"The Alliance health policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. It's totally unrealistic. It has to heighten tensions between Labour and the Alliance," Health Minister Wyatt Creech said today.

"The Alliance is fast becoming the laughing stock of the health sector with its over-the-top promises of free services and new hospitals for everyone.

"The Labour-Alliance mix will be a volatile one for the health system. Labour faces big pressures over how it will appease the Alliance and deliver on a policy that most health professionals think is a joke.

"The health sector does not want the upheaval, strains and tensions that the Labour-Alliance block promises to deliver.

"We need stability in the health system and National is committed to just getting on with the job and doing it better," Mr Creech said.

"The Alliance is out of touch with what the health system needs. Building district hospitals in towns that don't need or want them is a total waste of money.

"It's also a waste of taxpayer money to make free doctors visits and prescriptions for all. Why should MPs get free health care? We can afford to pay for it.

"National does not take the blanket approach. We will make more headway on the country's health problems by helping those most in need and most in trouble first."

Mr Creech said New Zealanders will benefit much more from National's comprehensive ten point health action plan of:

1. Stability
2. Public certainty about access,quality and security of services
3. Implementation of Booking Systems
4. Keeping children healthy and well
5. More health promotion and population health approaches
6. Focus on primary care services
7. Cut long standing disparities in health status
8. Improve mental health services
9. Well co-ordinated, integrated services
10.Government agencies and providers working together

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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>>