{"id":7542,"date":"2025-09-07T07:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/7542\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T07:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T07:27:10","slug":"shane-te-pou-government-needs-to-stop-spinning-and-start-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/7542\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Te Pou: Government needs to stop spinning and start listening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health Minister Simeon Brown\u2019s attitude only makes things worse. He was an effective attack dog in opposition<\/a> but those talents don\u2019t carry across when you\u2019re meant to be managing the country\u2019s health system.<\/p>\n

\"HealthHealth Minister Simeon Brown appears to be more interested in fighting with health workers than making Kiwis healthier, says Shane Te Pou. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Where Reti had a real understanding of the health sector and compassion for health workers and patients, Brown seems to treat everything as a political game.<\/p>\n

He tries to frame the strike as disrupting patient care, when the truth is patient care is being disrupted every day in an understaffed health system. The nurses have only gone on strike with great reluctance. Trying to frame them as greedy and not caring about patients has no credibility.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that voters\u2019 preference for National on health has plunged<\/a> since Brown became minister. According to the Ipsos poll, a year ago, Labour was 5% ahead of National on health. Now, National is 15% behind.<\/p>\n

With health the second-most important issue for voters (behind cost-of-living), Luxon should be asking himself how much longer he can keep in place a dud of a minister who is more interested in fighting with health workers than making Kiwis healthier.<\/p>\n

\"HealthHealth has been ranked the second-most important issue for voters behind cost-of-living. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a similar story in education. Although Erica Stanford has the sense to be a bit less abrasive and cocksure than Brown, the teachers have also been offered insulting 1% pay rises. Stanford and the Government have tried to justify this with some drivel about the average teacher being on $147,000 (the actual average is $101,000). Again, the Government\u2019s message is \u201cteachers are greedy and deserve a pay cut\u201d.<\/p>\n

Is that a smart approach, politically and practically?<\/p>\n

\"TeachersTeachers have taken strike action in response to being offered 1% pay rises. Photo \/ Alyse Wright<\/p>\n

Politically, trying to convince the public that nurses and teachers are overpaid and just out for the money goes against everything we know from our lived experience. It also challenges us to believe the spin from well-heeled ministers over the evidence before our own eyes every time we deal with the health and education systems. That is not helped when the spin turns out to be false.<\/p>\n

Far from getting the public onside with the Government\u2019s 1% pay offers<\/a>, this aggressive approach is likely to increase sympathy for the nurses and teachers and decrease the credibility of ministers even further.<\/p>\n

\""A“A Government that is sinking rapidly in the polls would be smart to listen to what voters are telling them.” Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

And consider the impacts on the workforce. If you were to see your big boss on the telly telling the world that you\u2019re overpaid and self-centred, it wouldn\u2019t exactly endear you to the job, eh? With tempting offers of better pay and proper staffing in Australia bombarding health and education workers daily, the Government is only risking accelerating the brain drain across the ditch.<\/p>\n

The Government needs to drop the politics and face reality. New Zealand is effectively in competition with the Australian states and other anglophone countries for our health and education workforces. To attract and, crucially, retain good workers, the Government needs to be prepared to meet the market price.<\/p>\n

The Government cannot plead poverty. If they can find $671 million to spend just on scrapping the ferry replacement, they can find the money to pay our nurses and teachers what they are worth and staff our hospitals and schools properly.<\/p>\n

Reverse the unnecessary and ineffective $3 billion landlord tax cuts<\/a> and put that money into health, instead. Take the $152m being wasted on charter schools and hire more teachers on better pay.<\/p>\n

A Government that is sinking rapidly in the polls would be smart to listen to what voters are telling them. The polls clearly show voters want action on health and the cost of living. Voters don\u2019t want to see ministers spending their time vilifying nurses and teachers and trying to cut their standard of living.<\/p>\n

Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Minister Simeon Brown\u2019s attitude only makes things worse. He was an effective attack dog in opposition but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,3278,266,9814,9812,111,43,139,69,1860,7228,9813,4497,1324,8690,61],"class_list":["post-7542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-facts","tag-government","tag-listening","tag-needs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pou","tag-shane","tag-spinning","tag-start","tag-stop","tag-te","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542","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=7542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}