Thames new hospital was not one of them, opened soon after the change of government by  Mr Ryall, the new minister from a government that had opposed it!  ( Labour’s invite obviously got lost in the mail) .

In 1998/99 the people of Marlborough were facing cuts to their surgical services. Their hospital was old with little improvement in the buildings over many years. It was ripe for the National Party axe. Not only were the cuts stopped but a Labour government rebuilt a new hospital on the site.  Mr Ryall was again  fortunate to get to open it lauding the new  facilities, all his own work!

On Wednesday night over 500 people gathered at the Convention Centre in Blenheim. There was standing room only. The organisers were required to open up more space but there was still  not enough seats to accommodate them all. The debate was courteous but determined. The members of the DHB attending were given not only  clear and cogent reasons why the services had to stay but  suggestions for savings that could be made.

It was made clear if after hour surgical services were not available then midwifery services would cease.  It’s not possible to run a full maternity service without access to emergency caesarian facilities. Senior doctors made it clear if these services go others would follow. They were also angry they had not even been consulted on the proposed changes.

An ambulance driver who has had to drive patients to Nelson(the place where the services would go) spoke of the 2 hour drive over a mountain range on a road that has  continuous log trucks traveling on it.

Brian Dawson from the Chamber of Commerce made a very strong submission for the retention of their health services. He said they were anxious at the ability to retain people in the region if there was not good quality schools, community facilities and hospital services.  He spoke of the loyalty of the region to the National Party over many years and it was now time for that loyalty to be reciprocated. He ended his contribution with ‘we will fight to the end’.

Perhaps the most compelling argument came from Dr Linda Scott, former National MP for Marlborough who said quite bluntly-’people will die’.

It hasn’t taken long for this government to start to attack the health services in the regions of New Zealand.  Keep an eye  on  Ashburton and Westport, there is more to come.

I was glad I was there to hear the communities concerns and to catch up with those who are prepared to speak out. It’s not easy in this current environment where the Minister is swift in censoring any opposition. Just ask the local National  MP Colin King who wanted to hold a public meeting to discuss the proposed cuts but was overruled by Mr Ryall!

Labour is committed to strong regional development  including the provision of  important social services. This is a policy area you will hear more about over the next 18 months.

‘So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun

The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Lets hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong

And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Lets stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Lets hope it’s good one
Without any fear.’…

Apology to the late John Lennon but those words have come back to me this Christmas.

‘The war is over’ is his final line. I wish that were true. In a world torn with violence, millions of people are still in harms way. Then there is here at home. For many New Zealanders this Christmas will be yet another battle of survival.

‘And so it is Christmas
And what have you done?

What we have done is to set a new policy direction
for New Zealand, a different path to the one of the past 30 years. Too much has failed for too many people .

In a country with child poverty growing, unaffordable housing, huge social division, few jobs and fading hope for young people, a political party can either grab hold of the problems and address them or pretend they don’t exist, talk  in slogans and blame others for the plight.

We choose to do something about it.

‘A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Lets hope it’s good one
Without any fear’

While the media and commentators have focused on Nick Smith’s folly this week the housing crisis in Christchurch has barely got a mention. Add the problems Canterbury people are facing finding a place to live to the Auckland housing crisis and alarm bells ought to be sounding in the Beehive. All we can hear however is the sound of panic, polling and bottom minding! When they finally wake up to a real issue, many people would have joined the exodus to Australia, currently running at an all time high of 1000 a week.

Have you read the latest Management Magazine? (March 2012).

Its not a regular read of mine either. But on flicking through it yesterday I discovered an interesting article entitled ‘Memorable leadership?’ written by Reg Birchfield, a writer on leadership, governance and management.

The article is about John Key. It discusses our economic prospects initially then argues poor leadership can thwart the most promising of ( economic) circumstances.

The question is asked”Will John Key rise to the occasion, not just competently but inspirationally?Does he look like a leader determined to deliver us the promised land?”

The article then goes on to set out the reasons why it will be a stretch for Key to deliver.

“Key’s ego is overt. And generally, inflated egos and political leadership are constant companions. More relevant is whether or not he has a vision for New Zealand. If he has,he has steadfastly refused to share it. That’s usually a bad sign but, again,it’s prevalent in political leaders.

Key’s disinclination to share his vision suggests a lack of willingness to commit and reluctance to be honest about future intentions. That in turn suggests a leadership approach based on knowing what’s best,and believing that what’s best is not for sharing.

That’s strange, because principled and well-articulated visions generally stand up to scrutiny. And great visions are worth defending. The best leaders even use them to inspire people to help realise the dream.

These are complicated times. The issues confronting nations like ours are complex. Great leaders have the capacity to distil and explain issues, and to take the team with them. Key seems to have a strong personal following.He could probably sell his vision if he had one and he believed it was truly worth pursuing. The fact that he doesn’t, suggests a leadership strategy based more on expedience than inspiration”

Well Mr Birchfield said it.

Another National Party Budget, another untendered contract to its mates.

National has been up to its old tricks again. One year after Bill English was shamed into reversing a dodgy deal giving a multimillion dollar contract to an unknown, untested and National Party-aligned Pacific economic development agency in Auckland, called Peda, National has been caught out trying the same thing again.

You’d never know it from any Budget 2011 documents, because it was heavily disguised (National obviously learned at least one lesson from the Peda debacle), but National has this time awarded a $2 million contract to Auckland company Parents Inc without opening the contract to other providers in New Zealand.   

John Key told Parents Inc before the last election that he wanted to do business with them. The company is run by just-resigned Families Commissioner Bruce Pilbrow, who was handpicked for the commissioner’s job by Paula Bennett and who admitted he lobbied hard from within to get the big contract.

The programme the companies charges parents between $50 and $100 to use is called a Toolbox. It might well be a good programme but it is not possible to tell. The evaluation  Toolbox 29 march 2010 was never completed. Or if it was Paula Bennett is hiding it.

You’d also never know whether it was the best programme of its kind in New Zealand because no other company was asked to tender. There are equivalent programmes available .

I am seeking answers and will continue to try to get to the bottom of this dodgy deal.

John Key and Bill English are forever telling people to tighten their belts because money is tight. Why then did they bend the rules to award this contract to Parents Inc when a more effective  and better value for money programme could have been found elsewhere?

 One rule for them and their friends, another for the rest of us, it seems.

Tragic events in Christchurch have overtaken National’s Welfare Working Group’s report into the future of the welfare system, which was released on Tuesday.

This is a time when all New Zealand stands together, including political parties, out of respect to the victims of the quake and their families and to ensure that the rescue and recovery operations in Christchurch can proceed without unnecessary distraction. 

For that reason Labour has not formally responded to the WWG report’s recommendations or the Government’s response.

However, I do have some initial thoughts, which you will see below. I and my Labour colleagues will expand on these when the time is more suitable.

The WWG report sets a target of taking 100,000 people off welfare and into work over the next decade:

• Where are the jobs going to come from?
• Jobs have been not been a priority for this government.
• Moving 100,000 people off benefits and into work takes us back to the total benefit figures in 2008 when National took over.
• The past two years have been a huge wasted opportunity.
• The economy has ground to a halt under National.
• It is not possible to force people into jobs that do not exist.
• GDP will have to increase by 3 per cent a year over the next decade to meet this target. Current forecasts average 2.5 per cent a year. Where’s the plan?

The report is a mix of:

• Tried and failed ideas from the 1990s – privatising welfare delivery, splitting welfare policy and delivery arms, work for the dole, and,
• Advocating for incentives and programmes to get people into work. Many of these existed under Labour but National abolished or slashed them – such as the Training Incentive Allowance for solo mums on the DPB, scholarships, dedicated Winz case managers who built up knowledge of individual clients and were better able to assist them, ECE funding, strategic skills and training programme funding, and,
• Extreme ideas which give the Key government room to appear less hard line by rejecting them. Eg forcing solo parents who have another child to look for work when the youngest turns 14 weeks; and giving young parents access to free “long acting, reversible contraception”;

Making solo mums look for work when their child turns three, instead of five, says paid work is more important than the job of caring for and nurturing young children.

The first six years of a child’s life are the most important in terms of development.

Child poverty, which is already on the rise under National, will get worse still.

Forcing severely disabled people on a “Jobseeker Support Benefit” with supplementary payments tied to efforts to get into work will result in severe mental anguish and hardship for an already vulnerable group of people.

Early childhood education fees, which have already gone up under National, will rise again.

Blaming and punishing the poor lets tax avoiders who do not pay their fair share of tax off the hook.

It must be one of the lamest defences ever run by a minister.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, who is again overseas while unemployment at home soars, rebutted accusations from Phil Goff that she was “missing in action” by saying he had only submitted 71 written parliamentary questions to her since she became minister.

Well, I’m Labour’s social policy spokesperson and I’ve submitted 3731 questions to her in those two years – and I’m still awaiting credible answers for most of them.

Instead of off gallivanting in the United States again – she took a six weeks “sabbatical” off last year – she should be at home clearing up the mess she has made of her Community Max make-work programme.

The programme is hugely expensive but is very low quality spending — unless you count assisting National with massaging down unemployment numbers!  Even Treasury said it was poor value for money and would have little effect on youth unemployment.  They’re right!

And while she’s at it, she should be here sorting out her rapidly failing boot camps project, which is on track to posting reoffending rates of 70-odd per cent.

It’s not as if Ms Bennett and John Key weren’t warned. Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft and many other experts said boot camps, while sounding good on paper, were fundamentally flawed and this had been proven so many times over. “It just made them healthier, fitter, faster, but they were still burglars, just harder to catch”, Judge Becroft said.

Community Max, boot camps, national cycleway, and a do-nothing jobs summit – it’s government by slogan, and it’s rapidly catching up with National.