{"id":452296,"date":"2026-05-30T06:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/452296\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T06:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:26:12","slug":"budget-investment-in-health-signals-continued-austerity-without-long-term-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/452296\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget investment in health signals continued austerity without long-term vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Robin Gauld of \"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"Medical<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

Analysis – This year’s Budget allocation for health<\/a> echoes most past Budgets. It implies there is significant investment and earmarks some specific areas that will receive additional support.<\/p>\n

But in reality, this is a cutback Budget signalling continued austerity.<\/p>\n

The government is correct that health receives the largest share of investment among categories, amounting to some $34.2 billion, up from $31b in 2025.<\/p>\n

This represents an increase of about 10 percent and makes a good sales pitch.<\/p>\n

Yet much of this expenditure, as always, is spread over several years. This means the compound annual growth rate of Budget funding for health through to 2029\/30 is 3.49 percent per year, basically matching the inflation rate.<\/p>\n

In healthcare, the inflation rate tends to exceed what is happening in the general economy. As noted in the Budget document itself, the funding will simply “maintain current health settings”.<\/p>\n

This is not good enough. New Zealand’s health system is in dire need of help and already comparatively underfunded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The argument that health is the backbone of a strong economy and good society is supported by multiple studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this context, building a highly productive, high-quality and accessible health system is fundamental. But this requires significant investment as well as long-term planning.<\/p>\n

In an adversarial political system such as New Zealand, focused largely on the short-term, it also requires politicians to work across party lines in the best interest of the public, for the current population needing to access high-quality services regardless of income or ability to pay, as well as for future generations.<\/p>\n

Health requires a growth mindset<\/p>\n

Health is unlike any other area of public service in that it requires strong government intervention and support for public services to deliver for people. It requires a development and growth mindset as well as understanding that underinvestment is a losing strategy.<\/p>\n

Budget allocations could have been made in key areas, and the health workforce should have been front and centre.<\/p>\n

Staff shortages, along with the general working environment, are increasingly challenging in the public hospital system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This includes facilities and a generally negative ethos, driven by successive governments failing to grasp the fundamental need for long-range workforce planning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unmet need for specialist assessments in the public hospital system is worsening, highlighted again recently<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The budget makes no mention of how maintaining current settings would do anything other than worsen the workforce and service access crises.<\/p>\n

Primary care is another area requiring investment and attention. Growing unmet needs are mounting pressure on already busy general practitioners (GPs).<\/p>\n

For patients referred back to their GP, unable to access a public hospital specialist, this is stressful and unproductive. Improving the ability of GPs to manage unmet need – including through covering patient fees – would have been an important signal.<\/p>\n

The Budget allocates $80 million for the building of a third medical school<\/a>, but this will not help, at least not until 2035.<\/p>\n

New investments<\/p>\n

Some of the earmarked “new spending” initiatives are important and should add value.<\/p>\n

Digital and cyber security gets $152m over five years ($35m to $39m per year). This is a small investment in an area where New Zealand once led the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The recent high-profile data breaches<\/a> have been an indictment of lazy government policy and poor private provider attention to security basics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Investments in ambulance services ($35m over five years), paediatric palliative care (a new site in the South Island in addition to the existing Auckland Starship hospital; $15.5m over five years), and the national bowel screening program ($12.4m over five years) to lower eligibility from 58 to 56 years are all important and welcome.<\/p>\n

There are also investments in hospitals, including additions to Whang\u0101rei Hospital and some additional funding for the new Dunedin Hospital construction.<\/p>\n

In an election year, a bold government could have laid down a pathway for long-term planning. It could have stated an intention to build a genuine all-party consensus on healthcare and acknowledge that an adversarial system is not serving people.<\/p>\n

It is also important to consider the cost of ongoing health sector reform. The previous government initiated reforms in 2022<\/a>, but the coalition government disestablished new agencies (such as the M\u0101ori Health Authority<\/a>) and repealed new policies and laws (such as legislation that would have created a smoke-free generation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The cost of these repeated reforms, as well as ongoing structural changes, is likely to be in the hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n

The public deserves better. Rather than restructuring, this money should have been invested by all politicians in services and future generations.<\/p>\n

The government could also have announced a commission to review healthcare funding, as New Zealand’s public health system is weakening, with increasing provision by the private sector<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In summary, Budget 2026 is a short-term plan for continued austerity for the health sector.<\/p>\n

* Robin Gauld is an executive dean at the Bond University business school, Queensland.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Robin Gauld of Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone Analysis – This year’s Budget allocation for health echoes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-452296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}