When National cut health spending and imposed a commissioner on Te Whatu Ora, they claimed that it was necessary because the organisation was bloated and inefficient, with "14 layers of management between the CEO and the patient". But it turns out they were simply lying:
Health Minister Shane Reti’s office has admitted an organisational chart of Health NZ - Te Whatu Ora, which allegedly proved the organisation had become bloated and inefficient “does not exist”.As Ayesha Verrall points out, this matters. We expect the government to justify their policies, ideally with some reference to actual reality. Instead, like a pack of second-rate corporate managers, they're just lying to our faces, spewing bullshit to provide cover for their cruelty. And then, when confronted with this fact, they basically say "what are you going to do about it?"Reti used the chart to justify painful spending restraint at Health NZ. He now claims that there was not one organisational chart as initially claimed, but that he was referring to an amalgam of the many Health NZ organisational charts he had seen.
This sort of public lying shows a fundamental disrespect for voters, and a fundamental contempt for the norms of democracy. We should not tolerate it. These liars need to be democratically eradicated.
As for what we're going to do about it, I think the answer to that is obvious. There's an election due in two years, and sooner if Rimmer shits the bed. We should take that opportunity to vote this pack of lying arseholes out on their arses.
