March 3, 2025 • 9 mins
The Prime Minister is defending how much nurses in New Zealand are being paid.
Yesterday the Government announced multiple incentives to improve access to primary care, including a cash injection of $285 million over three years.
Christopher Luxon says any narrative about health services being cut is completely untrue.
He told Mike Hosking the Government's making good progress on recruitment, just not getting the results patients need.
Luxon says the remuneration of nurses has increased to $127 thousand dollars, including allowances and overtime.
He also says that those unhappy with his Government's refreshed school lunches should go make a marmite sandwich.
A number of schools have complained about late deliveries and sub-standard offerings under the new cut-price regime.
Luxon's acknowledged some delivery timeframes and meals haven't been up to scratch, but says some people will never be pleased.
He told Hosking parents should be the ones feeding their kids.
Luxon says he'd rather the state didn't have to provide lunches, but he's not willing to let children go hungry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Which is the morning Prime ministers back in the country
(00:01):
and is with us. Very good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning Mike Howa, it's very well.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Thank you. The two hundred and eighty millionish you announced
yesterday for the various ideas around health. Where did that
come from? That can't be new money?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, there's actually four announcements there, three of it as
actually as new money. It's up against Budget twenty five
and the two hundred and eighty five million dollars to
open up to incentivize doctors to open up their books
more to new patients and things.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Is actually.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Is actually from existing money, the part of the seventeen
billion dollars extra that we've put in over the next
three years.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, so the new money you must be right up
against the wire by now because you didn't have much
money to play with in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I mean, you'd all be revealed in the budget.
We put all the expenses and all the revenues together,
and we obviously announced it in May. But but what's
exciting here is that we're trying to put patients first.
We're trying to get key wes to be able to
get access to a doctor. You've got you know, weird
things might You got a one hundred doctors at least
in New Zealand that are actually driving ubers at the
moment that have done all that foundational doctor training overseas
(01:00):
and we've got to accelerate them into GP practices. You've
got four hundred graduate nurses that we're trying to open
up and incentivize doctors to take them into communities and
rural communities and cities as well. And then you know,
really there's some really cool innovation as you'd be aware
of and healthcare sector around digital twenty four to seven.
And frankly, if you want to see a doctor at
eleven thirty at night with a sick kid and get
your prescription an action on Satday morning, that's.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
A cool technology. I mean, this is what I'm thinking yesterday.
Why down those teen years ago? I mean, to get
a script at nine thirty at night shouldn't really be
a well that what do we do moment? Should it?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It shouldn't be. But the point is the system needs
to have innovation from within it. There are some incredible
operators and entrepreneurs that are starting up in this space,
and you know the dealer is you know I was
thinking about the other day. You know, you get a
sinus in fiction, you need to see a GP. You know,
I can't do nine to five. I think many Keywis
can't to do that at eleven thirty on a Friday night.
(01:51):
Get your prescription, why to your pharmacist, pick it up
on Sunday morning, get going with your treatment. Fantastic, But
we should be able to do a lot more of it,
you know, And there's no reason why that's not the
way you disrupt the system and actually get people with
more access. And the benefit is if we can get
people to their GPS, they can see a doctor when
they need it. We're not clogging up our emergency apartments,
which is what's been happening. So yeah, I'm really excited.
(02:13):
It's a great initiative from Simeon. He's put six weeks
into the job. He's getting on top of what's a
tough system.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, that was my next question. How has it took?
It took Simmy in three and a half minutes, and
what was Shane doing all that time?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, in fairness, a lot of this Primary Care Package
or what's called primary care basically GPS and communities we
had started to put together back in late November December.
So you know, Simon's built on that, which is acknowledged.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I felt your frustration yesterday. You make a very good point.
You put you put seventeen billion billion into this two
thousand extra nurses and per head, you're going backwards. What's
what's the problem.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's an insanely complex organization. So you know there's this
narrative out there that we're cutting healthcare service. It's absolute
total rubbish. We're putting seventeen billion more on top of
the twenty eight billion that already goes in. The Second
thing is if you just take nurses, people say, oh,
we're cutting nurses. No, we're not. We've actually had a
two thousand nurses in one year. Nurses pays up seventy
percent since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Gave yesterday. That's true, one hundred and twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Seven thousand, including overtime allowances, and quite new's argue with that.
Can you That's the point I'm trying to make is
that you know the narrative and people need to understand
and let's be clear. You know, we're up against unions
and we're up against people who are trying to say
everything we're doing is rubbish and healthcare and it's just
not true when we've actually increased remuneration for nurses to
one hundred and twenty seven doesn't including their allowances including
(03:35):
over time, that is on a comparable level to what
you'd get in New South Wales. And your New South
Wales is thirty five percent richer than us. So you know,
there is some good progress made on workforce recruitment and remuneration.
There's good progress on funding. There's plenty of money in
the system, but we're not getting the results and we're
not getting what patients want or need.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So is leaders doing amployee That's where Brown comes in,
and Brown doesn't doesn't have the faith in Levey or
whatever the case. I mean, is this being fixed on
because at the end of the day, we all want
good health, but there's got to be a limit. I
think you're right. It's thirty billion dollars in total. I mean,
how much is I mean, it can't be a bottomless pet.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
No, but there is enough. What I'm trying to say
with those things that I announced yesterday and my opening
remarks was to get people to understand there is enough
money there is actually progress on the workforce front. That's
pretty impressive. And actually the issue is a system that's
actually grossly bureaucratic and highly inefficient, and so putting Lester
Levy in as a commissioner has been very important. We've
(04:32):
obviously got changes of the CEOs and the Director General
of Ministry of Health. That's really important. But we now
want this organization focused on patients. We want everything to
be patient first. And so you can talk about the money,
you can talk about remuneration, you can talk with unions
as much as you like, but at the end of
the day, the New Zealanders need to get access to doctors.
They need to be able to see faster wait times
(04:53):
for first surgeries, for first specialist appointments, for emergency departments.
Those things are the things that matter. So let's make
the organized focus on customers or patients, which I think
is you know, I know some of the media give
me grief when I use the word customer, but I
don't care. I mean, these are service organizations that needed
to liver for patients and for customers and for kiwis.
So it's a change in mentality.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Good school lunches, do we actually have a problem here
or is this a pile on from the unions, the
teachers and the media to make David Seymour look bad.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Well, I think the bottom line is lot some of
the lunches aren't up to scratch, but Seymour is all
across the issue. I've got every confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
When you say they're not up to scratch, what do
you mean.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, I mean you get the I mean every day
we get a story of a particular lunch.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
There is, yeah, but why do we get a story
every day? But we get a story every day because
someone's a whiner, don't we Well, well, is a genuine problem.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
But look here's the deal. I mean, if you don't
like the lunches, actually just go make a mom ate
sandwich and put an apple on the bag. And as
a parent, I think parents should take responsible for feeding
their own kids. I'd rather the state didn't have to
do so. It should be a printal responsibility. But the
fact is that kids are actually coming to school no lunch.
I'm not willing to let them go hungry.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But this is what I get going that hungry kids
can't loan correct, Okay, fair enough, and when we do
something about it, we still whind some more that the
cellophane couldn't get done, and I'm hiring too many people
to distribute them. And the only simp of the IB
ever had is there like they should be on time.
I get that. Beyond that, you're just bitching, you're moaning.
If you don't want it, don't have it. So I
(06:22):
mean it was like it like a sandwich, right exactly.
So what does the government go if you're just going
to complain about this, We'll save the money, thanks very much.
Or is there an actual problem that Seymour needs to address.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, there, you know, there are some lunches that are
not up to scratch and some delivery that's not up
to scratch, and David and I have talked about it
and he's all over the detail. I have got every
confidence he's going to get it sorted. And so he's
right to actually keep chasing those issues down and making
sure we're getting what we've contracted and the quality of
the product, as well as obviously the on time delivery
of it. So you know that's a reality. But I
(06:55):
just say to you, Yep, there's always going to be
people that are unhappy with school lunches. And I get that,
and if you really are unhappy with it, for God's sake,
go make a mummte sandwich and put an apple in
a bag, just like you and I had.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Peter's met with Hyundai. They may be in for some ships.
If they're in for some ships, do we get out
of paying a penalty for canceling?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I mean there's a whole bunch of commercial negotiations
and all of that. Winston's got to the end of
March to come up with a better plan than the
one that we had and that we proposed at the
end of last year, which is to get rail compatible
fairies in place. So yeah, they'll be ongoing conversations. Let's
set them run through.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Hees he got something on the bubble though, because I
mean it is March.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, yeah, but he's got to the end of March
to come up with a better proposal that Trump's it.
And if he does, great, fantastic on board with that
within the envelope that we've talked about, and if not,
we've got a good plan.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Okay, just quickly on the war in your comments, don't
know all that's gone wrong in the last couple of days.
You're on the side of zelins Again, we're on the
side of Ukraine with a view specifically.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
To what well. I mean, the bottom line is we're
a small country with limited is a long way away.
We ain't going to end this war, let's be clear
about it. But the principal point is that you can
go off to lots of meetings sounding off about your values,
democratic ideas, nation states, you know, international rules based system,
all that stuff, and you either stand up for it
(08:15):
or you don't. And so in our own way, we're
actually standing up with Zelenski. I've met him. He's a
pretty admirable chap He's I mean, how would you how
would we feel if we had a big power rock
in to New Zealand and beat us up for three years?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But how are you standing behind him on a stalemate?
This is a stalemate. It's a three year stalemate, and
if America walks, we're done. We're on the losing side
because he's going to get crushed within weeks. Is that
what you're going for?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, we want the US and the Ukraine and Europe
working together on that, trying to secure a justin lasting
piece there that that's important for us. There's no doubt
all the players have an intention to do that. They
may have disagreements on how to go about it. That's
that's normal as a peace process is put together. But
I just say to you, Mike, if we were a
small country, I think we'd want to be at the
(09:00):
negotiating table and not have big powers to determine our fate.
I think, you know, if we'd been beat up for
three years in that way, we'd want to be at
that table. And I think that's not unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Appreciate your time as always, Crystal Lux and Prime Minister.
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
Which is the morning Prime ministers back in the country
(00:01):
and is with us. Very good morning to you.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning Mike Howa, it's very well.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Thank you. The two hundred and eighty millionish you announced
yesterday for the various ideas around health. Where did that
come from? That can't be new money?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, there's actually four announcements there, three of it as
actually as new money. It's up against Budget twenty five
and the two hundred and eighty five million dollars to
open up to incentivize doctors to open up their books
more to new patients and things.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Is actually.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Is actually from existing money, the part of the seventeen
billion dollars extra that we've put in over the next
three years.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, so the new money you must be right up
against the wire by now because you didn't have much
money to play with in the first place.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I mean, you'd all be revealed in the budget.
We put all the expenses and all the revenues together,
and we obviously announced it in May. But but what's
exciting here is that we're trying to put patients first.
We're trying to get key wes to be able to
get access to a doctor. You've got you know, weird
things might You got a one hundred doctors at least
in New Zealand that are actually driving ubers at the
moment that have done all that foundational doctor training overseas
(01:00):
and we've got to accelerate them into GP practices. You've
got four hundred graduate nurses that we're trying to open
up and incentivize doctors to take them into communities and
rural communities and cities as well. And then you know,
really there's some really cool innovation as you'd be aware
of and healthcare sector around digital twenty four to seven.
And frankly, if you want to see a doctor at
eleven thirty at night with a sick kid and get
your prescription an action on Satday morning, that's.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
A cool technology. I mean, this is what I'm thinking yesterday.
Why down those teen years ago? I mean, to get
a script at nine thirty at night shouldn't really be
a well that what do we do moment? Should it?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
It shouldn't be. But the point is the system needs
to have innovation from within it. There are some incredible
operators and entrepreneurs that are starting up in this space,
and you know the dealer is you know I was
thinking about the other day. You know, you get a
sinus in fiction, you need to see a GP. You know,
I can't do nine to five. I think many Keywis
can't to do that at eleven thirty on a Friday night.
(01:51):
Get your prescription, why to your pharmacist, pick it up
on Sunday morning, get going with your treatment. Fantastic, But
we should be able to do a lot more of it,
you know, And there's no reason why that's not the
way you disrupt the system and actually get people with
more access. And the benefit is if we can get
people to their GPS, they can see a doctor when
they need it. We're not clogging up our emergency apartments,
which is what's been happening. So yeah, I'm really excited.
(02:13):
It's a great initiative from Simeon. He's put six weeks
into the job. He's getting on top of what's a
tough system.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, that was my next question. How has it took?
It took Simmy in three and a half minutes, and
what was Shane doing all that time?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, in fairness, a lot of this Primary Care Package
or what's called primary care basically GPS and communities we
had started to put together back in late November December.
So you know, Simon's built on that, which is acknowledged.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I felt your frustration yesterday. You make a very good point.
You put you put seventeen billion billion into this two
thousand extra nurses and per head, you're going backwards. What's
what's the problem.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's an insanely complex organization. So you know there's this
narrative out there that we're cutting healthcare service. It's absolute
total rubbish. We're putting seventeen billion more on top of
the twenty eight billion that already goes in. The Second
thing is if you just take nurses, people say, oh,
we're cutting nurses. No, we're not. We've actually had a
two thousand nurses in one year. Nurses pays up seventy
percent since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Gave yesterday. That's true, one hundred and twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Seven thousand, including overtime allowances, and quite new's argue with that.
Can you That's the point I'm trying to make is
that you know the narrative and people need to understand
and let's be clear. You know, we're up against unions
and we're up against people who are trying to say
everything we're doing is rubbish and healthcare and it's just
not true when we've actually increased remuneration for nurses to
one hundred and twenty seven doesn't including their allowances including
(03:35):
over time, that is on a comparable level to what
you'd get in New South Wales. And your New South
Wales is thirty five percent richer than us. So you know,
there is some good progress made on workforce recruitment and remuneration.
There's good progress on funding. There's plenty of money in
the system, but we're not getting the results and we're
not getting what patients want or need.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So is leaders doing amployee That's where Brown comes in,
and Brown doesn't doesn't have the faith in Levey or
whatever the case. I mean, is this being fixed on
because at the end of the day, we all want
good health, but there's got to be a limit. I
think you're right. It's thirty billion dollars in total. I mean,
how much is I mean, it can't be a bottomless pet.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
No, but there is enough. What I'm trying to say
with those things that I announced yesterday and my opening
remarks was to get people to understand there is enough
money there is actually progress on the workforce front. That's
pretty impressive. And actually the issue is a system that's
actually grossly bureaucratic and highly inefficient, and so putting Lester
Levy in as a commissioner has been very important. We've
(04:32):
obviously got changes of the CEOs and the Director General
of Ministry of Health. That's really important. But we now
want this organization focused on patients. We want everything to
be patient first. And so you can talk about the money,
you can talk about remuneration, you can talk with unions
as much as you like, but at the end of
the day, the New Zealanders need to get access to doctors.
They need to be able to see faster wait times
(04:53):
for first surgeries, for first specialist appointments, for emergency departments.
Those things are the things that matter. So let's make
the organized focus on customers or patients, which I think
is you know, I know some of the media give
me grief when I use the word customer, but I
don't care. I mean, these are service organizations that needed
to liver for patients and for customers and for kiwis.
So it's a change in mentality.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Good school lunches, do we actually have a problem here
or is this a pile on from the unions, the
teachers and the media to make David Seymour look bad.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Well, I think the bottom line is lot some of
the lunches aren't up to scratch, but Seymour is all
across the issue. I've got every confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
When you say they're not up to scratch, what do
you mean.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, I mean you get the I mean every day
we get a story of a particular lunch.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
There is, yeah, but why do we get a story
every day? But we get a story every day because
someone's a whiner, don't we Well, well, is a genuine problem.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
But look here's the deal. I mean, if you don't
like the lunches, actually just go make a mom ate
sandwich and put an apple on the bag. And as
a parent, I think parents should take responsible for feeding
their own kids. I'd rather the state didn't have to
do so. It should be a printal responsibility. But the
fact is that kids are actually coming to school no lunch.
I'm not willing to let them go hungry.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But this is what I get going that hungry kids
can't loan correct, Okay, fair enough, and when we do
something about it, we still whind some more that the
cellophane couldn't get done, and I'm hiring too many people
to distribute them. And the only simp of the IB
ever had is there like they should be on time.
I get that. Beyond that, you're just bitching, you're moaning.
If you don't want it, don't have it. So I
(06:22):
mean it was like it like a sandwich, right exactly.
So what does the government go if you're just going
to complain about this, We'll save the money, thanks very much.
Or is there an actual problem that Seymour needs to address.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, there, you know, there are some lunches that are
not up to scratch and some delivery that's not up
to scratch, and David and I have talked about it
and he's all over the detail. I have got every
confidence he's going to get it sorted. And so he's
right to actually keep chasing those issues down and making
sure we're getting what we've contracted and the quality of
the product, as well as obviously the on time delivery
of it. So you know that's a reality. But I
(06:55):
just say to you, Yep, there's always going to be
people that are unhappy with school lunches. And I get that,
and if you really are unhappy with it, for God's sake,
go make a mummte sandwich and put an apple in
a bag, just like you and I had.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Peter's met with Hyundai. They may be in for some ships.
If they're in for some ships, do we get out
of paying a penalty for canceling?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I mean there's a whole bunch of commercial negotiations
and all of that. Winston's got to the end of
March to come up with a better plan than the
one that we had and that we proposed at the
end of last year, which is to get rail compatible
fairies in place. So yeah, they'll be ongoing conversations. Let's
set them run through.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Hees he got something on the bubble though, because I
mean it is March.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Well, yeah, but he's got to the end of March
to come up with a better proposal that Trump's it.
And if he does, great, fantastic on board with that
within the envelope that we've talked about, and if not,
we've got a good plan.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Okay, just quickly on the war in your comments, don't
know all that's gone wrong in the last couple of days.
You're on the side of zelins Again, we're on the
side of Ukraine with a view specifically.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
To what well. I mean, the bottom line is we're
a small country with limited is a long way away.
We ain't going to end this war, let's be clear
about it. But the principal point is that you can
go off to lots of meetings sounding off about your values,
democratic ideas, nation states, you know, international rules based system,
all that stuff, and you either stand up for it
(08:15):
or you don't. And so in our own way, we're
actually standing up with Zelenski. I've met him. He's a
pretty admirable chap He's I mean, how would you how
would we feel if we had a big power rock
in to New Zealand and beat us up for three years?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
But how are you standing behind him on a stalemate?
This is a stalemate. It's a three year stalemate, and
if America walks, we're done. We're on the losing side
because he's going to get crushed within weeks. Is that
what you're going for?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
No, we want the US and the Ukraine and Europe
working together on that, trying to secure a justin lasting
piece there that that's important for us. There's no doubt
all the players have an intention to do that. They
may have disagreements on how to go about it. That's
that's normal as a peace process is put together. But
I just say to you, Mike, if we were a
small country, I think we'd want to be at the
(09:00):
negotiating table and not have big powers to determine our fate.
I think, you know, if we'd been beat up for
three years in that way, we'd want to be at
that table. And I think that's not unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Appreciate your time as always, Crystal Lux and Prime Minister.
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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