This is a Government that is not fit for purpose. This is a Government which even the man who installed them recently said were not up to it. This is a Government whose Ministers have failed badly in virtually all of their portfolios. This is a Government that relies on working groups to do the hard yards and come up with solutions. This is a Government whose MPs are paid way above what they are worth. This is a Government that, in short, is not equipped to be in Government.
Most Ministers have failed for simply not being up to the tasks they were given. The three or four competent Ministers have failed for simply having too big a workload. In practically all major areas — finance, education, housing, transport, welfare, health and others — the Government has come up wanting. COVID-19 has really shown up the incompetence of this Government. The shambles it has become is entirely due to their bungling and blundering.
On Wednesday we read that the report from the Ombudsman on mental health units is shocking. Peter Boshier found that two mental health inpatient units were in breach of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In Wellington, seclusion rooms with little more than a mattress were being used as overflow bedrooms. At Waitakere, an intensive care unit was used for a long term patient. After being critical when in Opposition they have failed to walk their talk in Government.
Rather than focus their attention and spending on the acute end of mental health the Government has turned to new initiatives focused on helping people before they get to the hospital. It appears the services for these initiatives have yet to be put in place. Again more talk but as usual no delivery, something this Government is well known for. This means that inpatient units that need money spent on them have had no funding increase and therefore the problems the Government were critical of in Opposition still remain.
Also on Wednesday, a Newsroom investigation revealed that a Ministry of Social Development initiative to provide emergency housing made the housing crisis worse and enriched a small set of landlords and real estate agents. Taxpayer money was spent on a scheme whereby landlords took their rentals off the market so as to make them available to MSD, earning them up to $3,000 a week rather than the average of $550 per week. This was achieved by MSD paying a hotel rate for each room in the house.
Some of these houses were “marginal to uninhabitable” houses which often weren’t checked by MSD. When the landlords ran out of houses they turned to real estate agents who procured vacant properties — allegedly without even the owners’ knowledge. THIS IS SCANDALOUS!! The fact these houses weren’t even checked is GROSS INCOMPETENCE! This from a Government that bleats on about warm dry homes. (Why are the Greens so quiet?) It appears Carmel Sepuloni has become the Sergeant Schultz of the Government. I KNOW NOTHING.
This Government goes into this election with the worst record of achievement of any Government in living memory. Most of what little they have delivered would have been better left at the mail depot. In fact, if they were in the delivery business they’d be bankrupt. When it comes to any worthwhile policies indeed they are.
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