John MacDonald: What spending should the Government prioritise?

Where do you think government spending should be prioritised? According to new survey findings, a third of us reckon health funding and access to medicines is most important and must be given top priority. And I find it hard to argue with that, because we’re all involved in the health system in some way, shape or form, aren’t we? This is at the same time as we have the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister saying there’s more belt tightening on the way, with a $300 million cut in the amount of new spending in this year’s Budget, which Nicola Willis will deliver in two weeks. And it will be the third year in a row that there’s been a cut in new spending, or the operating allowance, as it’s officially known. So, instead of $2.4 billion in new spending in this year’s Budget, there’ll be $2.1 billion. That was the heads-up we got from the Prime Minister yesterday in his pre-Budget speech. But just as he was doing that, the findings of a new survey emerged which show how or where people think government spending should be prioritised. It’s a survey done for pharmaceutical lobby group Medicines NZ, and it shows that a third of the people spoken to say their vote in this year’s election will be strongly influenced by policies which improve healthcare. When people were asked which area of government spending was most important, 55 percent said health, 15 percent said economic development, 8 percent said infrastructure, and 7 percent said education. And of the people who said health was their main priority, 37 percent said hospital and specialist services were most important to them; 23 percent said GP services; and 16 percent said better access to medicines was their health priority. Which rings true to me, especially access to specialist services, because unless you have medical insurance, you can wait ages to see a specialist, can’t you? Access to a specialist can, for some people, be the difference between life and death, so that’s an area of the public health system I want to see more investment in. What about you? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.