Appalling behaviour by Public Health Te Waipounamu

It is no surprise that the Government is reducing the number of public health staff members, when they are spending their time on opposing resource consent applications for a McDonalds in Wanaka, rather than oh preventing the current whooping cough epidemic.

Around half the public health staff (those who deal with infectious diseases) do amazing work, but around half seem to be taxpayer funded lobbyists who lobby the Government that employs them, or local governments.

Their opposition to the McDonalds resource consent application is particularly terrible, as they raise numerous issues that are irrelevant to whether an application should be granted, and the other issues are ones in which they have no expertise.

Their grounds of opposition include:

  • People may litter
  • People might drive to McDonalds
  • Some residents are opposed
  • there is no evidence a McDonalds will create a prosperous, resilient, and equitable economy
  • there is no cultural impact assessment
  • the jobs it creates will be low paying
  • it might compete with local businesses
  • Multi national corporations and trans national corporations are bad for planetary health and future generations

I’m not sure what is more staggering – the many issues that are irrelevant to a resource consent application, or the many issues that are outside the realm of public health. It is a garbage objection, funded by taxpayers.

Frankly the proposed job cuts at Health New Zealand don’t go far enough, until their staff don’t have time to do stuff like this.

UPDATE: The Minister is not impressed and has said:

“Content within the submission, including observations about planetary health, landscape values, traffic and Te Tiriti do not match my over-arching view of what the NPHS should be spending its time on.

“Whooping cough, measles and raising immunisation rates are among the most pressing issues facing health today.

Absolutely. I suspect though the culture of political activism with NPHS is so well entrenched it will only change via massive structural and cultural change.

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