Sick health system
Your cartoon, "Body's View" (January 20) hit the nail on the head. It depicted a character, "the money-hoarding taxpayer" preventing another character, the "sick hospital patient" from receiving reliable healthcare. In other words, Body suggested that we need more taxes if we want dependable health care.
According to the NZ Institute of Economic Research, health spending fell from a 6.28 per cent increase of real per capita expenditure under the last Labour coalition to a decrease of 1.25 per cent under Key's National-led coalition.
Spending under the current coalition is improving, but it is still in somewhat of a stranglehold by NZ First and Robertson's irrational so-called "budget responsibility" rules. Everyone has a story about being affected by health-related budget cuts in the last decade.
This decline from the generous Kiwi of previous decades to the "the money-hoarding taxpayer" of today is most certainly a result of shifting the burden from the wealthy to the middle class and poor. And, in order to keep people placid, we have been fed unrelenting, 30-plus years PR programmes in the media and in our schools spinning neoliberalism. It worked.
Neoliberalism's intent was to crush unions and flatten taxes. Unions were decimated by the Employment Relations Act. Real wages stagnated and conditions plummeted. And NZ shifted the tax burden from the rich to the poor via GST, while cutting upper-end income tax.
Spending decreased to among the lowest in the OECD. NZ remained among the only developed nations without some form of wealth/capital tax.
As Victoria University professor Jonathan Boston recently pointed out, the result is that that our attitude in once-egalitarian New Zealand now scores lowest in polls on the support for the welfare state.
Attitudes must change on our miserly taxing and spending regimes if we are to fix the health system . . . not to mention education and the rest of our crumbling infrastructure.
BRIT BUNKLEY
Whanganui
Coronavirus
This media frenzy pertaining to the coronavirus is creating much fear and a touch of hysteria among some people. Wouldn't it be wiser to provide solid information regarding this virus?
I have heard interviews on Radio NZ in which supposed experts stated that the virus is just a cold or flu virus.
How about journalists give us the guts based on solid research. Provide us with factual information. Exactly what this virus is, how dangerous to the whole population? Which portion of the population has succumbed?
Percentage-wise, how many have died in Wutan, considering the huge population?
I believe our media are sadly lacking in this type of professional and responsible journalism, opting for sensationalism instead. That is a highly irresponsible and damaging policy.
DENISE LOCKETT
Whanganui
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