Dental care
Affordable dental care within reach for all Kiwis
23/04/10 20:21 Filed in: News Releases
Affordable dental care within reach for all Kiwis
For less than $1 billion, dental care could be brought into the public health system so that every New Zealand, no matter what their age, had access to affordable care, says Jim Anderton MP for Wigram and Progressive Party leader.
“That includes what we already spend on free dental care for under 18 year olds (about $120 million); plus the millions we spend on treating severe cases when people turn up in hospital emergency rooms,” Jim Anderton said today.
Jim Anderton outlined his proposals for subsidised dental care to the annual conference of the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society. This year marks 90 years since the School Dental Service was established, the first of its kind in the world.
“Fifty percent of New Zealanders do not visit the dentist regularly, and many of them turn up at emergency wards. You can see the queues at hospitals across New Zealand - just like a third world country,” says Jim Anderton.
“The last Labour Progressive government extended free dental care to all under 18s so that adolescents who were not at school or enrolled at a dentist, and therefore not covered, can now get free care.
“Former Labour Minister of Health, Annette King introduced one hundred mobile dental clinics to service schools, and the first ever dedicated Community Oral Health Services to target adolescents. Members of the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society are in the process of rolling out these changes.
“I believe we could roll out a subsidised dental system in stages, in the same way we introduced affordable GP visits while in government. We’ve already targeted the under 18s. Other vulnerable groups include retired New Zealanders and pregnant mothers.
“Unfortunately under this National government there isn’t the political will to do anything about dental care. Tony Ryall has removed oral health completely, as a health target.”
“Funding required for a subsidised system could be raised either through income tax, or by a small ACC type earner’s levy, in return for a lifetime of free or affordable dental treatment. Research into options continues, in consultation with the dental industry,” Jim Anderton said.
For less than $1 billion, dental care could be brought into the public health system so that every New Zealand, no matter what their age, had access to affordable care, says Jim Anderton MP for Wigram and Progressive Party leader.
“That includes what we already spend on free dental care for under 18 year olds (about $120 million); plus the millions we spend on treating severe cases when people turn up in hospital emergency rooms,” Jim Anderton said today.
Jim Anderton outlined his proposals for subsidised dental care to the annual conference of the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society. This year marks 90 years since the School Dental Service was established, the first of its kind in the world.
“Fifty percent of New Zealanders do not visit the dentist regularly, and many of them turn up at emergency wards. You can see the queues at hospitals across New Zealand - just like a third world country,” says Jim Anderton.
“The last Labour Progressive government extended free dental care to all under 18s so that adolescents who were not at school or enrolled at a dentist, and therefore not covered, can now get free care.
“Former Labour Minister of Health, Annette King introduced one hundred mobile dental clinics to service schools, and the first ever dedicated Community Oral Health Services to target adolescents. Members of the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society are in the process of rolling out these changes.
“I believe we could roll out a subsidised dental system in stages, in the same way we introduced affordable GP visits while in government. We’ve already targeted the under 18s. Other vulnerable groups include retired New Zealanders and pregnant mothers.
“Unfortunately under this National government there isn’t the political will to do anything about dental care. Tony Ryall has removed oral health completely, as a health target.”
“Funding required for a subsidised system could be raised either through income tax, or by a small ACC type earner’s levy, in return for a lifetime of free or affordable dental treatment. Research into options continues, in consultation with the dental industry,” Jim Anderton said.
0 Comments
The State of the Nation's teeth
23/04/10 20:18 Filed in: Speeches
The State of the Nation's teeth 90 years on - How are we doing?
Jim Anderton’s speech at the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society Conference
Thank you for inviting me tonight. This is probably the only time I’ll get a chance to give a speech in a brewery.
Some of you may be aware I am part of a national campaign to increase the legal drinking age and get rid of alcohol advertising. The alcohol industry doesn’t like that idea much.
There’s even a radio ad at the moment which advertises the latest party pills, and it starts by saying ‘Don’t let Uncle Jim ruin the party’!
So we make a fine team. I’m taking away their drugs and alcohol, and you’re taking away their sweets, lollies and sugary drinks!
But I don’t want to sound too negative tonight. Especially as we all have a reputation as reasonably serious people. Dentists and dental therapists always seem to get a bad rap.
Up till the 1980s, Kiwi kids used to tell their parents, ‘We’re off to the murder house today.’
They meant they were off for a check up. A dental nurse and a bus would arrive outside the primary school to carry the kids off to the murder house.
The parents themselves were raised on films where the dentist was often evil and probably insane; or otherwise a bumbling fool played by one of the Three Stooges or Groucho Marx.
There is a serous side to tonight though. Each of you here knows that the lack of affordable dental health care is a very grave problem in New Zealand.
Fifty per cent of New Zealanders do not receive regular dental care. Some even end up in a hospital emergency department where they get their teeth removed. There are queues of people at hospitals across New Zealand from 5am in the morning, waiting for pain relief or extraction - just like a third world country.
It’s a shock that there isn’t more outrage about this. A high level of untreated decay is a classic sign of poverty. Perhaps if people knew you could die from dental decay there would be more political action. We’ll know more about who is or isn’t seeing the dentist later this year when the results of a nationwide survey of the nation’s teeth are released.
This is the first time in twenty years that we’ve done a survey like this. It’s long overdue.
There’s some good news though; the last Labour and Progressive government extended free dental care to all kids under 18 years.
Tonight I’d like to pay tribute to my colleague, the former Minister of Health - and former school dental nurse - Annette King. She extended the under 18’s scheme to cover kids who were not at school or enrolled at a dentist. Before that, these kids fell through the cracks and didn’t qualify for free dental care.
She restored the School Dental Service which was in danger of disappearing all together after the previous National government had closed all the training schools. The number of therapists had dropped from 1000 in 1990 to a mere 400 by 1999.
Annette also made dental therapists a stand alone profession for the first time. That meant you were recognised for your skills, and you could practice on adults. Which means that if we did have a government which wanted to roll out affordable care beyond 18 year olds, we would have the capacity to do it.
The new dedicated Community Oral Health Services are targeting teenagers in the community. So are the hundred mobile clinics being introduced across the country over the next three years to service schools.
I’m looking forward to visiting the first of the purpose built community centre’s in Gisborne in the coming weeks.
I know you have worked hard to roll out this new scheme. I’d like to thank all of you here (and those who are absent) for your huge efforts in making Annette King’s policy decision in parliament a reality.
Reconfiguring child and adolescent oral health services has not been easy. It’s involved Chief Dental Officers and their teams, and people like Dr Robin Whyman who is not here tonight, and Dr Tim Mackay who is.
It’s involved dental therapists, managers, clinicians and support staff across the country.
We made history when New Zealand was the first country in the world to establish the School Dental Service, 90 years ago.
You are making history again.
My advice from the Ministry of Health this week is that although it’s early days to evaluate the success of the new scheme, you will achieve your target of reaching 60% of all eligible adolescents across New Zealand in the first year or so. That’s great news and we’ll keep monitoring progress.
90 years ago
It’s an historic time; this year marks the 90th anniversary since the School Dental Service was set up. I have a direct link in my office to that day 90 years ago when the idea for the school service began.
One of my research staff, David Cuthbert, who has worked for many hours on our dental policy, is related to the man who played a pivotal role in setting up the School Dental Service.
His great uncle was a man called John Llewellyn Saunders - ‘Llew’ to his family. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t like smoking. But in the case of Llew I have to admit that smoking saved his life - and helped create the School Dental Service.
Like many men of his generation he went off to war in 1914-15. He was full of dreams for a fully funded dental service in New Zealand, and determined to survive the war so he could come back and make it happen.
He ended up at Gallipoli and the Western Front, which didn’t bode well for his future or the future of our community dental health services. He got hit by a sniper and thought he had been seriously injured. But the bullet had hit the cigarette tin in his chest pocket. He came back to New Zealand more determined than ever to introduce a fully funded state dental service. His great nephew in my office tells me the family still has that dented cigarette tin.
Llew had been shocked by the appalling state of dental health revealed by the wartime inspection of army recruits. He had a sense of urgency, a determination to make a difference that wouldn’t be out of place today. But he’d be encouraged to see people like you working in schools and the community delivering a free and affordable service to young New Zealanders.
At the time that Llew and his colleagues were designing the first School Dental Service, there was of course a private system of dentistry which was going from strength to strength.
Llew was like the 'Indiana Jones' of dentistry; He had a brave, can-do attitude. He was doing god's work and getting shot at. Those of you here tonight have picked up the fight where Llew left off. He succeeded in getting the first School Dental Service up and running. He believed a service made up of trained women could provide a much needed dental service to New Zealand children. He helped to create a school of dentistry to improve the quality of care.
And after his war time experience, he was part of setting up the New Zealand Dental Corps which looked after the teeth of soldiers serving overseas. Now we have to pick up the baton.
90 years on, who’s not getting dental care?
In the last election I argued for the introduction of affordable dental care for all New Zealanders - adults included.
I have been encouraged by the support I’ve received, and I have no doubt that we can achieve Llew’s dream of a fully developed state system of some kind.
The New Zealand Dental Association has agreed to look at the research from my office. We have costed various models for a subsidised system.
The Progressive Party is developing practical policies, and we’re doing it in consultation with dentists, dental therapists and hygienists. I’ve had many letters and calls, in support of this campaign.
Grey Power branches across the country have been in touch; The New Zealand Dental Therapists’ Association, the Nurses Organisation and many other organisations and individuals have also shown their support. But there are considerable hurdles to overcome.
The most vulnerable people in our society are unfortunately still the under 18s.
As Health Minister in 2008, Labour’s David Cunliffe issued a list a ten health targets. 'Improving oral health' was the second target.
When Tony Ryall became Health Minister he issued 'a slimmed down set of health targets’ - from ten to six. Oral health was not one of them
I’m realistic about what it will take to introduce an affordable public dental system for everyone. It will have to be done in stages; in the same way we introduced affordable GP visits, starting with the youngest followed by the oldest.
It was right to focus on 0-18 year olds first. Now we have to identify all vulnerable groups and target them. Once these kids leave your care, they are at risk. From the age of 18 many of these young adults will probably never go to the dentist. Some of them don’t see the dentist again for ten to twenty years.
When they do finally turn up at the dentists, the problems can be so big it’s almost impossible and too costly to treat them. Cost is a significant barrier. That’s one of the first things we have to fix. But we also have to incentivise them to go to the dentist, and get them used to looking after their own teeth. That will involve an education program together with a public campaign which is long overdue.
Another vulnerable group is pregnant women. Not only are their teeth at risk during pregnancy, but as mothers they will set habits for dental care at home with their children.
That’s why affordable treatment for the adult population is so important.
I’ve never understood why pregnant women get free GP visits during their pregnancy, but not free visits to the dentist.
The problems start before kids get to see therapists like you. They start between the ages of 0-5. Many parents do not know that their children’s teeth are forming before they are born. Although the 0-5 age group is entitled to free dental care, some new mothers are not aware of this.
The dangers of sugary fruit juices, sweetened milk or fizzy drinks are not sufficiently spelt out to new parents. I’m encouraged to see that at least Plunket and other early child support services will be doing more in the future to include information on dental care and the dangers of sugary drinks.
This was an initiative set up by the New Zealand Dental Association, Plunket and Colgate.
The next big problem we have is New Zealanders in retirement.
It’s not fair, but it’s a fact of life, that as you get older, the care of your teeth and gums becomes a bigger problem. In my parent’s day, teeth were extracted and false teeth provided, often as a 21st birthday present!
The baby boomer generation will go into old age with their own teeth, often heavily filled and a number of them missing.
I heard of a couple of old friends the other day. One was in his 90s and close to death. The friend of the dying man, who’d recently, spent all his life’s savings on his teeth, asked his friend:
“Will you do me a favour? Will you tell me if they have free dental care in heaven?”
The dying man replies: “You’re my best friend. I’ll do this for you.”
And then he dies. Next day the friend hears a ghostly voice and realises it’s his old friend.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” says the ghost. “The good news is that there’s free dental care for everyone in heaven.”
“The bad news is - you’re booked in on Wednesday.”
Most retired New Zealanders (75%) live on their superannuation income alone. People in retirement homes are particularly vulnerable. They often don’t get the treatment they need.
I’m pleased to hear that the Dentist’s Association is about to roll out training for rest home workers on how to better manage dental care in rest homes.
What are the options for affordable dental care?
I believe that affordable dental care for everyone is achievable. Just like I believed that we could have our own New Zealand owned bank - Kiwibank - when everyone told me it couldn’t be done.
Llew’s dream - 90 years ago - of affordable or free care for everyone is closer today than it first appears.
I would like to see dental care brought into New Zealand’s general health system. Our research tell us that it would cost less than $1 billion to finance basic dental care for the whole population. That includes the money we already spend on free visits for under 18 year olds. And it includes the cost of those who end up in emergency departments.
We could raise this money either through income tax, or through a small ACC type earner’s levy in return for a life time of free or affordable dental treatment.
We’ll actually save money by promoting prevention and helping new parents introduce good habits for their children. We would save money by putting fluoride in the water in more places across New Zealand. I know this continues to be controversial, and you have been discussing this at your conference.
The anti-fluoride lobby should let the facts get in the way of their prejudice. On average the addition of fluoride in drinking water reduces tooth decay in children by at least 30% and strengthens the teeth of adults.
We could be on the brink of achieving affordable dental care. It’s possible, it’s affordable and it’s a social tragedy that half our population doesn’t get the dental care they need.
What we don’t have at the moment is the political will to make it happen.
But when you look back at the milestones in dental care over the last 90 years, it hasn’t been politicians who have led the call for affordable care. It’s been people like you.
Llew had to personally lobby Peter Fraser, Minister of Health in the first Labour government to expand the School Dental Service to cover teenagers.
Without people like Llew however, there wouldn’t be any school or community dental service at all. Without people like you, an ex-dental nurse by the name of Annette King wouldn’t have been able to win the argument in parliament to extend free dental care to all under 18 year olds.
She wouldn’t have been able to bring back the training of dental therapists, central to Llew’s dream of free dental care for children.
The next milestone is up to you. You have to go out there and create the political will to make affordable care a reality for all New Zealanders. We must pool our knowledge and our efforts to make a final push.
That’s the only way we will realise Llew’s dream, 90 years ago, of an affordable, high quality dental care system within the reach of every New Zealander.
Jim Anderton’s speech at the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Services Society Conference
Thank you for inviting me tonight. This is probably the only time I’ll get a chance to give a speech in a brewery.
Some of you may be aware I am part of a national campaign to increase the legal drinking age and get rid of alcohol advertising. The alcohol industry doesn’t like that idea much.
There’s even a radio ad at the moment which advertises the latest party pills, and it starts by saying ‘Don’t let Uncle Jim ruin the party’!
So we make a fine team. I’m taking away their drugs and alcohol, and you’re taking away their sweets, lollies and sugary drinks!
But I don’t want to sound too negative tonight. Especially as we all have a reputation as reasonably serious people. Dentists and dental therapists always seem to get a bad rap.
Up till the 1980s, Kiwi kids used to tell their parents, ‘We’re off to the murder house today.’
They meant they were off for a check up. A dental nurse and a bus would arrive outside the primary school to carry the kids off to the murder house.
The parents themselves were raised on films where the dentist was often evil and probably insane; or otherwise a bumbling fool played by one of the Three Stooges or Groucho Marx.
There is a serous side to tonight though. Each of you here knows that the lack of affordable dental health care is a very grave problem in New Zealand.
Fifty per cent of New Zealanders do not receive regular dental care. Some even end up in a hospital emergency department where they get their teeth removed. There are queues of people at hospitals across New Zealand from 5am in the morning, waiting for pain relief or extraction - just like a third world country.
It’s a shock that there isn’t more outrage about this. A high level of untreated decay is a classic sign of poverty. Perhaps if people knew you could die from dental decay there would be more political action. We’ll know more about who is or isn’t seeing the dentist later this year when the results of a nationwide survey of the nation’s teeth are released.
This is the first time in twenty years that we’ve done a survey like this. It’s long overdue.
There’s some good news though; the last Labour and Progressive government extended free dental care to all kids under 18 years.
Tonight I’d like to pay tribute to my colleague, the former Minister of Health - and former school dental nurse - Annette King. She extended the under 18’s scheme to cover kids who were not at school or enrolled at a dentist. Before that, these kids fell through the cracks and didn’t qualify for free dental care.
She restored the School Dental Service which was in danger of disappearing all together after the previous National government had closed all the training schools. The number of therapists had dropped from 1000 in 1990 to a mere 400 by 1999.
Annette also made dental therapists a stand alone profession for the first time. That meant you were recognised for your skills, and you could practice on adults. Which means that if we did have a government which wanted to roll out affordable care beyond 18 year olds, we would have the capacity to do it.
The new dedicated Community Oral Health Services are targeting teenagers in the community. So are the hundred mobile clinics being introduced across the country over the next three years to service schools.
I’m looking forward to visiting the first of the purpose built community centre’s in Gisborne in the coming weeks.
I know you have worked hard to roll out this new scheme. I’d like to thank all of you here (and those who are absent) for your huge efforts in making Annette King’s policy decision in parliament a reality.
Reconfiguring child and adolescent oral health services has not been easy. It’s involved Chief Dental Officers and their teams, and people like Dr Robin Whyman who is not here tonight, and Dr Tim Mackay who is.
It’s involved dental therapists, managers, clinicians and support staff across the country.
We made history when New Zealand was the first country in the world to establish the School Dental Service, 90 years ago.
You are making history again.
My advice from the Ministry of Health this week is that although it’s early days to evaluate the success of the new scheme, you will achieve your target of reaching 60% of all eligible adolescents across New Zealand in the first year or so. That’s great news and we’ll keep monitoring progress.
90 years ago
It’s an historic time; this year marks the 90th anniversary since the School Dental Service was set up. I have a direct link in my office to that day 90 years ago when the idea for the school service began.
One of my research staff, David Cuthbert, who has worked for many hours on our dental policy, is related to the man who played a pivotal role in setting up the School Dental Service.
His great uncle was a man called John Llewellyn Saunders - ‘Llew’ to his family. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t like smoking. But in the case of Llew I have to admit that smoking saved his life - and helped create the School Dental Service.
Like many men of his generation he went off to war in 1914-15. He was full of dreams for a fully funded dental service in New Zealand, and determined to survive the war so he could come back and make it happen.
He ended up at Gallipoli and the Western Front, which didn’t bode well for his future or the future of our community dental health services. He got hit by a sniper and thought he had been seriously injured. But the bullet had hit the cigarette tin in his chest pocket. He came back to New Zealand more determined than ever to introduce a fully funded state dental service. His great nephew in my office tells me the family still has that dented cigarette tin.
Llew had been shocked by the appalling state of dental health revealed by the wartime inspection of army recruits. He had a sense of urgency, a determination to make a difference that wouldn’t be out of place today. But he’d be encouraged to see people like you working in schools and the community delivering a free and affordable service to young New Zealanders.
At the time that Llew and his colleagues were designing the first School Dental Service, there was of course a private system of dentistry which was going from strength to strength.
Llew was like the 'Indiana Jones' of dentistry; He had a brave, can-do attitude. He was doing god's work and getting shot at. Those of you here tonight have picked up the fight where Llew left off. He succeeded in getting the first School Dental Service up and running. He believed a service made up of trained women could provide a much needed dental service to New Zealand children. He helped to create a school of dentistry to improve the quality of care.
And after his war time experience, he was part of setting up the New Zealand Dental Corps which looked after the teeth of soldiers serving overseas. Now we have to pick up the baton.
90 years on, who’s not getting dental care?
In the last election I argued for the introduction of affordable dental care for all New Zealanders - adults included.
I have been encouraged by the support I’ve received, and I have no doubt that we can achieve Llew’s dream of a fully developed state system of some kind.
The New Zealand Dental Association has agreed to look at the research from my office. We have costed various models for a subsidised system.
The Progressive Party is developing practical policies, and we’re doing it in consultation with dentists, dental therapists and hygienists. I’ve had many letters and calls, in support of this campaign.
Grey Power branches across the country have been in touch; The New Zealand Dental Therapists’ Association, the Nurses Organisation and many other organisations and individuals have also shown their support. But there are considerable hurdles to overcome.
The most vulnerable people in our society are unfortunately still the under 18s.
As Health Minister in 2008, Labour’s David Cunliffe issued a list a ten health targets. 'Improving oral health' was the second target.
When Tony Ryall became Health Minister he issued 'a slimmed down set of health targets’ - from ten to six. Oral health was not one of them
I’m realistic about what it will take to introduce an affordable public dental system for everyone. It will have to be done in stages; in the same way we introduced affordable GP visits, starting with the youngest followed by the oldest.
It was right to focus on 0-18 year olds first. Now we have to identify all vulnerable groups and target them. Once these kids leave your care, they are at risk. From the age of 18 many of these young adults will probably never go to the dentist. Some of them don’t see the dentist again for ten to twenty years.
When they do finally turn up at the dentists, the problems can be so big it’s almost impossible and too costly to treat them. Cost is a significant barrier. That’s one of the first things we have to fix. But we also have to incentivise them to go to the dentist, and get them used to looking after their own teeth. That will involve an education program together with a public campaign which is long overdue.
Another vulnerable group is pregnant women. Not only are their teeth at risk during pregnancy, but as mothers they will set habits for dental care at home with their children.
That’s why affordable treatment for the adult population is so important.
I’ve never understood why pregnant women get free GP visits during their pregnancy, but not free visits to the dentist.
The problems start before kids get to see therapists like you. They start between the ages of 0-5. Many parents do not know that their children’s teeth are forming before they are born. Although the 0-5 age group is entitled to free dental care, some new mothers are not aware of this.
The dangers of sugary fruit juices, sweetened milk or fizzy drinks are not sufficiently spelt out to new parents. I’m encouraged to see that at least Plunket and other early child support services will be doing more in the future to include information on dental care and the dangers of sugary drinks.
This was an initiative set up by the New Zealand Dental Association, Plunket and Colgate.
The next big problem we have is New Zealanders in retirement.
It’s not fair, but it’s a fact of life, that as you get older, the care of your teeth and gums becomes a bigger problem. In my parent’s day, teeth were extracted and false teeth provided, often as a 21st birthday present!
The baby boomer generation will go into old age with their own teeth, often heavily filled and a number of them missing.
I heard of a couple of old friends the other day. One was in his 90s and close to death. The friend of the dying man, who’d recently, spent all his life’s savings on his teeth, asked his friend:
“Will you do me a favour? Will you tell me if they have free dental care in heaven?”
The dying man replies: “You’re my best friend. I’ll do this for you.”
And then he dies. Next day the friend hears a ghostly voice and realises it’s his old friend.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” says the ghost. “The good news is that there’s free dental care for everyone in heaven.”
“The bad news is - you’re booked in on Wednesday.”
Most retired New Zealanders (75%) live on their superannuation income alone. People in retirement homes are particularly vulnerable. They often don’t get the treatment they need.
I’m pleased to hear that the Dentist’s Association is about to roll out training for rest home workers on how to better manage dental care in rest homes.
What are the options for affordable dental care?
I believe that affordable dental care for everyone is achievable. Just like I believed that we could have our own New Zealand owned bank - Kiwibank - when everyone told me it couldn’t be done.
Llew’s dream - 90 years ago - of affordable or free care for everyone is closer today than it first appears.
I would like to see dental care brought into New Zealand’s general health system. Our research tell us that it would cost less than $1 billion to finance basic dental care for the whole population. That includes the money we already spend on free visits for under 18 year olds. And it includes the cost of those who end up in emergency departments.
We could raise this money either through income tax, or through a small ACC type earner’s levy in return for a life time of free or affordable dental treatment.
We’ll actually save money by promoting prevention and helping new parents introduce good habits for their children. We would save money by putting fluoride in the water in more places across New Zealand. I know this continues to be controversial, and you have been discussing this at your conference.
The anti-fluoride lobby should let the facts get in the way of their prejudice. On average the addition of fluoride in drinking water reduces tooth decay in children by at least 30% and strengthens the teeth of adults.
We could be on the brink of achieving affordable dental care. It’s possible, it’s affordable and it’s a social tragedy that half our population doesn’t get the dental care they need.
What we don’t have at the moment is the political will to make it happen.
But when you look back at the milestones in dental care over the last 90 years, it hasn’t been politicians who have led the call for affordable care. It’s been people like you.
Llew had to personally lobby Peter Fraser, Minister of Health in the first Labour government to expand the School Dental Service to cover teenagers.
Without people like Llew however, there wouldn’t be any school or community dental service at all. Without people like you, an ex-dental nurse by the name of Annette King wouldn’t have been able to win the argument in parliament to extend free dental care to all under 18 year olds.
She wouldn’t have been able to bring back the training of dental therapists, central to Llew’s dream of free dental care for children.
The next milestone is up to you. You have to go out there and create the political will to make affordable care a reality for all New Zealanders. We must pool our knowledge and our efforts to make a final push.
That’s the only way we will realise Llew’s dream, 90 years ago, of an affordable, high quality dental care system within the reach of every New Zealander.
Jim's E-News, Christmas 2009
17/12/09 17:00 Filed in: Newsletters
I’d like to wish a Happy Christmas and a good new year.
As we head off to spend holiday time with loved ones, and take a break from the pressures of daily life, this will be my last e-newsletter for 2009. It’s been a busy year, and an adjustment for us all to be in opposition. One bad day in government is worth a thousand good ones in opposition because in government you can make decisions which you know will help people and change lives.
Now we don’t have control of the purse strings. But we are making the most of our days in opposition to hold this government to account. It’s not only what the National-led government does that matters - it’s what it doesn’t do. And I don’t see any bright ideas or new initiatives which will create jobs, or support those with big new ideas to help us trade better with the world.
I see indecisive leadership from John Key, budget cuts, cuts to ACC, and looming problems with coalition partners like Act on the extreme right, and the Maori Party which seems hell-bent on being the party of Maori corporations and the affluent elite.
2010 will be a busy year. We will keep the pressure on this government to see more done for ordinary New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha. We won’t let them get away with sitting back and hoping that ‘she’ll be right’ after a year of recession. New Zealand needs bigger ideas and more guts than a government which so far has come up with one idea; a national cycle pathway.
That’s not good enough after a year in government.
Enjoy the holiday season, and we’ll be back in 2010 ready to hit the ground running.
Here’s a summary of recent news items to give you an idea of what I’ve been doing in parliament and the electorate recently.
Feedback on dental care issues for New Zealanders
After the last e-news went out, I have received a range of communications, letters and emails on ways our dental system could be improved. It is generally agreed that cost is a major barrier for access to ongoing dental care for many people on fixed and low to middle incomes. Within this group, it is especially hard on the elderly, pregnant women, pre-school children and those with large families.
I am working on getting a reasonably accurate estimate of the total costs for New Zealand of the current dental system. This is quite complex but I have well informed contacts in the dental industry willing to help work on solutions.
Once dental care is free, then of course, there would be system changes. In the short-term check-ups would increase, followed by extra treatments. Over a period, the increase in check-ups and care of delayed treatments would result in improved dental health and lower treatments costs. Indeed, this is one of the reasons for making dental care free.
Correspondents are also agreed on the need for a parallel publicity campaign for people of all ages to have regular check-ups and cut down on the consumption of sugar (beverages, sweets, pastry) in favour of vegetables and fruit.
I will be in touch on the dental campaign early in 2010.
Copenhagen - New Zealand could be taking a lead, but it’s not
John Key looked indecisive when he couldn’t decide whether or not to go to Copenhagen. He only decided to go once a hundred other world leaders had bought their tickets. What kind of leadership is that?
It’s as if he accepts his presence is incapable of making any difference to whether or not the conference on climate change is a success or not. But it’s important to be there for the photo-op!
It’s that kind of non-committal attitude that is likely to see the Copenhagen talks end without agreement on clear targets for reducing emissions of carbon. John Key will have to take some responsibility for that.
As prime minister he’s making an art form out of not doing anything much (but always with a smile).
New Zealand could have been at the top table showing we were serious about climate change.
But this half-hearted participation at Copenhagen undermines our reputation for being leaders in this area and producing clean green food.
It didn’t help that John Key went to Copenhagen with a revised ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) which leaves the New Zealand taxpayer out of pocket. Big polluters aren’t paying, ordinary Kiwis are.
Someone has to pay for pollution; under National, Kiwi families will pay. The gap they have left for taxpayers to meet is $110 billion.
That’s $92,000 for each working Kiwi family.
North Shore Mayor gets unfair drubbing by Key’s cheer squad
Mayor Andrew Williams is being given an unfair drubbing by John Key and the media. He has been texting the Prime Minister about the Auckland Super City, and why not? John Key is a North Shore MP. So far, no-one has produced any evidence that these texts are abusive or that they were at an excessively late hour.
The media are showing their bias and are not listening to what Mayor Williams is saying. They are repeating the lines given to them by John Key on timing of text messages and that Mayor Williams messages have been ‘aggressive’. They are ignoring William’s criticisms of the National-ACT legislation for Auckland’s new Super City.
Where are the hard questions to the North Shore MPs, including John Key, on the issues that Andrew Williams wants answers to and is entitled to as Mayor of the North Shore? The media should be following up on that.
Andrew Williams has produced his phone records but it makes no difference. John Key is not being asked to prove his allegations about Williams. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
Andrew Williams is an outspoken mayor – but then all good mayors are outspoken. That’s their job!
He’s just trying to stop unacceptable and unpopular legislation as it’s rushed through the House before people have a chance to understand the real implications.
It is sad to see the very good relations that the Labour-Progressive government had with local government during the past nine years degenerate so quickly – but it is happening in so many areas so fast, that I guess it is par for the course and I predict we will see more of it in 2010.
Intensive dairy farming in the MacKenzie basin - our reputation is at risk
Reputation is everything. Copenhagen hasn’t helped. Neither has the application from three companies in the MacKenzie Basin a few weeks ago to use stall-based farming. This is the kind of farming where cows can be kept in boxes for 24 hours a day, eight months of the year.
When I was Minister of Agriculture in the last Labour-Progressive government, I went to Korea and Japan to advocate for our pastoral farming techniques. There was huge interest in our ability to produce lean meat that was healthier than the high fat content meat produced in Japan and Korea.
Many in those countries know their own meat is unhealthy and there was genuine interest in our approach to natural animal husbandry. There was an acknowledgement that New Zealand creates a high quality healthy product, compared to their own meat.
I saw grain-fed cows in stalls. They were some of the fattest cows I have ever seen. Some of them died of heart attacks. They were so fat, of course, because they get no exercise.
It doesn’t make any sense to casually throw away our clean, free-range, lean meat reputation for the sake of keeping cows in stalls on a few farms in the MacKenzie Basin. It only takes a few negative stories to reach international consumers, and our reputation is at risk.
Farming is a sunset industry? Yeah right....
You can understand why farmers are worried about the future. Stall-based farming is a silly idea. Farmers need good ideas. New pastures, crops, animal species and techniques won't invent themselves, which is why we need a government prepared to invest in research and development.
We currently spend around 1.2 percent of GDP on Research & Development. Our peers like Denmark, however, invest three percent.
When I was Minister of Agriculture in the Labour-Progressive government, I put millions of dollars into research and development in the primary sector.
Pioneering cleaner more cost-effective ways of farming makes sense for our farming sector and for the environment.
Unfortunately within the first few weeks of government John Key and the National party got rid of the Fast Forward Fund and $700 million set aside for research and development. Since then not one cent of the promised funding has been spent on research and innovation.
I’ll be keeping the pressure on this government in 2010 to put funds into research and development because if we don’t, New Zealand will miss out. The global population is growing, and food production will continue to be a huge industry. We can’t afford not to be a leader in this market.
Brash hardly mentions farming in his 2025 Report
In Don Brash’s entire 150-page 2025 Taskforce Report, farming got just 24 words.
Back in the eighties, the late David Lange said, "Farming is a sunset industry.” Looks like Don Brash agrees. Why is the National-led government letting Don Brash loose on the economy? Because of a coalition deal with Act.
The bad news is that Don Brash is going to keep getting paid for another few years to come up with yet more destructive and back to the future ideas.
Twenty years ago, politicians in both main parties thought that instead of growing export products, we were going to be the Switzerland of the South Pacific - an economy based on banking, earning a lavish income from financial services.
We can get a glimpse of what might have been by taking a look at Iceland now - a small, isolated country, with a strong primary industry that set out to become a global financial capital. Imports of beautiful luxury cars boomed.
And when those industries all fell over in the recession, which part of the Icelandic economy is still trundling along today? What’s left of its fishing industry.
All we need to do, Dr Brash says, is follow the same prescription of deregulation, speculation and monetary irresponsibility that wrecked Iceland.
There are ministers in this government who agree with that.
But instead of going back to the failed policies of the past, there are some less disruptive things we can try.
First, we need deeper pools of capital, so that each worker is more productive. Workers in capital intensive jobs earn much more. Every Australian job is backed by 1.2 times as much capital as the average job in developed countries. Every job in New Zealand has just 0.7 per cent as much capital.
Second, we need more science, research and innovation.
But after this government axed the Fast Forward Fund which we had set up with $700 million set aside for research and development, it has spent a year doing nothing except creating another body called the ‘Primary Growth Partnership’. The PGP hasn’t allocated a single cent to research and development yet, and it doesn’t appear that any will be invested in the near future.
The Minister of Agriculture, David Carter said in parliament recently that he was ‘adhering to his own strict timetable’ for research and development funding, which appears to be to do nothing and spend nothing on primary sector research and development
We need a culture change to tackle binge drinking
Some people get very defensive when you talk about the need to change our attitudes to binge drinking. Columnist Karl du Fresne accused me and Professor Doug Sellman of being alarmist and presumably making him feel bad about drinking.
But his attack on us was a misguided reaction to what is a well-informed attempt to do something about binge drinking in New Zealand.
His personal drinking habits aren’t under attack and no-one is counting how many glasses of wine he consumes each day. I believe that three glasses of wine every day over many years constitutes heavy drinking. So does the World Health Organisation. Karl doesn’t think so, and that’s his choice.
For the record the 700,000 heavy drinkers Professor Doug Sellman and I referred to represent 25% of the New Zealand population who drink and are over 16 years old, not a percentage of the total population.
It’s ironic that Mr du Fresne’s column came out almost the same week that 300 leaders of the medical profession in New Zealand issued a statement against our heavy drinking culture, and the New Zealand and Australian police launched a massive police operation against alcohol-fuelled crime.
The New Zealand police commissioner Howard Broad said "While legislation and enforcement are key, changing the drinking culture is crucial.” We need a culture change, especially as we head into the holiday season, and commentators like Karl du Fresne have to decide whether they want to help or hinder.
Kiwibank leads big banks back to local services
It’s ironic. Kiwibank was created in part as a response to the monopoly behaviour of the big banks who were abandoning small communities throughout New Zealand. Today, those banks have seen the error of their ways and are returning to a small town near you.
Westpac’s decision to return to boutique style branches in small communities so they can get closer to where customers live, demonstrates the impact Kiwibank has had on banking in New Zealand.
Westpac chief executive George Frazis now says that it was a mistake for his bank to abandon local branches in the 1990s.
Kiwibank reversed this trend by setting up regional branches and bank outlets so that local customers had access to bank services where ever they lived. Westpac now plans to return to a local branch system.
Today, Kiwibank has by far the biggest network of any bank in New Zealand, with more than three hundred branches (at least one hundred more than any other bank) and 650,000 customers. It operates in nearly forty communities where it is the only bank service available.
We knew at the time that it was not only the right thing to do, but that it made business sense to keep banking services close to where people live.
It’s taken Westpac more than ten years to realise this, but at least they deserve credit for reversing the failed policies of the 1990s, and returning to local banking.
It’s a shame that given this re-engagement with the public of New Zealand, Westpac didn’t show up at the Parliamentary Banking Inquiry recently. We would have welcomed their views. Kiwibank was the only bank that fronted.
It’s only a matter of time now before the other banks follow Kiwibank and return to local banking.
As we head off to spend holiday time with loved ones, and take a break from the pressures of daily life, this will be my last e-newsletter for 2009. It’s been a busy year, and an adjustment for us all to be in opposition. One bad day in government is worth a thousand good ones in opposition because in government you can make decisions which you know will help people and change lives.
Now we don’t have control of the purse strings. But we are making the most of our days in opposition to hold this government to account. It’s not only what the National-led government does that matters - it’s what it doesn’t do. And I don’t see any bright ideas or new initiatives which will create jobs, or support those with big new ideas to help us trade better with the world.
I see indecisive leadership from John Key, budget cuts, cuts to ACC, and looming problems with coalition partners like Act on the extreme right, and the Maori Party which seems hell-bent on being the party of Maori corporations and the affluent elite.
2010 will be a busy year. We will keep the pressure on this government to see more done for ordinary New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha. We won’t let them get away with sitting back and hoping that ‘she’ll be right’ after a year of recession. New Zealand needs bigger ideas and more guts than a government which so far has come up with one idea; a national cycle pathway.
That’s not good enough after a year in government.
Enjoy the holiday season, and we’ll be back in 2010 ready to hit the ground running.
Here’s a summary of recent news items to give you an idea of what I’ve been doing in parliament and the electorate recently.
Feedback on dental care issues for New Zealanders
After the last e-news went out, I have received a range of communications, letters and emails on ways our dental system could be improved. It is generally agreed that cost is a major barrier for access to ongoing dental care for many people on fixed and low to middle incomes. Within this group, it is especially hard on the elderly, pregnant women, pre-school children and those with large families.
I am working on getting a reasonably accurate estimate of the total costs for New Zealand of the current dental system. This is quite complex but I have well informed contacts in the dental industry willing to help work on solutions.
Once dental care is free, then of course, there would be system changes. In the short-term check-ups would increase, followed by extra treatments. Over a period, the increase in check-ups and care of delayed treatments would result in improved dental health and lower treatments costs. Indeed, this is one of the reasons for making dental care free.
Correspondents are also agreed on the need for a parallel publicity campaign for people of all ages to have regular check-ups and cut down on the consumption of sugar (beverages, sweets, pastry) in favour of vegetables and fruit.
I will be in touch on the dental campaign early in 2010.
Copenhagen - New Zealand could be taking a lead, but it’s not
John Key looked indecisive when he couldn’t decide whether or not to go to Copenhagen. He only decided to go once a hundred other world leaders had bought their tickets. What kind of leadership is that?
It’s as if he accepts his presence is incapable of making any difference to whether or not the conference on climate change is a success or not. But it’s important to be there for the photo-op!
It’s that kind of non-committal attitude that is likely to see the Copenhagen talks end without agreement on clear targets for reducing emissions of carbon. John Key will have to take some responsibility for that.
As prime minister he’s making an art form out of not doing anything much (but always with a smile).
New Zealand could have been at the top table showing we were serious about climate change.
But this half-hearted participation at Copenhagen undermines our reputation for being leaders in this area and producing clean green food.
It didn’t help that John Key went to Copenhagen with a revised ETS (Emission Trading Scheme) which leaves the New Zealand taxpayer out of pocket. Big polluters aren’t paying, ordinary Kiwis are.
Someone has to pay for pollution; under National, Kiwi families will pay. The gap they have left for taxpayers to meet is $110 billion.
That’s $92,000 for each working Kiwi family.
North Shore Mayor gets unfair drubbing by Key’s cheer squad
Mayor Andrew Williams is being given an unfair drubbing by John Key and the media. He has been texting the Prime Minister about the Auckland Super City, and why not? John Key is a North Shore MP. So far, no-one has produced any evidence that these texts are abusive or that they were at an excessively late hour.
The media are showing their bias and are not listening to what Mayor Williams is saying. They are repeating the lines given to them by John Key on timing of text messages and that Mayor Williams messages have been ‘aggressive’. They are ignoring William’s criticisms of the National-ACT legislation for Auckland’s new Super City.
Where are the hard questions to the North Shore MPs, including John Key, on the issues that Andrew Williams wants answers to and is entitled to as Mayor of the North Shore? The media should be following up on that.
Andrew Williams has produced his phone records but it makes no difference. John Key is not being asked to prove his allegations about Williams. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
Andrew Williams is an outspoken mayor – but then all good mayors are outspoken. That’s their job!
He’s just trying to stop unacceptable and unpopular legislation as it’s rushed through the House before people have a chance to understand the real implications.
It is sad to see the very good relations that the Labour-Progressive government had with local government during the past nine years degenerate so quickly – but it is happening in so many areas so fast, that I guess it is par for the course and I predict we will see more of it in 2010.
Intensive dairy farming in the MacKenzie basin - our reputation is at risk
Reputation is everything. Copenhagen hasn’t helped. Neither has the application from three companies in the MacKenzie Basin a few weeks ago to use stall-based farming. This is the kind of farming where cows can be kept in boxes for 24 hours a day, eight months of the year.
When I was Minister of Agriculture in the last Labour-Progressive government, I went to Korea and Japan to advocate for our pastoral farming techniques. There was huge interest in our ability to produce lean meat that was healthier than the high fat content meat produced in Japan and Korea.
Many in those countries know their own meat is unhealthy and there was genuine interest in our approach to natural animal husbandry. There was an acknowledgement that New Zealand creates a high quality healthy product, compared to their own meat.
I saw grain-fed cows in stalls. They were some of the fattest cows I have ever seen. Some of them died of heart attacks. They were so fat, of course, because they get no exercise.
It doesn’t make any sense to casually throw away our clean, free-range, lean meat reputation for the sake of keeping cows in stalls on a few farms in the MacKenzie Basin. It only takes a few negative stories to reach international consumers, and our reputation is at risk.
Farming is a sunset industry? Yeah right....
You can understand why farmers are worried about the future. Stall-based farming is a silly idea. Farmers need good ideas. New pastures, crops, animal species and techniques won't invent themselves, which is why we need a government prepared to invest in research and development.
We currently spend around 1.2 percent of GDP on Research & Development. Our peers like Denmark, however, invest three percent.
When I was Minister of Agriculture in the Labour-Progressive government, I put millions of dollars into research and development in the primary sector.
Pioneering cleaner more cost-effective ways of farming makes sense for our farming sector and for the environment.
Unfortunately within the first few weeks of government John Key and the National party got rid of the Fast Forward Fund and $700 million set aside for research and development. Since then not one cent of the promised funding has been spent on research and innovation.
I’ll be keeping the pressure on this government in 2010 to put funds into research and development because if we don’t, New Zealand will miss out. The global population is growing, and food production will continue to be a huge industry. We can’t afford not to be a leader in this market.
Brash hardly mentions farming in his 2025 Report
In Don Brash’s entire 150-page 2025 Taskforce Report, farming got just 24 words.
Back in the eighties, the late David Lange said, "Farming is a sunset industry.” Looks like Don Brash agrees. Why is the National-led government letting Don Brash loose on the economy? Because of a coalition deal with Act.
The bad news is that Don Brash is going to keep getting paid for another few years to come up with yet more destructive and back to the future ideas.
Twenty years ago, politicians in both main parties thought that instead of growing export products, we were going to be the Switzerland of the South Pacific - an economy based on banking, earning a lavish income from financial services.
We can get a glimpse of what might have been by taking a look at Iceland now - a small, isolated country, with a strong primary industry that set out to become a global financial capital. Imports of beautiful luxury cars boomed.
And when those industries all fell over in the recession, which part of the Icelandic economy is still trundling along today? What’s left of its fishing industry.
All we need to do, Dr Brash says, is follow the same prescription of deregulation, speculation and monetary irresponsibility that wrecked Iceland.
There are ministers in this government who agree with that.
But instead of going back to the failed policies of the past, there are some less disruptive things we can try.
First, we need deeper pools of capital, so that each worker is more productive. Workers in capital intensive jobs earn much more. Every Australian job is backed by 1.2 times as much capital as the average job in developed countries. Every job in New Zealand has just 0.7 per cent as much capital.
Second, we need more science, research and innovation.
But after this government axed the Fast Forward Fund which we had set up with $700 million set aside for research and development, it has spent a year doing nothing except creating another body called the ‘Primary Growth Partnership’. The PGP hasn’t allocated a single cent to research and development yet, and it doesn’t appear that any will be invested in the near future.
The Minister of Agriculture, David Carter said in parliament recently that he was ‘adhering to his own strict timetable’ for research and development funding, which appears to be to do nothing and spend nothing on primary sector research and development
We need a culture change to tackle binge drinking
Some people get very defensive when you talk about the need to change our attitudes to binge drinking. Columnist Karl du Fresne accused me and Professor Doug Sellman of being alarmist and presumably making him feel bad about drinking.
But his attack on us was a misguided reaction to what is a well-informed attempt to do something about binge drinking in New Zealand.
His personal drinking habits aren’t under attack and no-one is counting how many glasses of wine he consumes each day. I believe that three glasses of wine every day over many years constitutes heavy drinking. So does the World Health Organisation. Karl doesn’t think so, and that’s his choice.
For the record the 700,000 heavy drinkers Professor Doug Sellman and I referred to represent 25% of the New Zealand population who drink and are over 16 years old, not a percentage of the total population.
It’s ironic that Mr du Fresne’s column came out almost the same week that 300 leaders of the medical profession in New Zealand issued a statement against our heavy drinking culture, and the New Zealand and Australian police launched a massive police operation against alcohol-fuelled crime.
The New Zealand police commissioner Howard Broad said "While legislation and enforcement are key, changing the drinking culture is crucial.” We need a culture change, especially as we head into the holiday season, and commentators like Karl du Fresne have to decide whether they want to help or hinder.
Kiwibank leads big banks back to local services
It’s ironic. Kiwibank was created in part as a response to the monopoly behaviour of the big banks who were abandoning small communities throughout New Zealand. Today, those banks have seen the error of their ways and are returning to a small town near you.
Westpac’s decision to return to boutique style branches in small communities so they can get closer to where customers live, demonstrates the impact Kiwibank has had on banking in New Zealand.
Westpac chief executive George Frazis now says that it was a mistake for his bank to abandon local branches in the 1990s.
Kiwibank reversed this trend by setting up regional branches and bank outlets so that local customers had access to bank services where ever they lived. Westpac now plans to return to a local branch system.
Today, Kiwibank has by far the biggest network of any bank in New Zealand, with more than three hundred branches (at least one hundred more than any other bank) and 650,000 customers. It operates in nearly forty communities where it is the only bank service available.
We knew at the time that it was not only the right thing to do, but that it made business sense to keep banking services close to where people live.
It’s taken Westpac more than ten years to realise this, but at least they deserve credit for reversing the failed policies of the 1990s, and returning to local banking.
It’s a shame that given this re-engagement with the public of New Zealand, Westpac didn’t show up at the Parliamentary Banking Inquiry recently. We would have welcomed their views. Kiwibank was the only bank that fronted.
It’s only a matter of time now before the other banks follow Kiwibank and return to local banking.
Jim's E-News, November 2009
16/11/09 15:00 Filed in: Newsletters
DENTAL CARE ISSUES FOR NEW ZEALANDERS
I am involving myself in a project to raise the profile of, and extend the services for, dental treatment in New Zealand.
The cost of dental treatment is a significant barrier to lifetime dental care and as a result, neglected teeth and gums are a hidden but critical problem for New Zealand’s healthcare system which needs to be urgently addressed.
It is my strongly held view that a high quality, accessible and affordable dental system should be part of the general medical health system in New Zealand. This would provide a public-private partnership which would enable all of our citizens from their earliest years right through to their last, to have their teeth cared for by qualified dental professionals at an affordable cost.
From one end of New Zealand to the other I have been made aware of the importance of this issue to a large number of our citizens, young and old, and it is well beyond time when action rather than words was seen and heard to be taking place.
I would be grateful to hear from you by email, fax or letter about your thoughts on this vital issue.
Contact me here.
ACC IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD - BIKERS RALLY, CHRISTCHURCH
Let’s be clear about one thing; New Zealand has the best accident compensation scheme in the world. It’s not broken, so why try and fix it; and no matter what Nick Smith tries to tell you - it’s not broke. It has reserves of money. It has over $11 billion of reserves, and last year it collected $1 billion more in levies, than it spent on claims.
Bikers are being unfairly targeted – Nick Smith wants them to pay three times as much in ACC levies as they are paying today.
Today motorcyclists are paying about $252. Tomorrow they will be paying $735.
This is outrageous. And it is completely unnecessary - because ACC can pay its bills without making them pay three times as much.
ACC was set up as a no-fault system to be run by a government-owned company so that everyone who has an accident gets looked after, and at a lower cost than overseas.
It was never intended to penalise certain groups that it saw as ‘high risk’ - otherwise where do you stop? If its bikers today, why not old people who are more likely to fall over than anyone else; why not 6 year boys who play rugby and are more likely to get hurt than kids playing chess?
The point of the scheme was to avoid this situation, and draw on the overall resources of the whole community. So we all pay a bit, and no one is disadvantaged. Every one avoids the very large lawyers’ bills and insurance company profits that have to be paid under a private insurance system.
We gave up the right to sue under this system, in return for the fair treatment of injured people.
The National-led government is playing dirty with the figures. It’s insisting that all imagined accidents in the future should be paid right now by people like the bike riders. But this wasn’t what ACC was set up to do. It was always intended to be a ‘pay as you go’ scheme.
That means the levies received in any one year, pay for the accidents in that year. And that system has been working fine - in fact ACC has even managed to put aside significant resources.
The real agenda here, is to set up ACC for a gradual return to a privately run insurance scheme. Scaremongering about costs is just the Trojan horse. And inside the Trojan horse is a bunch of lawyers and foreign insurance companies, licking their lips and looking forward to getting their hands on your levies!
I am entirely opposed to any private scheme. And I totally reject the National government’s attempt to make bikers pay three times as much.
URGENT INQUIRY INTO MONETARY POLICY NOW
We should put party politics aside and come up with a new approach to monetary policy which supports people in New Zealand who produce tradeable goods, rather than those who speculate on property and take the profits off-shore.
The National-led government and its coalition partners refused to take part in the inquiry, with the PM cynically calling it a ‘stunt’ from the opposition parties.
I don’t believe in the “nothing we can do” stance of this government. We could be looking to remove the incentives for those buying investment properties. Banks need to be encouraged to lend to businesses; and we need to review our tax system which at the moment encourages unproductive property investment and discourages investment in the productive tradeable export goods sector.
We need to look at regulating the banking sector so that ordinary New Zealanders don’t pay (in interest rates or hidden bank fees) while the Australian-owned banks make excessive profits.
With the National-led government complacently sitting on the sidelines, New Zealanders will be the losers for it.
To download the banking inquiry report, go here, or get in touch with my office.
BANKING INQUIRY BACKGROUNDER AND FINDINGS
The ‘big four’ Australian banks control nearly 90% of banking assets in New Zealand. The three New Zealand owned banks have 4% of banking assets.
Have the Banks made a profit?
The combined profits of the ‘big four’ Australian owned banks now exceed the combined profits of all other companies listed on the stock exchange NZX 50 series.
In 2008 Banks earned $3.26 billion; the earnings of the NZX 50 were $2.89 billion.
Did the Banks pass on the cut to the Official Cash Rate (OCR)?
The Reserve Bank cut the OCR from its high of 8.25 % in mid 2008, to only 2.5% today.
But the overseas owned banks reduced interest rates by less than the fall in the OCR. 1% margin in interest rates was not passed on to bank customers. 1% extra interest added $787 million to costs for New Zealand businesses; and 1% higher margin on loans added $460 million to the net interest costs to the farming sector.
The biggest cost was in the housing sector: 1% extra interest cost added over $1.6 billion to mortgage repayments.
New Zealand businesses are suffering
In 2009 bank lending for home loans rose about $3.2 billion (to $164.8 billion). Meanwhile business lending fell by about $3 billion (to $78 billion.)
The effects on the farming sector have been negative
Federated Farmers interest rates survey in June 2009 found that farm business overdraft interest rates had fallen an average of 2.68 % since December 2008. Meanwhile the OCR was cut by 4%.
Ordinary New Zealanders had problems paying their mortgages
In five years, Budgeting and Family Support Services has only seen one family lose their house in a mortgage sale. But in the first three months on 2009, fifteen families had already lost their home.
Have the Banks contributed to overseas debt and a housing bubble?
In the last ten years, personal lending has almost doubled, from $60 billion to $105 billion; most of the lending has been for housing.
Home loans now make up 55% of bank lending, up from 35% ten years ago. The banks borrowed more money to fund property price increases which contributed to a rise in overseas debt.
Between 2003 and 2009 net overseas liabilities rose from $100.6 billion to $176.3 billion; that’s a rise from 76.8% of GDP to 98%.
What have the banks got to do with our volatile exchange rate?
High overseas borrowing has impacted on the exchange rate which is subject to high volatility. The export sector makes up roughly 30% of GDP - about $40 billion per year but suffers the most from currency instability which means uncertain returns.
PROGRESSIVE SUBMISSION ON THE LAW COMMISSION PAPER: ‘ALCOHOL IN OUR LIVES’ I am under no illusion about the challenge involved if we are to seriously reduce the harm caused by alcohol. But doing nothing is not an option.
Alcohol is by far the most damaging drug in the country. It causes between $2-$3 billion dollars worth of economic and social harm each year. The personal cost to families and loved ones is incalculable. How can we measure the cost of a family tragedy?
One of the most damaging drugs we face right now is not even illegal; our kids can buy it in the local dairy; they play sports and have it promoted to them all the time; they see it on TV, on billboards and hear about it on the radio.
The abuse of alcohol amongst our young people is on the rise and it’s destroying lives.
I have been working with others like Dr Doug Sellman of the Otago School of Medicine to raise awareness of the damage that alcohol is causing. We have a unique opportunity right now to do something, through the Law Commission’s review of the legislation to do with the drinking age, the availability and the advertising of alcohol.
Did you know that every advertisement seen by a young person increases the number of drinks they consume by 1%. They become customers for life. And people like you end up picking up the pieces.
Currently, $200,000 per day is spent on marketing and advertising alcohol. About half the marketing is spent on sponsorship.
I welcome the Law Commission’s issues paper which gives New Zealanders a unique opportunity to reform the legal framework in which alcohol is sold, advertised and promoted.
It gives us a chance today to do more to protect New Zealanders from the harm caused by the abuse of alcohol.
The Progressive Party submission calls on the Law Commission to do more in its final recommendations to guide law makers on how to further curb alcohol advertising, particularly to the most vulnerable New Zealanders - the young. I would like to see more options put forward by the Law Commission on how we can greatly reduce the availability of alcohol to young people. I have also given my opinions and made comments on every option put forward in the Law Commission’s paper, ‘Alcohol in our Lives’.
For the full submission: go here.
For my speech to the National CAYAD hui, go here.
"Ten things the alcohol industry won't tell you about alcohol"
Alcohol Action are holding their last two last meetings this week with presenter Dr. Doug Sellman.
The meetings are at: CHRISTCHURCH: Art Gallery Theatre, Tuesday 17th November, 7.30-9pm PORIRUA: Helen Smith Community Room, Wednesday 18th November, 7.30-9pm
There is still time to get in a late submissions to the Law Commission.
Use milk payout to farmers to strengthen industry
It's important that the increase in Fonterra's payout to farmers is used to strengthen the industry, and not squandered.
The increased pay out is very timely for a large number of farmers who have been struggling with higher input prices and enormous costs for financing. Interest rates for many farmers have not come down.
But the risk is that the higher payout will lead to higher farm valuations and in turn to yet more farm indebtedness. That's what happened too often when the milk payout reached $7 a kilo. When the price then dropped, it left a lot of farmers under mortgage stress.
Banks should be careful about getting into the same position of lending against valuations based on favourable milk payouts.
The payout shows New Zealand is well positioned as a food producer to continue to earn a living when global conditions are less than favourable.
When payouts increase as much as this one has, the extra earnings need to be used to strengthen the industry, for example by stronger investment in research and development, and strenthening balance sheets to reduce our exposure to rapacious overseas owned banks.
A generation of kids will be lost – New Zealand must do more
Launch of the Mutima Project in Christchurch
16,000 children are dying from hunger every day because food aid is now at its lowest level in twenty years, but the National government remains determined not to use our aid for ‘poverty reduction.
The head of the United Nation’s World Food Programme recently announced that tens of millions of the world’s poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because some OECD countries have slashed aid after the financial crisis.
The Mutima project is a volunteer organisation and will send a team of cardiac surgeons to Zambia to perform life-saving heart surgery on young adults.
I commend them for the strength of their personal commitment and their determination to serve. We are a stronger and more caring community because of people like these Christchurch surgeons. Because of them, a hundred young Zambians will have a second chance at life.
About 60% of the Zambian population are living on less than a $1 per day.
But where is the urgency from the National government to save a generation of children who will die from starvation if the world does nothing?
The National government has recently announced that it will abolish the goal of ‘poverty reduction’ for our aid, and replace it with a goal of ‘economic development’.
I am a strong champion of economic development but you can’t do much business development if people don’t have enough to eat or clean water to drink.
I want to see the National government do more about bad governance and corruption in some of the poorest countries and see New Zealand get behind a new international Natural Resource Charter which sets out ‘best practice’ in countries with natural resources like oil (or copper in Zambia), so proceeds of those resources go to the poorest people and don’t end up in the pockets of the corrupt.
For the speech, go here.
Who owns the ASB? Not us.
The ASB has been an Australian owned bank for the last two decades, and it is misleading the public when it pretends to be a ‘Kiwi Bank’.
The ABS is running promotional ads claiming ‘We’ve been a Kiwi Bank since 1847’.
The truth is we don’t really know who owns the ASB. We know it is owned 100% by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), but who owns the Commonwealth Bank?
It used to be owned by the Federal Government of Australia but it was privatised in stages beginning in 1991.
Almost half of the current owners of the Commonwealth Bank are ‘nominee’ companies.
That means their identities are hidden behind other well-known companies, like the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).
We don’t really know who owns ASB. All we know for sure is that New Zealand doesn’t.
For the release, go here.
An ‘unfortunate arrangement’
The Auditor General’s findings about Bill English’s accommodation arrangements go significantly further than findings that caused Marion Hobbs and Phillida Bunkle to stand down from ministerial office in 2001. This makes Mr English’s position as finance minister very difficult. I have been in the same position as Mr Key, in having to make a decision on the future of the Minister. A precedent for the right thing to do has been set.
I wrote to the Auditor-General saying Mr English’ arrangements needed scrutiny. The report finds Mr English’s arrangements were not within the rules. The Auditor General’s report states:
The result was that the Crown was renting a property for Mr English from a trust in which he had an interest, and the arrangement was explicitly based on a view that he did not have an interest. Clearly, this was unfortunate.
The report discloses Mr English went to some lengths to arrange his affairs around the accommodation allowance entitlement. That is not a good look for a Minister of Finance.
The Auditor-General’s advice does not even mention other issues that the Prime Minister still needs to consider: that Mr English was giving his Wellington address as his home for the purpose of being a director of a company (incidentally, the company that owns his Dipton investment), but claiming to live in Dipton for the purpose of receiving an accommodation allowance.
A prudent minister might have noticed the contradiction between those two claims.
I have always welcomed the idea of Mr English having his family with him in Wellington. That is not the issue. The question is whether he was right to claim entitlements for doing so. It would not have been in any way objectionable if Mr English had lived in Wellington with his family and claimed an out of town allowance for his occasional trips to Dipton.
For the release, go here.
I am involving myself in a project to raise the profile of, and extend the services for, dental treatment in New Zealand.
The cost of dental treatment is a significant barrier to lifetime dental care and as a result, neglected teeth and gums are a hidden but critical problem for New Zealand’s healthcare system which needs to be urgently addressed.
It is my strongly held view that a high quality, accessible and affordable dental system should be part of the general medical health system in New Zealand. This would provide a public-private partnership which would enable all of our citizens from their earliest years right through to their last, to have their teeth cared for by qualified dental professionals at an affordable cost.
From one end of New Zealand to the other I have been made aware of the importance of this issue to a large number of our citizens, young and old, and it is well beyond time when action rather than words was seen and heard to be taking place.
I would be grateful to hear from you by email, fax or letter about your thoughts on this vital issue.
Contact me here.
ACC IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD - BIKERS RALLY, CHRISTCHURCH
Let’s be clear about one thing; New Zealand has the best accident compensation scheme in the world. It’s not broken, so why try and fix it; and no matter what Nick Smith tries to tell you - it’s not broke. It has reserves of money. It has over $11 billion of reserves, and last year it collected $1 billion more in levies, than it spent on claims.
Bikers are being unfairly targeted – Nick Smith wants them to pay three times as much in ACC levies as they are paying today.
Today motorcyclists are paying about $252. Tomorrow they will be paying $735.
This is outrageous. And it is completely unnecessary - because ACC can pay its bills without making them pay three times as much.
ACC was set up as a no-fault system to be run by a government-owned company so that everyone who has an accident gets looked after, and at a lower cost than overseas.
It was never intended to penalise certain groups that it saw as ‘high risk’ - otherwise where do you stop? If its bikers today, why not old people who are more likely to fall over than anyone else; why not 6 year boys who play rugby and are more likely to get hurt than kids playing chess?
The point of the scheme was to avoid this situation, and draw on the overall resources of the whole community. So we all pay a bit, and no one is disadvantaged. Every one avoids the very large lawyers’ bills and insurance company profits that have to be paid under a private insurance system.
We gave up the right to sue under this system, in return for the fair treatment of injured people.
The National-led government is playing dirty with the figures. It’s insisting that all imagined accidents in the future should be paid right now by people like the bike riders. But this wasn’t what ACC was set up to do. It was always intended to be a ‘pay as you go’ scheme.
That means the levies received in any one year, pay for the accidents in that year. And that system has been working fine - in fact ACC has even managed to put aside significant resources.
The real agenda here, is to set up ACC for a gradual return to a privately run insurance scheme. Scaremongering about costs is just the Trojan horse. And inside the Trojan horse is a bunch of lawyers and foreign insurance companies, licking their lips and looking forward to getting their hands on your levies!
I am entirely opposed to any private scheme. And I totally reject the National government’s attempt to make bikers pay three times as much.
URGENT INQUIRY INTO MONETARY POLICY NOW
We should put party politics aside and come up with a new approach to monetary policy which supports people in New Zealand who produce tradeable goods, rather than those who speculate on property and take the profits off-shore.
The National-led government and its coalition partners refused to take part in the inquiry, with the PM cynically calling it a ‘stunt’ from the opposition parties.
I don’t believe in the “nothing we can do” stance of this government. We could be looking to remove the incentives for those buying investment properties. Banks need to be encouraged to lend to businesses; and we need to review our tax system which at the moment encourages unproductive property investment and discourages investment in the productive tradeable export goods sector.
We need to look at regulating the banking sector so that ordinary New Zealanders don’t pay (in interest rates or hidden bank fees) while the Australian-owned banks make excessive profits.
With the National-led government complacently sitting on the sidelines, New Zealanders will be the losers for it.
To download the banking inquiry report, go here, or get in touch with my office.
BANKING INQUIRY BACKGROUNDER AND FINDINGS
The ‘big four’ Australian banks control nearly 90% of banking assets in New Zealand. The three New Zealand owned banks have 4% of banking assets.
Have the Banks made a profit?
The combined profits of the ‘big four’ Australian owned banks now exceed the combined profits of all other companies listed on the stock exchange NZX 50 series.
In 2008 Banks earned $3.26 billion; the earnings of the NZX 50 were $2.89 billion.
Did the Banks pass on the cut to the Official Cash Rate (OCR)?
The Reserve Bank cut the OCR from its high of 8.25 % in mid 2008, to only 2.5% today.
But the overseas owned banks reduced interest rates by less than the fall in the OCR. 1% margin in interest rates was not passed on to bank customers. 1% extra interest added $787 million to costs for New Zealand businesses; and 1% higher margin on loans added $460 million to the net interest costs to the farming sector.
The biggest cost was in the housing sector: 1% extra interest cost added over $1.6 billion to mortgage repayments.
New Zealand businesses are suffering
In 2009 bank lending for home loans rose about $3.2 billion (to $164.8 billion). Meanwhile business lending fell by about $3 billion (to $78 billion.)
The effects on the farming sector have been negative
Federated Farmers interest rates survey in June 2009 found that farm business overdraft interest rates had fallen an average of 2.68 % since December 2008. Meanwhile the OCR was cut by 4%.
Ordinary New Zealanders had problems paying their mortgages
In five years, Budgeting and Family Support Services has only seen one family lose their house in a mortgage sale. But in the first three months on 2009, fifteen families had already lost their home.
Have the Banks contributed to overseas debt and a housing bubble?
In the last ten years, personal lending has almost doubled, from $60 billion to $105 billion; most of the lending has been for housing.
Home loans now make up 55% of bank lending, up from 35% ten years ago. The banks borrowed more money to fund property price increases which contributed to a rise in overseas debt.
Between 2003 and 2009 net overseas liabilities rose from $100.6 billion to $176.3 billion; that’s a rise from 76.8% of GDP to 98%.
What have the banks got to do with our volatile exchange rate?
High overseas borrowing has impacted on the exchange rate which is subject to high volatility. The export sector makes up roughly 30% of GDP - about $40 billion per year but suffers the most from currency instability which means uncertain returns.
PROGRESSIVE SUBMISSION ON THE LAW COMMISSION PAPER: ‘ALCOHOL IN OUR LIVES’ I am under no illusion about the challenge involved if we are to seriously reduce the harm caused by alcohol. But doing nothing is not an option.
Alcohol is by far the most damaging drug in the country. It causes between $2-$3 billion dollars worth of economic and social harm each year. The personal cost to families and loved ones is incalculable. How can we measure the cost of a family tragedy?
One of the most damaging drugs we face right now is not even illegal; our kids can buy it in the local dairy; they play sports and have it promoted to them all the time; they see it on TV, on billboards and hear about it on the radio.
The abuse of alcohol amongst our young people is on the rise and it’s destroying lives.
I have been working with others like Dr Doug Sellman of the Otago School of Medicine to raise awareness of the damage that alcohol is causing. We have a unique opportunity right now to do something, through the Law Commission’s review of the legislation to do with the drinking age, the availability and the advertising of alcohol.
Did you know that every advertisement seen by a young person increases the number of drinks they consume by 1%. They become customers for life. And people like you end up picking up the pieces.
Currently, $200,000 per day is spent on marketing and advertising alcohol. About half the marketing is spent on sponsorship.
I welcome the Law Commission’s issues paper which gives New Zealanders a unique opportunity to reform the legal framework in which alcohol is sold, advertised and promoted.
It gives us a chance today to do more to protect New Zealanders from the harm caused by the abuse of alcohol.
The Progressive Party submission calls on the Law Commission to do more in its final recommendations to guide law makers on how to further curb alcohol advertising, particularly to the most vulnerable New Zealanders - the young. I would like to see more options put forward by the Law Commission on how we can greatly reduce the availability of alcohol to young people. I have also given my opinions and made comments on every option put forward in the Law Commission’s paper, ‘Alcohol in our Lives’.
For the full submission: go here.
For my speech to the National CAYAD hui, go here.
"Ten things the alcohol industry won't tell you about alcohol"
Alcohol Action are holding their last two last meetings this week with presenter Dr. Doug Sellman.
The meetings are at: CHRISTCHURCH: Art Gallery Theatre, Tuesday 17th November, 7.30-9pm PORIRUA: Helen Smith Community Room, Wednesday 18th November, 7.30-9pm
There is still time to get in a late submissions to the Law Commission.
Use milk payout to farmers to strengthen industry
It's important that the increase in Fonterra's payout to farmers is used to strengthen the industry, and not squandered.
The increased pay out is very timely for a large number of farmers who have been struggling with higher input prices and enormous costs for financing. Interest rates for many farmers have not come down.
But the risk is that the higher payout will lead to higher farm valuations and in turn to yet more farm indebtedness. That's what happened too often when the milk payout reached $7 a kilo. When the price then dropped, it left a lot of farmers under mortgage stress.
Banks should be careful about getting into the same position of lending against valuations based on favourable milk payouts.
The payout shows New Zealand is well positioned as a food producer to continue to earn a living when global conditions are less than favourable.
When payouts increase as much as this one has, the extra earnings need to be used to strengthen the industry, for example by stronger investment in research and development, and strenthening balance sheets to reduce our exposure to rapacious overseas owned banks.
A generation of kids will be lost – New Zealand must do more
Launch of the Mutima Project in Christchurch
16,000 children are dying from hunger every day because food aid is now at its lowest level in twenty years, but the National government remains determined not to use our aid for ‘poverty reduction.
The head of the United Nation’s World Food Programme recently announced that tens of millions of the world’s poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because some OECD countries have slashed aid after the financial crisis.
The Mutima project is a volunteer organisation and will send a team of cardiac surgeons to Zambia to perform life-saving heart surgery on young adults.
I commend them for the strength of their personal commitment and their determination to serve. We are a stronger and more caring community because of people like these Christchurch surgeons. Because of them, a hundred young Zambians will have a second chance at life.
About 60% of the Zambian population are living on less than a $1 per day.
But where is the urgency from the National government to save a generation of children who will die from starvation if the world does nothing?
The National government has recently announced that it will abolish the goal of ‘poverty reduction’ for our aid, and replace it with a goal of ‘economic development’.
I am a strong champion of economic development but you can’t do much business development if people don’t have enough to eat or clean water to drink.
I want to see the National government do more about bad governance and corruption in some of the poorest countries and see New Zealand get behind a new international Natural Resource Charter which sets out ‘best practice’ in countries with natural resources like oil (or copper in Zambia), so proceeds of those resources go to the poorest people and don’t end up in the pockets of the corrupt.
For the speech, go here.
Who owns the ASB? Not us.
The ASB has been an Australian owned bank for the last two decades, and it is misleading the public when it pretends to be a ‘Kiwi Bank’.
The ABS is running promotional ads claiming ‘We’ve been a Kiwi Bank since 1847’.
The truth is we don’t really know who owns the ASB. We know it is owned 100% by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), but who owns the Commonwealth Bank?
It used to be owned by the Federal Government of Australia but it was privatised in stages beginning in 1991.
Almost half of the current owners of the Commonwealth Bank are ‘nominee’ companies.
That means their identities are hidden behind other well-known companies, like the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).
We don’t really know who owns ASB. All we know for sure is that New Zealand doesn’t.
For the release, go here.
An ‘unfortunate arrangement’
The Auditor General’s findings about Bill English’s accommodation arrangements go significantly further than findings that caused Marion Hobbs and Phillida Bunkle to stand down from ministerial office in 2001. This makes Mr English’s position as finance minister very difficult. I have been in the same position as Mr Key, in having to make a decision on the future of the Minister. A precedent for the right thing to do has been set.
I wrote to the Auditor-General saying Mr English’ arrangements needed scrutiny. The report finds Mr English’s arrangements were not within the rules. The Auditor General’s report states:
The result was that the Crown was renting a property for Mr English from a trust in which he had an interest, and the arrangement was explicitly based on a view that he did not have an interest. Clearly, this was unfortunate.
The report discloses Mr English went to some lengths to arrange his affairs around the accommodation allowance entitlement. That is not a good look for a Minister of Finance.
The Auditor-General’s advice does not even mention other issues that the Prime Minister still needs to consider: that Mr English was giving his Wellington address as his home for the purpose of being a director of a company (incidentally, the company that owns his Dipton investment), but claiming to live in Dipton for the purpose of receiving an accommodation allowance.
A prudent minister might have noticed the contradiction between those two claims.
I have always welcomed the idea of Mr English having his family with him in Wellington. That is not the issue. The question is whether he was right to claim entitlements for doing so. It would not have been in any way objectionable if Mr English had lived in Wellington with his family and claimed an out of town allowance for his occasional trips to Dipton.
For the release, go here.