9 December 2001

Tomorrow's health funding announcement by the Government is effectively bringing forward next May's Budget announcement because the health system is under so much pressure, National Health spokesperson Roger Sowry said today.

The Government is reportedly announcing tomorrow $1.5 billion funding to health over the next three years, with a large portion going to primary care.

"We can't judge the significance of the funding until it is known how much individual district health boards will get for hospital-based secondary care services.

"However the Minister saying today that a sizeable chunk of the funding will be going to primary care indicates the situation for cash-strapped hospitals won't get much better. Waiting lists will get longer and hospitals will continue to run up bigger deficits by the week.

"The Government is trying to make people think they care about health by announcing three years of funding at once.

"This announcement is really about politics. It is about buying a comfort level for the next election.

"The Government has had to act because the public is so despondent that it has allowed health services to get to a crisis point. The devil in this announcement will be in the detail," Mr Sowry said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>