Labour gives a glimpse of grit in the face of a horror poll
The election campaign has entered a new phase, with the ruling party hitting a new low in the Newshub Reid Research poll on Monday night.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who spent Tuesday in Christchurch, took questions from media at a new, $22 million accommodation centre for out-of-town cancer patients in Papanui.
The room in which he stood, flanked by ministers and budding MPs, was a lounge in which cancer patients will be, within weeks, watching the Rugby World Cup.
Hipkins showed he’s perfectly happy with a bit of rough and tumble on the campaign trail.
The first question he was asked was: “Prime Minister, how much responsibility do you take for Labour tanking in the polls?”
As leader of the Labour Party he accepted responsibility, he said.
“We’ve got five weeks to go in this campaign. We’re going to be out there working hard to win every vote we can.”
Can he turn those numbers around and give Labour a real shot?
“Just watch me.”
READ MORE: * Hipkins’ Hail Mary falls short in new poll * Trouble in the bowels of the South Island
There was very much a health theme to Hipkins’ southern visit.
First-thing, Labour announced it would, if re-elected, make cervical screening free for those aged 25 to 69, a policy which could save $100 in co-payments.
Earlier in the day, Hipkins and entourage visited a pharmacy in Sydenham, in the city’s south, to celebrate Labour’s policy to scrap prescription charges.
The 50-room Canterbury Cancer Centre was built with $6.5 million from taxpayers, part of a 2020 Government fund for shovel-ready projects.
(In between, the prime minister took to the central city, pressing the flesh in Riverside Market and taking part in the obligatory cone-making contest at a gelato cafe.)
Yet, some would argue Labour is vulnerable when it comes to health right now.
Christchurch’s 24-hour doctors surgery is, from September 21, closing each day from 10pm to 8am because of staff shortages.
A nurses union says understaffing is compromising pateint care at Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department, while some cancer pateints in the far south are waiting 12 weeks for a first appointment with a specialist.
Dunedin Hospital is having to stop training junior cancer doctors because of a shortage of radiation oncologists.
On Monday night, RNZ reported the Cancer Society – yes, the very society in whose building Hipkins was standing when he fronted media – was putting up Otago and Southland cancer patients, and their whānau, in motels, because their other accommodation was full.
Newsroom put two health-related questions to Hipkins – both times he deferred to Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. The minister bristled at a follow-up question.
The first: “Today, you announced free screening to be funded from within existing budgets for cervical cancer, which kills 60 people a year. Where is your policy and extra spending to expand screening for bowel cancer, which kills 3000 people a year?”
Before allowing the minister to answer, Hipkins noted Labour has more health announcements to come.
Verrall said New Zealand now has a national bowel cancer screening programme but when Labour took over there was none.
(This statement is politically cynical. Work on the programme started well before Labour was elected.)
“Work is underway to see if that can safely be extended,” Verrall said.
“But of course, we take a balanced view and have to look across a number of different cancers when we make these decisions.
“I take your point about deaths. But cervical cancer also causes a huge amount of harm, need for return care, and difficulties having a family in some cases.”
Right now, bowel screening is restricted to those aged between 60 and 74 years.
The second question posed by Newsroom was: “We’re celebrating a cancer care facility here, built somewhat with public money, when the Cancer Society says it’s using motels for people in Otago and Southland who are up here getting their treatment. When can people like those people in Otago and Southland expect to be treated in their own area? Within the [next] term of the next Labour government?”
The solution for Otago and Southland’s problems with cancer radiation oncology service, Verrall said, is to secure new staff, which Te Whatu Ora is working on with high priority.
“That will be achieved through locums and, yes, in the [next] term.”
Work is underway on a more coordinated national approach to radiation oncology so “service sustainability” is maintained across the country, she said.
The public might expect things to get better if you’ve been in power for six years, Newsroom posited, why are things in health getting worse, seemingly?
This is where Verrall got a flint in her eye and an edge in her voice.
“I don’t accept that things are getting worse in health,” she said.
“We have come through a pandemic with exceptional results in terms of how many of our people we kept alive. We kept our healthcare workers alive and globally 100,000 healthcare workers died.
“We have had to reverse a lot of underfunding in health. That’s why we increased Pharmac funding by 40 percent over the time we’ve been in government.”
Labour had to address capital infrastructure, she said, when there were two years in which the National government “contributed nothing to capital infrastructure”.
“That’s malpractice when you’re running a health system.”
An extra 2000 doctors and 5000 nurses have been employed, she said.
“I understand that it is not yet enough. So that’s why we have to keep going.”
Labour takes serious the responsibility to fund its promises, Verrall said. Get that wrong and the health system will be underfunded.
Throwing shade, she said the National Party promises to spend more on health each year – “but that doesn't mean they’ll meet inflation”.
“I think Labour has a very strong track record on those issues.”
The public view on this appears to be slipping, however.
In November 2020, 61 percent of New Zealanders polled by Ipsos said Labour was the most competent party at managing the health system and hospitals. In the latest poll, Labour sits at 34 percent, with National snapping at its heels on 29 percent.
Even Chris Hipkins, when asked about Monday night’s political poll, admitted there seems to be a mood for change.
Given the pressure on the health system and its workers – some of it imposed by a Government-mandated centralisation – it’s fair to ask if campaigning on health is going to be a vote-winner for Labour.
