The costs of butter, milk and cheese, fruit and vegetables, rents, rates and electricity are rising, some of them faster than belief. Annual inflation has lifted to 2.7%, according to the consumer price index.
There can be no doubt New Zealanders are grappling with the escalating cost of living. The government says it is all about cutting costs for Kiwis, something we have seen with its policies and its energetic drive to cut the public service and put thousands of skilled workers out of jobs.
However, despite its much-vaunted approach to trim things, some of which didn’t need much pruning, the coalition is still releasing big pots of money for projects which have its favour and tickle its fancy, or the fancies of its cadres.
As a consequence of that favouritism, something else is going up. Advice be blowed, let’s have a third medical school in New Zealand at a time when the government has been doing everything it can to minimise the importance of, and squeeze the life out of, Dunedin’s desperately needed new hospital.
Until Monday afternoon’s announcement that the University of Waikato’s persistent and somewhat personal bid for a medical school had been approved, there had been perhaps a hope that surely common sense might prevail and the government wouldn’t, after all, go along with the proposal.
Such sanguine thinking, however, was always held in check by the knowledge that this government has already shown several times that logic, facts and evidence to the contrary will not stop it supporting something which it is hell-bent on delivering for its followers.
At the heart of Waikato’s proposal was something few could disagree with — that the country urgently needs to do something about the state and delivery of rural healthcare. Access to timely and effective medical services for those communities has been a big concern for many years, one which has only continued to grow.
But does it take a spanking new medical school costing several hundred million dollars, and growing, to ensure rural targets will be met? No.
Even the Treasury advised against the wisdom of proceeding with this pet project, as did the Ministry of Education and the Tertiary Education Commission, warning that the expense, the duplication and the logistical challenges raised red flags for them. In spite of that, the government and Waikato University forged on regardless.
Health Minister Simeon Brown announced a development with costs which have changed significantly from those pledged by the National Party before the last election.
Then, National said it would provide $280 million for the new school and the university would need to find $100m. Now, the government will disburse $82.85m towards it, and Waikato will have to stump up more than $150m. The final cost, of course, is bound to be higher than current expectations.
A lot has been written about links between National and the university and its vice-chancellor Neil Quigley, and also with consultant Steven Joyce, a former National government minister. Without getting too deeply into that, we are concerned that this is little more than an overt example of pork-barrel politics.
We are also troubled and disappointed, yet again, at the lack of transparency around the government’s decision-making, particularly over health matters. Whenever it makes pronouncements which it knows are likely to be contentious, the accompanying documents seem to take ages to surface — if they ever do. That in itself probably speaks volumes about the consideration of the evidence.
It’s difficult to stay calm and reasoned and attempt to rise above the feeling this government cares not a jot for the South.
When one sees what a charmed life this Waikato proposal has apparently had through the coalition’s approval process, and compare that with the absolute shambles it has promulgated with the new Dunedin hospital and its obvious level of disinterest in the project, it is hard to remain philosophical.
Once again, this government has let us down.
