One of the problems we have is a State whose incompetence due to lack of capacity is now becoming the main problem.
It is my contention that the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s forever mangled and mutated the service culture state agencies provide, and rigid internal ideologies have done the rest.
We have toxic cultures inside WINZ, MSD and State Housing, counter productive outcomes in Corrections and racist bias in our Police and Justice system.
There is also a lack of capacity because of underfunding which leads to naked incompetence.
Take the DHB mescals fiasco and NZTA failure to build light rail.
MP: Asian children refused measles vaccination as they weren’t the priority
Children of Asian descent have reportedly been denied a measles vaccination because they were not Māori or Pasifika.
National list MP Melissa Lee told Parliament during question time that she had been contacted by a Mt Albert resident, a friend of the family, who said their 5 and 8-year-olds were turned away by a doctor on Monday.
Lee said the children’s mother had offered to pay for the vaccinations but told her the doctor declined to provide them because Māori and Pasifika children were the priority.
Many clinics have been forced to ration vaccinations in the past few weeks as the number of confirmed cases continues to rise daily and stocks ran low. While DHBs agree children under 4 are a priority there seems to be different positions when it comes to ethnicity .
Put aside all the societal poverty and quack science that has led to the measles epidemic, and just acknowledge that at the height of this mass epidemic, the DHBs still don’t have enough bloody vaccinations!
Compare with the farce at NZTA who have had to dump plans to fund light rail to build more bloody roads!
‘Very annoying’ light rail money will probably be spent on roads – James Shaw
Climate Change Minister James Shaw says it’s “very annoying” money allocated for Auckland’s light rail project will probably end up being spent on roads.
The Government’s promise of light rail from the CBD to Mt Roskill, expected to cost $463 million, has been put on hold until at least 2021 – the original date Labour said it would be completed.
“It should have moved faster than it was, and I think that the frustrations that our Transport Ministers have had with, you know, agencies and other factors in getting that over the line sooner is pretty evident,” Green Party co-leader Shaw told Newshub Nation on Saturday.
JUST BUILD THE BLOODY THING!
This Government didn’t appreciate how broken the public service actually is and with no reform platform to rebuild it, we’ve been left with agencies and departments who are next to useless.
We desperately need a better resourced public service whose focus is on its end service provision to the citizen, not rigid internal ideology or bureaucratic trip wires.
It should have seemed obvious to the current Labour coalition government, that National policies to actively shrink the state and provide tax cuts would require additional funding to restore services. Instead we got the fiscal responsibility agreement. They effectively tied their hands before they even achieved power. Likewise it should seem obvious that with all DHBs being in “deficit”, given the government is their only source of funding, that they are underfunded. Yet given that it has been stated that the funding formula is “working”, expect more cuts to service to restore fiscal discipline. There isn’t very much “progressive” about modern progressive governments.
A woman who did not get her children immunized at 15 months and 4 years then demands to be placed at the front of the queue during a measles epidemic by paying is not a failure of the DHB. When there is an epidemic the vaccinations need to be kept aside for 1) children who are in immunisation timeframes 2) children who are outside immunisation timeframes but ethnicity raises their risk. The fact that money does not trump risk makes me happy and think that the DHB’s have it right. 3 months ago my son who is 22 was rung up by the doctor to come in for MMR unless he could provide plunket book with immunisation record. People are getting immunized. Yes the MOH is not working as well as it might but using the fact that a woman could not buy a jump up the queue is not a failure.
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