Here’s my curation of the day’s top news, analysis, commentary, charts and cartoons from around Aotearoa and elsewhere about our political economy on housing, climate and poverty. This is only published in full for paying subscribers.
Firstly and briefly, here’s my summary of this morning’s top news:
Nicholas Jones has a scoop this morning for Stuff1 showing how Health NZ concerns about funding of a few hundred thousand dollars and a staffing freeze were behind a decision not to send cancer test notifications to almost a million women.
In my view, this is a major scandal and reinforces how the bipartisan National and Labour approach over decades to using sinking lids on health spending to get the overall size of Government under 30% of GDP erodes public health.
Here’s the key quotes from Nicholas’ piece to reinforce the scale of the scandal: “It was commented during interviews that it would cost several hundred thousand dollars to send ‘catch-up’ batches of notifications to all of these individuals,” the experts noted in their findings, released on Monday, after a Stuff investigation revealed both the review’s existence and the huge number of missed notifications.
“It was noted that some of these notifications had not been budgeted for … and so there was no funding available. It was also said that, as only about 20% of recipients were likely to act, this would not be an efficient use of funding.” The reviewers were told of under-staffing following the register’s launch, and noted “at the time of this review, the national cervical screening programme’s staffing situation was said to still be ‘fragile’, with several vacancies unable to be filled due to a Health NZ ‘recruitment freeze’”.
Another growing political issue that should break through the noise in coming days is the revelation2 yesterday that PM Christopher Luxon used an RNZAF flight from Whangarei so he could stay on for a National fundraising dinner in Whangarei. He defended the flight, saying the air force had the plane and needed to keep it running.
Here’s the quotes from Luxon yesterday: “Those planes need to be flying, and the pilots need the hours and the training anyway. It’s not costing the taxpayer any additional money.” In June 2023, Luxon said3 he would fly commercial if elected PM after an RNZAF plane broke down on a foreign trade mission for then-PM Chris Hipkins and business leaders.
Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins said Luxon appeared to be using the Defence Force like a “personal taxi service”. “It’s absolutely unjustifiable. Attending a party fundraising event is a bright line. Air force planes should not be used to support that.”
This story is being led by some great reporting by Emma Ricketts, Glenn McConnell and Jenna Lynch at Stuff4. Stuff has obtained NZDF documents showing how often Luxon and other ministers have been using the Air Force to travel around New Zealand. It shows that, during his term so far, the prime minister has used the Air Force to fly to dozens of meetings and events domestically, including some relatively small distances.
Glenn McConnell has a scoop this morning for Stuff5 on how NZ First is considering proposing banning foreign-born citizens from becoming MPs, even though it would apply to a bunch of its own candidates, and at least one NZ First MP, Andy Foster.
The labour force data yesterday dominated the news, given the rise in the youth under-utilisation rate to 37% and that 60% of the jobs growth in the June quarter was for people aged over 65, and also getting the non-means-tested NZ Superannuation payment. This is happening as the Government is set to take benefits off 18-19 year olds. See Chart of the Day below. Also see my interview below on it with Toby Manhire via The Spinoff/Youtube.
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