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  • Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish the dual mandate?

    nonaBack in 1989 – near the end of the fourth Labour government – the inflation-busting Reserve Bank Act was passed. Labour has shifted well away from the Rogernomics of that decade, and in 2021 Grant Robertson added maximum sustainable employment to the bank’s mandate - with the support of coalition partner NZ First.

    Read more: Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish...

  • The next three years – the job ahead for Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori

    The Fabians had a session on Nov 14th reflecting on the elections. Our panel of Simon Wilson, Senior Writer at NZ Herald, Bridie Witton, Stuff Press Gallery Reporter and Ollie Neas, freelance writer used the election results as a springboard to target some of the key issues for Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as they head into opposition.

    Coverage can be found here

  • Rob Campbell on Pae Ora Health Reforms

    Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Pae Ora health reforms with you.

    Since I was sacked by the Health Minister I have taken time to reflect on the experience and to make a considered assessment of what I learned in the process. My intention tonight is to share that with you, making the assumption that we share common ground in wanting to have an effective, efficient, excellent and equitable public health service.

    If anyone does not want that, I don’t really have anything useful to share with you.

    Read more: Rob Campbell on Pae Ora Health Reforms

  • Interview transcript: Ambassador Wang Xiaolong with NZ Fabian Society

    Hello, my name is Mike Smith, from the New Zealand Fabian Society. It's my great pleasure today to interview Ambassador Wang Xiaolong from the People's Republic of China to talk with us about China's values. I heard Ambassador Wang speak at a meeting convened by the Institute of International RelationsNZIIA last year and in the course of that meeting, he addressed the question of China's values and said, "China's choice for values, social system and path to modernity is made by our own people, based on our own history, culture and realities. All these choices have proven to be suitable and effective to solve China's problems and meet the needs of the Chinese people".

    Read more: Interview transcript: Ambassador Wang Xiaolong with NZ Fabian Society

88 years ago a mass migration of economic refugees was occurring in Kurow, North Otago as desperate families moved into the area in search of work from the Waitaki hydroelectric dam.

Some even brought their own spades, in case the government did not have enough for them. In fact there was not enough work and an informal settlement formed of desperately poor, unemployed families, on the banks of the river. The local school roll shot from 30 to 300. Andrew Davidson, the local teacher, Gervan McMillan, the local doctor, and Arnold Nordmeyer, the local minister, came together and built a health and its determinants response to the poverty that they saw. It was called the ‘Kurow Cure’ – a scheme based on the concept of justice rather than charity. 

Bob Kerr, our Mt Victoria artist, has created these images of that discussion in his work, The Three Wise Men of Kurow. His work summarizes the key concepts behind the health response they envisaged:

  • It must aim at the prevention of disease
  • It must make provision for income loss
  • It must provide all the facilities for the diagnosis and treatment of disease
  • The service must be based on the principle of the patient’s free choice of doctor
  • It must include the adequate provision for research in all matters relating to health
  • It should be free, it must be complete and it must meet the needs of all the people.

So the concept of a free, universal and comprehensive health service for all New Zealanders was born and incubated in Kurow. It became the blueprint for the Social Security Act of 1938, one of the first internationally recorded expression of what today sits within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It is known as Universal Health Coverage, which has been developed by World Health Organisation and the World Bank – with a lot less clarity but the same intent as the Kurow Cure.

So what happened?

In this discussion Dr Don Matheson explores what has happened to this vision of health service provision, 80+ years later, especially the last idea, that it should be free, it must be complete and it must meet the needs of all the people.{jcomments off}