The proposal is for Horizons Regional Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and the NZTA to fund the Capital Connection as part of the Wellington Metro rail service.

This makes complete sense since the Capital Connection is the only commuter rail service in New Zealand that is currently expected to run on a totally commercial model. The funding proposal simply brings the Capital Connection into line with every other commuter train in the country.

The problem is that while the two regional councils have indicated support for the proposal, the NZTA is holding out. Why? Because a Road of National Significance is being built near by.

Suddenly, the only criteria the NZTA will consider is whether or not the rail line will relieve congestion. Ignore the environmental benefits, ignore the social benefits it’s all about congestion and of course spending billions on roads that don’t stack up economically is much better than encouraging people to use the train.

If yet another regional rail service is lost this year, it will have been killed off by National’s significant obsession with roads.

What would really get veterans excited would be for National to follow through on their promise to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations and replace the War Pensions Act. For older veterans in particular, this is the number one priority.

But other than their election promise, National has been completely silent. They won’t say when they will introduce legislation, they won’t say how much they intend to spend and they won’t say what recommendations they will implement.

They’ve said nothing since the report was tabled in June last year 2010.

Veterans deserve better and breathlessly announcing what should be routine annual inflation adjustments doesn’t make up for dragging the chain on fixing the system.

The fact that the Defence force is actively recruiting from the UK shows that our armed forces are losing skilled personnel as low moral and high attrition take their toll.

Money that should be used to put people on the front line is being wasted trying to replace the people lining up to leave the Defence force because the change process has been handled so poorly by the Government.

Unemployment is over 6%. It’s hard to get a job right now but things are so bad that people would rather take their chances on the job market than stay in the Defence Force. The civilianisation process has been poorly run and has had a devastating impact on morale.

Tens of thousands of new Zealanders are looking for work. We should be training and employing our own people, not spending money on bringing people in from overseas to take those jobs.

I was concerned when I read her press release so I contacted Fonterra to see what was going on. The odd thing is, the idea of calling Fonterra hadn’t occurred to Tariana. Nor does it seem she had spoken to Horizons Regional Council. In fact, as best as I can tell, she hadn’t done a thing to substantiate her claims before she issued her press release.

This is totally irresponsible from a Government Minister.

No doubt it took Nick Smith by surprise. Tariana’s accusation is completely at odds with the positive announcement over the weekend of funding for the river clean up project and the Government’s intention to work closely with local government and industry.

As a representative of the Manawatu region, she should be trying to be positive about her region’s reputation.

If the claims are true, Fonterra absolutely should be held to account. But where are the facts and why on earth was her first action to issue a press release?

Yesterday, the Health Ministry’s briefing to the incoming minsterwas published. The ministry identified the priorities it thinks the government should be focused on:

• Preventing cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases which make up 80% of the disease burden of the total population.
• Improving mental health outcomes.
• Adressing the long term health conditions facing our ageing population including the increaseing incidence of dementia.

Compare that with National’s targets:

• Faster transit through Emergency Departments
• More elective surgery
• Shorter waiting time for cancer treatment
• More immunisations
• Better help for smokers to quit
• Better cardiovascular services

The two sets of prioities do cross over on getting smokers to quit and cardiovascular services although these are the weakest measures in the government’s set. National’s cancer target is for treatment, not prevention and beyond that, the ministry’s prioirites don’t get a look in.

No one is saying that the things the government identifies as priorities are not good, worthy things that we want to see happen in our health system. The problem is that when this narrow focus is combined with reduced funding in real terms, all the other things that the ministry says need to be addressed now before they get out of hand aren’t getting the attention they need.

Association chairman Paul Ockelford said the health targets were commendable, but the emphasis on targets was flawed.

The targets needed to work alongside other approaches, such as housing and education, that influenced people’s health.

“If these are not addressed we will continue to have glaring health disparities in our communities and a high prevalence of preventable diseases that affect not only quality of life, but life expectancy,” Dr Ockelford said.

The targets were “narrow and simplistic”.

“They do not give a full picture of how our health system is performing because of the difficulty of linking these targets to information about patient and public health outcomes.”

The real challenges for our health system are the projected increasing cost of delivering healthcare and the increasing prevalence of preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease as well as depression and anxiety disorders.  

Tackling both of these requires that a much greater emphasis be placed on keeping people well and preventing the need for costly treatments. This is desperately lacking in National’ approach to health.

To me, two of the most glaring omissions from National’s priorities are mental health and chronic disease management. The lack of resources to respond to people with low acuity need in these areas means they end up with much bigger problems than necessary and the taxpayer foots a much bigger bill than we ought.

Tony Ryall will enthusiastically point to short term output data that my look impressive now, but what is his strategy doing to improve long term health outcomes for our nation?

Waikato University scientist, Dr Pawel Olszewski suggests sugar and fat may produce changes in the brain which resemble the effects of addictive drugs. This may have a profound impact on the way governments, health practitioners and communities plan to combat the impact of the growing incidence of obesity.

We must be careful, though, not to directly equate sugar and fat, which our bodies need, to nicotine, alcohol, THC, amphetamines etc which we can quite happily do without:

Dr Olszewski says that while the brain responds to tasty foods in ways that have a lot in common with its reaction to drugs, he stresses there is a clear distinction between the complex mix of substances found in foods and a single compound such as morphine or nicotine. For this reason he describes over-eating patterns as “addictive-like”.

“We don’t want to send the message that if you’re eating a sandwich, that you’re consuming a drug. However palatable, high-sugar foods very often increase activity of the same brain circuits that are involved in the creation of the addictive state.

“So we believe this addictive-like behaviour stems from the effect that nutrients, in particular sugar and to some extent fat, have on the same set of brain areas that drive addiction.”

Immediately one can see the absolute pointlessness of a sugar tax. Potatoes, white bread, rice and pasta become sugar in the body as fast as pure cane sugar and nearly as fast as glucose powder. Taxing sugar is like sticking your finger in the dyke when the tsunami alarm has just gone off. And taxing carbohydrates in general is just adding a tax to nearly all food.

all that causes obesity is taking in more calories than you burn up.

Add to the mix research released from Ohio State University this week that shows the attachment between mothers and toddlers is linked with incidence of obesity and you quickly get the picture that obesity is not straight forward and solutions will be neither singular nor simple.

Obesity is a significant driver of the increasing cost of healthcare and therefore cannot be ignored. Developing prevention and treatment strategies is the responsibility of governments as much as it is the responsibility of parents, communities and individuals.

Trevor mentioned the fact that half the conference have been members for less than ten years. Another interesting statistic cropped up: When asked how we came to join the party, we were given four options: Family; Friend(s); Union/Church; Epiphany.

All groups were fairly even but noticeably smallest was Union/Church. Guess we don’t always live up to the stereotype.

It’s a very good example of the need to consider the long term effects of government policy. Yes, we all understand that putting GST up without proper compensation for people on middle and low incomes is making life harder for kiwi families right now, but the long term effects are much more concerning.

National’s policies have not only increased inequalities, they are creating a problem for future governments by failing to keep people well and increasing future demand on all health services including mental health.

It might not be of much concern to John Key and co because it won’t be their problem. But someone will have to deal with it and we’d all be a lot better off (financially and socially) if we prevented the problem when we can see it coming rather than waiting for someone else to clean up the mess.

By taking part in FebFast – and swearing off the booze for 28 days – we are raising funds for four organisations working with at-risk youth, particularly on drug and alcohol issues.

I can’t say that I’m missing alcohol all that much. Actually I feel pretty good. Being on FebFast is a great reason to say ‘no’ when the inevitable opportunities to consume occur at Parliament and around the electorate. Don’t think I’m going teetotal just yet though, and that’s not the point. This is just about having a break from alcohol and raising money for a really good cause.

If you’d like to donate, go to the Labour Party Team page on the FebFast website.

Cheers!