How is Luxon this out of touch?

A terrible week for Healthcare.

Recently, at about this time, I’ve rated the week and looked at what Mike Hosking had to say with ratings. But I don’t want to waste time writing about his heartless, entitled reckons - they just seem a bit much today.

For those interested, the things he rated highly were the government announcing and doing, and rich people. Celebrating the fact that there are now more billionaires and millionaires. Hurrah!

It’s depressing to think there are people out there so shallow and deluded that they lap that stuff up. People who will whine about the cost of living while celebrating the creation of more wealthy people. Apparently they still believe the dream, that one day it will be them.

It just seems pathetic. Seeing people defend, even celebrate, the current government over the same sort of things they were recently berating the last lot for.

I looked at the rest of the headlines, healthcare cuts, affirmative progress being undone, even the possibility of the Suicide Prevention Office closing, and I just thought - I can’t, it’s too much.

How can people have voted for all these terrible things and how do the government not understand? I took to Twitter.

We should talk about healthcare. If I was handing out points there wouldn’t be any here, it’s been an absolutely terrible week for the sector.

A week that began with David Seymour saying that parents should just send their kids to school if they’re sick, because COVID is so yesterday, was never going to be a good one for the healthcare of New Zealanders. But that was just the start.

Earlier that day a photo popped up in my “memories” as it always does at this time of year. It’s of my daughter and her friend Janelle. These are words I wrote at the end of 2020:

So there were worse things in 2020 than Covid. A couple of months ago my daughter sent a late night message saying that her friend had died. I wondered if perhaps it was a car accident, or drugs, but in reality I didn’t think it was either of those things.

I haven’t commented about it out of respect for her family and friends, but today my daughter and her friends celebrated the birthday of their close friend, who has passed, and we have to talk about this – we have to.

When I was at school one of the kids committed suicide, no one said anything – absolutely bloody nothing, it was like it never happened.

I first met Janelle as a teenager, she would come and stay at the bach, she was hilarious, she always had a laugh and was only too happy to have a laugh at herself.

The last time I saw her was when she and Emma came up to see Gojira a couple of years ago. They played board games with the younger kids and laughed their arses off – especially Janelle, I can still hear that laugh.

Thinking very much of my daughter Emma and her friend Danielle today. I cannot imagine what you have been through over these last couple of months, but I admire you so much.

A wonderful young woman gone so heartbreakingly. As with so many other precious people every year.

This is another of those issues like smoking. We all know someone who has died, or that loves a person that has, from a smoking related disease. The same is true of suicide.

My heart just sank when I saw this headline, it was too much.

I find it incredible that the government can be so callous over programmes that all of us would like to see funded. Except I guess ACT supporters. I suppose in their usual way their attitude is - it’s not me, so who cares? But all the money in the world will matter for nothing when it’s someone that they love. Assuming they love.

The Minister did say he was blindsided by the possibility that this might be one of the things cut - but that’s not good enough.

It seems that a lot of these new Ministers, like Penny Simmonds recently with disability support, have simply told the government department they’re responsible for to save a whole lot of money, and then they act all surprised by the fact that services might be impacted as a result.

Good grief, it’s almost like they’ve been listening to Nicola Willis who either genuinely believes you can gouge the funding out of these budgets without impacting frontline services, or she is lying. My money is on the latter, although that rather assumes she can differentiate between truth and what’s coming out of her mouth.

That’s not good enough, for the Minister to just say they didn’t know. It’s six months since the election and the buck now well and truly stops with the new Minister.

This from the article that accompanied the headline above:

“On Thursday it was revealed the Ministry of Health is proposing cutting 134 jobs to meet the Government's cost reduction demands. The National-led coalition government has asked all ministries to cut their spending by between 6.5 to 7.5 percent to reduce taxpayer spending.

PSA National Secretary Duane Leo said the current proposal would see the office close with the number of staff working on suicide prevention halved while others are dispersed across the Ministry. Leo said the proposal would also see the Director for the Office role axed as well as the Senior Advisor Māori.” 

Duane Leo. Photo: 1 News/Supplied.

Duane also said, “the Government should be investing more in suicide prevention, so we stop more families from suffering the tragedy of suicide, not making these cold-hearted and dangerous cuts. This was an Office that was set up for a good reason, it developed the first national Suicide Prevention Action Plan and was working closely with communities experiencing high rates of suicide.” 

Leo wasn’t the only one challenging the proposal. This morning on the AM show Voices for Hope co-founder Jazz Thornton said the cuts showed that the Government was putting money ahead of people. 

“Christopher Luxon, if you shut down the Suicide Prevention Office, you will be telling people that are struggling with suicidal thoughts all around this country that their lives are worth less than your tax cuts - point blank obvious, that's what you're saying. 

The Suicide Prevention Office is so important - it tells every single person that is struggling with suicide that they matter and I've had a lot to do with them in regard to identifying people that are at risk.”

Jazz Thornton. Image: AM Show.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said the proposed changes would improve efficiency and meet money-saving requirements. So that’s nice.

I’m sure the Ministry considered every possibility, well almost all of them.

Are we paying attention yet? Every week, seemingly every day, there is more bad news, more sacrifices that must be made for Nicola’s tax cuts. At what point do we say enough is enough? For many, I imagine, that point is now.

This is too much.

I’ve been in the awful position of having to decide some fairly large cuts in a small space of time. It is ugly and unpleasant, it impacts people, and it means that you can’t deliver things that you could previously.

Our health system has been struggling, long before these cuts. Many in the sector must feel like they’re barely hanging on, with too much work, not enough resources, and not enough pay.

These cuts are going to make it worse. They are going to break people, cause them to leave the profession or the country, and they will, despite the surprise from the Minister in charge - result in services being cut. Services that are desperately needed.

It’s too much.

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On this day 30 years ago - “Kurt Cobain the 27-year-old frontman and co-founder of Nirvana, committed suicide at his home in Seattle. His body wasn't discovered until three days later when an electrician entered the house to install an alarm. Cobain, who helped to define grunge music, formed Nirvana in 1987.’

The hugely influential trio recorded three albums, the most famous of which was 1993’s Nevermind, which included their anthemic Top 10 US and UK hit single 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Nevermind has gone on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.”

I’ll never forget that day, it hit me harder than the death of any other famous person before that. I was in my first year at Uni after I’d spent the previous four years playing in bands, including a lot of covers from the likes of Nirvana.

Nevermind changed so much, it swept away the banality of the hair metal of the day, and the fake plastic glamour of the 80s. It had a punk ethos, and a raw genuineness that had been missing. When Phil, the singer in my band, and I first saw Teen Spirit it absolutely blew our minds - it was so different, and so good.

The news of his death felt like my generation had lost a spokesperson. Always loved playing this song, nice simple bassline following the chord progression, and doing backing vocals in that angry explosion of a chorus.