White Bread
Costs, Jobs and Healthcare are getting worse.
There's wheat in the field
And water in the stream
And salt in the mine
And an aching in me
Songwriters: Ronnie Lane / Steve Marriott.
“White Bread” is a slang term in North America used to describe “someone boring, bland, conventional, or typical of the mainstream white middle class, implying they lack excitement, uniqueness, or edge, like plain, processed white bread compared to whole grain.”
It certainly sounds like PrimeMinister MilqueToast and his cabinet of boneless mild butter chicken enthusiasts.
Lange was in the Fish and Chip Brigade, Bill English liked a pre-budget pie, Grant Robertson switched it up to a cheese roll, and Chippy likes a sausage roll. But you’d have to say the current PM is the culinary equivalent of White Bread.
You know the stuff he uses to deflect anger at the monstrous gastronomic outputs from Seymour’s Kitchen by suggesting people have a Marmite Sandwich instead if they don’t like it.
Costs.
We assume the PM wasn’t talking about Vogels in those sarnies, it’s pretty hard to afford that nutritious goodness on a $60 a week supermarket budget - right, Christopher?
No, our frugal shopper is surely all about the White Bread. The problem is that, if you didn’t see it, the price of that basic food item skyrocketed last year.
Who would have thought - the slice of bread wrapping a sausage sizzle would have become a luxury for Kiwis?
National would have you believe that it has tamed inflation, as it stutters along at around 3%, which is the upper limit of the RBNZ target range. Or that wages have kept pace with price rises - they haven’t.
Every time Kiwis open a bill or reach the checkout, the numbers are eye-watering, and we wonder if we’ve moved to some lower-value currency. It might not be quite time to take a wheelbarrow full of cash to the dairy for a loaf of bread, but those costs keep on rising. From the article:
“Milk was up 15.8 percent over the year, to $4.92 per two litres for the cheapest option available. Beef steak was up 21.7 percent, and white bread up 58.3 percent.”
If Luxon really thinks people are going to buy his claim that things are even remotely back on track in terms of the cost of living, then, to borrow a phrase from Gordon Ramsay, the man is more of an idiot sandwich than I thought he was.
Jobs
Still, everyone knows it’s all about the economy, and there are mixed messages as to whether things are getting better.
Business leaders seem quite pleased with their investment…
Datacom New Zealand managing director Peter Nelson said, “People will naturally be a little cautious after some good signs early on in 2025 that didn’t translate into the growth we were expecting. I understand a bit of nervousness, but at least people are being positive.”
Positivity is important if the economy is to rebound, and I’m sure we all want to see that, however we might feel about this government. Maybe Luxon was right about the vibes all along?
Or perhaps we should reserve judgment, as there was some conflicting news in Stuff:
Electronic games shops, which, to be fair, were on borrowed time, hospitality outlets belying any rebound in that sector, retailers, hairdressers, pharmacies, businesses across the economy, there have been too many false dawns of recovery, and they’re pulling the plug.
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub said, “Particularly for some sectors, because the early part of a recovery is slow. There is a disappointment gap. Businesses were saying 'oh, next quarter things are going to be much better'. Things were better but not as much better as they had expected. So the disappointment gap is the most persistent it has ever been in the history of the Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion.”
The coalition has certainly oversold any economic gains, and given how badly they underdelivered on their promises in 2025, many, I imagine, remain cautious of future claims as unemployment continues to rise.
Still, at least we’ve got our health, right?
Healthcare
Each day seems to bring some new issue in our health system, from system outages to data privacy to not even bothering to keep a tally of the number of referrals declined in the North Island, the system needs a serious overhaul.
Yesterday I posted:
Our Health IT systems have struggled for as long as I can remember. The idea that you could cut staff without things failing was either gross incompetence or outright lies. Probably both.
There will inevitably be adverse clinical outcomes, so it’s best that the coalition uses those gloves - to help keep the blood off their hands.
From RNZ:
“A range of clinical and administrative systems were down for at least six hours on Thursday, days after a widespread IT outage affected the Southern district for more than 12 hours.”
The Health Sector has a technology deficit; add in outages and the overhead of dealing with the fallout from Manage My Health (MMH), and healthcare staff must hardly have time to worry about being underpaid and under-resourced.
I received a message from a reader in the sector last night that gave an indication of what is going on.
“HNZ promised us they would step up and take the blame for this with MMH and immediately tell the public it has NOTHING to do with General Practice. It’s been bedlam at work, flooded with many angry patients. HNZ has been mute & made us scapegoats. They have also warned us NOT to go to the media!!!”
Not to go to the media? How is this not in the public interest?
Alex replied to my post, saying, “Blatantly allowing our treasured health system to fail is clearly a deliberate strategy. I am forever grateful for my steel hips and reconstructed ankle and the wonderful treatment I have received during my various hospital stays. How will the poor fare in a privatised system?”
How? Indeed. Over the past two years, this government has put us on the Fast Track to making private medical insurance a necessity, and that simply isn’t affordable for many.
But wait, it gets worse, this in today’s Herald:
The paywalled article begins, “Finance Minister Nicola Willis is coming for the key budgetary part of Labour’s health reforms, with changes possible as soon as this year.”
Good lord, put down the scalpel, Nicola, the patient is bleeding profusely already.
Willis said, “Quite famously, Health NZ had a bit of a disaster … It didn’t stick to its budgets at all, which undermined what we were trying to achieve with its forward funding approach.”
Did you consider that the budgets might not have been big enough?
Unable to leave the scalpel be, Willis said of funding in coming years, “We are contemplating the question of should we be giving ourselves more discretion to direct that more surgically in the future.”
In other words, micro management of health spending by politically motivated bean counters rather than clinicians. Let me guess: with a focus on procedures that those with medical insurance will still have in the public system?
Vote this year like your life depends on it, because the way things are going with this lot and healthcare, it very well might.
The Trifecta.
I know it’s been a long break since the last political year ended, and as we know, Mr Luxon has been preoccupied with curating his Spotify playlists, but surely he remembers there is an election this year? I posted:
Shops closing, food prices rising, health systems failing... Did anyone tell Luxon we're voting on Jobs, Costs, and Healthcare?
Some lighter relief to end from the comments:
Julie said, “He fancies himself as Tom Cruise in Cocktail? We all know the next election for him is Mission Impossible.” Certainly re-electing him would be Risky Business.
Pauline cruelly suggested, “Is Tom Cruise taller?”, but she was probably thinking of Simeon Brown.
Jan bemoaned, “He’s neither shaken nor stirred by anything meaningful.”
Forget white bread, the way these guys are going, they’re going to be toast before the end of the year. Have a good weekend, all you lovely people. 🙂
If you can afford an $80 annual subscription or $8 per month, I’d really welcome your support. ✊
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, here’s Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller - covering Song of a Baker by the Small Faces:
I got out of hospital yesterday. The care I got was amazing but I was on a 38 week waiting list for elective surgery. Inevitably over 38 weeks my condition worsened and I was put on the semi-urgent list. Finally I waited 45 weeks. I paid to see a private specialist at the beginning of the saga just to speed things up. Had I waited for an initial consultation on the public system, I'd probably still be waiting for my surgery. Whilst in hospital I kept hearing surgeons telling their patients "due to the time you've been waiting your condition has deteriorated and your surgery took longer/was more complicated than originally foreseen". How does that save money? I appreciate that being retired I'm no longer an economic unit but every other patient on my floor was younger than me so it takes a toll on their lives as well, being in pain whilst holding down a job, running a family, not being able to plan too far ahead in case you're called in for surgery. I cannot stress enough how important our public health system is and must be protected at all costs. My son lives in the USA and was saying that it will cost them $3,000 for the birth of their second baby and they have health insurance. Bit of a rant - sorry!
Our leader is hurting. No, no no, not Chippie, Rocky, of the Nick variety.
He doesn't deal in conjecture or 'maybe if's'... just facts.
He writes with authority, wry humor, intelligence, the perfect amount of sarcasm and when required, the truth and nothing but the ! He's one of the TOP writers in the country.
So when he says his subs are way down, we need a call to arms, emails and Post It notes .
There are a lot of readers of the column that are not subscribed . Boo. " Well that's a bit harsh Willy", I here you say. Okay , so let's break it down..$ 7 a month to subscribe, NOT A WEEK, a month. Or $ 1.50 a week, A WEEK . ( I AM WRITING IN CAPS TO EMPHASIZE THE FACT THAT IT'S ONLY $ 1.50 )
I don't know Nick personally, we've never actually met. We've emailed each other a couple of times.
I contribute gratis cos I like the man and I love to write. And I don't want to lose the person that keeps us motivated on a weekly basis. That ain't right.
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