Shane Te Pou: Government needs to stop spinning and start listening

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's decision to appoint Simeon Brown as Health Minister, replacing Dr Shane Reti, has come under criticism. Photo / NZ Herald

THE FACTS

• Simeon Brown replaced Dr Shane Reti as Health Minister during a Cabinet reshuffle in January 2025.
• The Government has made a 1% pay offer to nurses and teachers.
• Strikes by nurses followed nearly a year of deadlocked negotiations between their union and Health NZ.

Watching coverage of the nurses’ strikes, I can’t help but feel Prime Minister Christopher Luxon got it wrong when he took the health portfolio off Dr Shane Reti and gave it to Simeon Brown.

It’s clear the nurses’ demands are reasonable. They want fair pay that at least keeps up with inflation. They want more nurses employed so there are safe staffing levels for patients and health workers, and so nurses won’t have to burn themselves out working overtime.

The 1% pay offer from the Government is basically spitting in their face and handing them a boarding pass for the next flight to Australia. That insult is only compounded by the Government falsely claiming the average nurse makes $125,000 a year. That’s not true and it unjustly frames nurses as well-paid fat-cats, who are demanding more than they’re worth, to justify the below-inflation pay offer.

Health Minister Simeon Brown’s attitude only makes things worse. He was an effective attack dog in opposition but those talents don’t carry across when you’re meant to be managing the country’s health system.

Health Minister Simeon Brown appears to be more interested in fighting with health workers than making Kiwis healthier, says Shane Te Pou. Photo / Mark Mitchell

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.

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.

It’s not surprising that voters’ preference for National on health has plunged 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.

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.

Health has been ranked the second-most important issue for voters behind cost-of-living. Photo / 123rf

It’s 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’s message is “teachers are greedy and deserve a pay cut”.

Is that a smart approach, politically and practically?

Teachers have taken strike action in response to being offered 1% pay rises. Photo / Alyse Wright

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.

Far from getting the public onside with the Government’s 1% pay offers, this aggressive approach is likely to increase sympathy for the nurses and teachers and decrease the credibility of ministers even further.

"A Government that is sinking rapidly in the polls would be smart to listen to what voters are telling them." Photo / Mark Mitchell

And consider the impacts on the workforce. If you were to see your big boss on the telly telling the world that you’re overpaid and self-centred, it wouldn’t 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.

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.

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.

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

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’t want to see ministers spending their time vilifying nurses and teachers and trying to cut their standard of living.

Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.