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Health minister David Clark.
The government has announced a $300 million dollar capital investment in health, with $26 million going to regional and rural service projects.
The remaining of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme investment will be dispersed into three other areas: $83 million towards child and maternal health, $96 million for mental health and addiction, and $75 million towards upgrading hospital facilities.
The government has also added a contingency of $20 million.
“This Government has made real progress rebuilding and strengthening our hospitals and public health services,” says health minister David Clark.
“In fact, we’ve invested more into upgrading our hospitals in our first two budgets ($2.45 billion) than the previous government managed in nine years. That’s a reflection both of the scale of the challenges we inherited, and the importance this Government places on health and wellbeing.
“Today we’re announcing further investment of $300 million into areas we know will make a real difference to people’s lives.
“That’s particularly true in child and maternal health, which will receive an $83 million capital boost.
“The Prime Minister’s ambition is to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. To support that, we’re investing in expanded neonatal intensive care to help our most vulnerable new-borns, and in maternity care for expectant mothers.”
With a general election under five weeks away, Rural News is asking major political parties about their policies and positions on key issues facing the primary sector. We will run their responses to each question over the next four weeks. The ACT Party and the Greens didn't respond in time.
A Labour-led Government won’t be bringing back the controversial freshwater rules of 2020.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.
Red meat farmers are welcoming Labour’s plan to review the Emissions Trading Scheme and not to campaign on pricing agricultural emissions.
For the first time in a quarter of a century, Federated Farmers has something positive to say about the Labour Party’s climate change policy leading into a general election.
Rural Contractors NZ says proposed changes to land transport rules for agricultural vehicles are a welcome response by the Government to out-of-date regulations which have seen members hit with huge fines.
With New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions in the spotlight, Auckland scientist Nathan Balasingham says there’s a better way to tackle the problem than shrinking cow numbers or fertiliser usage.
Massey University vice chancellor Pierre Venter says his institute is moving from a period of austerity into a growth phase, based on their new strategy.
With the red meat sector going through a boom time with high prices, the time is right for the industry to step up its investment into developing new food products.
Meat Industry Association chief executive Nick Beeby says there’s now much closer cooperation between meat processing companies than there was many years ago.
Good news for Fonterra farmers. The co-op has raised this season’s farmgate milk price mid-point by 25c to $9.75/kgMS.
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