June 26, 2024 • 6 mins
Week in politcs.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on Gold Sport
joining us now on the show. Normally on a Friday,
but it's kind of like a Friday today seenior political
reporter for Newstork ZBBSA for trigger Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sophie, Good morning, VK. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, I'm very well. It's kind of like a Friday
really today, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's great having the short week in the middle of winter.
It's nice little.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Boost our last big long holiday before October and Labor weekend.
Make the most of it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yes, yes, true.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
All right, let's start off with the government almost doing
the u tun after the budget on the cancer drugs. Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
So the week began with the government delivering on National's
cancer drug promise, well really kind of over delivering is
as it turned out. National, of course, on the election
campaign promised to fund thirteen cancer treatments to the tune
of two hundred and eighty eighty million dollars, which caused
a lot of disappointments for cancer patients and their families
when this didn't feature in last month's budget. So the
(01:00):
government faced several weeks of backlash to this, but gave
its reasons of farmac's procurement process and its budget having
already blown out more than expected. That's farmac's budget. Minister
in charge of FARMAC, David Seymour, also repeatedly stressed the
importance of the neutrality of the drug buying agency now.
As New Zealand Herald's political editor Claire Trevett wrote this week,
(01:22):
the government had two options really other than what banded
up going with to either direct FARMAC to use the
funding for the cancer drugs or set up a separate
cancer drug buying agency, but there was a reluctance, particularly
from Seymour, to mess with farmac's independent decision making models.
So in the end, FARMAC pretty much just told the
(01:43):
government how much money it would take to cover all
the drugs on its secret priority list, up to the
point that the last of those thirteen drugs all their
equivalents would be included. So this is why the governments
now pumped six hundred and four million dollars into FARMAC funds,
not only those thirteen promised cancer drugs, but up to
(02:04):
thirteen extra cancer drugs and up to twenty eight treatments
for other conditions. So of course there's a lot that's
good about this announcement. It's a pretty historic injection of
cash into farmac. The Government's actually called it transformative and
there will be a lot of people very happy to
see their treatments funded, but it does come after more
than three weeks of disappointment and confusion. Not to mention,
(02:28):
this six hundred million dollars is a pre announcement against
next year's budget, meaning that the government's already chipping away
at what will be a tight operating allowance for next year.
People who need these drugs were also expecting it to
be in the budget and funded from July, whereas the
rollout is expected to take about a year from October
(02:49):
or November, meaning people who are forking out thousands to
pay for these treatments themselves are going to have to
continue coming up with that money until then. And going forward,
it's a bit of an open question on whether we'll
see promises for specific drug funding again from political parties
because it had been quite an expensive lesson for national
(03:10):
having to double the cost. But at least in this instance,
sick New Zealanders have really reaped the benefits of that.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, that's a good news one. The other one from yesterday,
Justice sentencing changes were announced.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, so yesterday Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced the suite
of sentencing measures. It includes capping the sentence discounts judges
can apply at forty percent, preventing repeat discounts for use
and remorse, Introducing an aggregate thegating factor for offenses committed
against soul charge workers, so that's the corner derry for example.
(03:46):
It also implements a sliding scale for early guilty please,
so as to not reward guilty pleas that come later
in the process. Now, a big question here is whether
this kind of direction oversteps into the judiciary and sort
of is the government telling judges they know best when
it comes to handing down sentences. So Goldsmith argues, Parliament
(04:08):
writes the Sentencing Act and it's absolutely appropriate for it
to reflect the sentiment of the wider community in terms
of public safety and to make clear what its expectations are.
Labour's leader Chris Hitkins, however, says it is a dangerous
path for the government to go down in terms of
maintaining an independent judiciary. He also argues that harsher sentences
(04:31):
haven't been proven to actually reduce crime over all.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, right, there, that's for sure. And it was pointed
out last week almost New Zealand becoming third World country
plane breaking down, we had the Fury running aground, cookstrate
theory and the transmission to our failure as well. What
a hell of a week.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, so it's certainly been a busy week for one
person that the Transports and the Energy Minister, Simeon Brown.
So he's ordered a review into the failure of the
Northland transmission tower last week, which of course caused mass
power outages in Northland, and Transpower of course revealed on
(05:10):
Monday that maintenance workers had removed nuts from three of
the tower's legs before it toppled. So Simeon Brown says
it's unacceptable tens of thousands of people were left without
power due to poor maintenance practices, and he's directed the
Electricity Authority to undertake review and report back on the
event within twelve weeks to provide a full picture of
(05:32):
what occurred and determine how this can be prevented from
happening again. So, he says, the investigation will determine the
cause of the event, review the response and understand any
lessons learnt. It will also include what actions were taken
to restore supply, and whether there were appropriate communications from
and between Transpower line companies, retailers, businesses and the public.
(05:56):
So speaking to zedb On Heather Duplicy Allen yesterday, brownted
there are signs that there was a communications failure from Transpower,
says there was a lack of information on that Thursday
after the pylon sell and it's unacceptable that there was
no explanation given publicly until Monday.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
It was the week's biggest whoops, whoops you did what?
Moment you undid what? Nuts? Sophie, good to catch up.
You have a great long weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Thanks Thanks Bku two
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Sophie trigger senior political report of the Newstok zi'd be
The Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on Gold Sport
joining us now on the show. Normally on a Friday,
but it's kind of like a Friday today seenior political
reporter for Newstork ZBBSA for trigger Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sophie, Good morning, VK. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, I'm very well. It's kind of like a Friday
really today, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's great having the short week in the middle of winter.
It's nice little.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Boost our last big long holiday before October and Labor weekend.
Make the most of it.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yes, yes, true.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
All right, let's start off with the government almost doing
the u tun after the budget on the cancer drugs. Yes.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
So the week began with the government delivering on National's
cancer drug promise, well really kind of over delivering is
as it turned out. National, of course, on the election
campaign promised to fund thirteen cancer treatments to the tune
of two hundred and eighty eighty million dollars, which caused
a lot of disappointments for cancer patients and their families
when this didn't feature in last month's budget. So the
(01:00):
government faced several weeks of backlash to this, but gave
its reasons of farmac's procurement process and its budget having
already blown out more than expected. That's farmac's budget. Minister
in charge of FARMAC, David Seymour, also repeatedly stressed the
importance of the neutrality of the drug buying agency now.
As New Zealand Herald's political editor Claire Trevett wrote this week,
(01:22):
the government had two options really other than what banded
up going with to either direct FARMAC to use the
funding for the cancer drugs or set up a separate
cancer drug buying agency, but there was a reluctance, particularly
from Seymour, to mess with farmac's independent decision making models.
So in the end, FARMAC pretty much just told the
(01:43):
government how much money it would take to cover all
the drugs on its secret priority list, up to the
point that the last of those thirteen drugs all their
equivalents would be included. So this is why the governments
now pumped six hundred and four million dollars into FARMAC funds,
not only those thirteen promised cancer drugs, but up to
(02:04):
thirteen extra cancer drugs and up to twenty eight treatments
for other conditions. So of course there's a lot that's
good about this announcement. It's a pretty historic injection of
cash into farmac. The Government's actually called it transformative and
there will be a lot of people very happy to
see their treatments funded, but it does come after more
than three weeks of disappointment and confusion. Not to mention,
(02:28):
this six hundred million dollars is a pre announcement against
next year's budget, meaning that the government's already chipping away
at what will be a tight operating allowance for next year.
People who need these drugs were also expecting it to
be in the budget and funded from July, whereas the
rollout is expected to take about a year from October
(02:49):
or November, meaning people who are forking out thousands to
pay for these treatments themselves are going to have to
continue coming up with that money until then. And going forward,
it's a bit of an open question on whether we'll
see promises for specific drug funding again from political parties
because it had been quite an expensive lesson for national
(03:10):
having to double the cost. But at least in this instance,
sick New Zealanders have really reaped the benefits of that.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Yeah, that's a good news one. The other one from yesterday,
Justice sentencing changes were announced.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, so yesterday Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced the suite
of sentencing measures. It includes capping the sentence discounts judges
can apply at forty percent, preventing repeat discounts for use
and remorse, Introducing an aggregate thegating factor for offenses committed
against soul charge workers, so that's the corner derry for example.
(03:46):
It also implements a sliding scale for early guilty please,
so as to not reward guilty pleas that come later
in the process. Now, a big question here is whether
this kind of direction oversteps into the judiciary and sort
of is the government telling judges they know best when
it comes to handing down sentences. So Goldsmith argues, Parliament
(04:08):
writes the Sentencing Act and it's absolutely appropriate for it
to reflect the sentiment of the wider community in terms
of public safety and to make clear what its expectations are.
Labour's leader Chris Hitkins, however, says it is a dangerous
path for the government to go down in terms of
maintaining an independent judiciary. He also argues that harsher sentences
(04:31):
haven't been proven to actually reduce crime over all.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, right, there, that's for sure. And it was pointed
out last week almost New Zealand becoming third World country
plane breaking down, we had the Fury running aground, cookstrate
theory and the transmission to our failure as well. What
a hell of a week.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, so it's certainly been a busy week for one
person that the Transports and the Energy Minister, Simeon Brown.
So he's ordered a review into the failure of the
Northland transmission tower last week, which of course caused mass
power outages in Northland, and Transpower of course revealed on
(05:10):
Monday that maintenance workers had removed nuts from three of
the tower's legs before it toppled. So Simeon Brown says
it's unacceptable tens of thousands of people were left without
power due to poor maintenance practices, and he's directed the
Electricity Authority to undertake review and report back on the
event within twelve weeks to provide a full picture of
(05:32):
what occurred and determine how this can be prevented from
happening again. So, he says, the investigation will determine the
cause of the event, review the response and understand any
lessons learnt. It will also include what actions were taken
to restore supply, and whether there were appropriate communications from
and between Transpower line companies, retailers, businesses and the public.
(05:56):
So speaking to zedb On Heather Duplicy Allen yesterday, brownted
there are signs that there was a communications failure from Transpower,
says there was a lack of information on that Thursday
after the pylon sell and it's unacceptable that there was
no explanation given publicly until Monday.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
It was the week's biggest whoops, whoops you did what?
Moment you undid what? Nuts? Sophie, good to catch up.
You have a great long weekend.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Thanks Thanks Bku two
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Sophie trigger senior political report of the Newstok zi'd be
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