Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey insists the Suicide Prevention Office “would not be a victim of the Government’s cost-cutting”.
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey insists the Suicide Prevention Office “would not be a victim of the Government’s cost-cutting”.
Opinion
EDITORIAL
The Public Service Association finally got one over the Government when it revealed the Suicide Prevention Office could be a victim of the coalition Government’s characterless razor gang cuts to the public service.
Mental health and suicide are a major concern in New Zealand, and this Government, to itscredit, even appointed New Zealand’s first Minister of Mental Health, Matt Doocey.
The Suicide Prevention Office (SPO) is one of the many health and business units caught in the cost-cutting procedures, with ministry leaders across the state sector tasked with targets of either 6.5 or 7.5 per cent savings ahead of next month’s Budget.
The SPO was established in 2019, following a Labour Government inquiry into mental health and addiction, and sorely needed.
So it came as a complete surprise to Doocey when told as part of the cuts by Health NZ of 134 jobs, the SPO would close and its work merged into a wider directorate, as Health NZ work towards “the Government’s priorities” — basically leaving Doocey as a minister without a ministry.
National, Act and NZ First promised that once they were in power, the number of people on the taxpayers’ ATM — the 66,000-strong public service workforce — would be cut or reduced.
Mental health and suicide are a major concern in New Zealand.
News of the doors closing on the SPO office had Doocey scrambling, and late on Thursday he sent out a press release insisting the SPO “would not be a victim of the Government’s cost-cutting”.
“The closure of the Suicide Prevention Office has not been raised with me and I have spoken with the director general of health to make my expectations clear that the office will remain open and that the suicide prevention work programme will continue,” Doocey said.
This is a conversation Doocey should have had behind closed doors because his meddling and insistence that the SPO would remain open is blurring the thin line between governance — which he is entitled to do as minister — and poking his nose into operational matters.
Doocey claimed the PSA was misleading the public, but his own statement is at odds with the Ministry of Health, which has said the SPO’s work will be integrated into the wider ministry teams.
Ministers can outline their expectations from ministries, but telling them which parts of an organisation’s business operations to cut and not cut is best left to the ministry chiefs, who report to their governance boards.
Mental health and suicide are serious issues and should not be used for political point scoring.
Let’s hope Doocey’s appointment as Minister of Mental Health is not tokenistic and he can do the job that New Zealand sorely needs.
