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Speaker 1: So some fascinating new numbers for you this morning to

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Speaker 1: explain just how Gargantua and our health services Health New

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Speaker 1: Zealand employees eighty two thousand, eight hundred full time equivalent staff.

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Speaker 1: That's one point five percent of the entire population. One

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Speaker 1: on every thirty members of the workforce in this country

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Speaker 1: works for health. The cost of all that's thirty billion.

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Speaker 1: Big question Treasury is trying to answers is it funded adequately?

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Speaker 1: The Health Minister Shame readies with us on the Shame

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Speaker 1: morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah money mate, now that's much.

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Speaker 1: I think that line from the Prime ministery a couple

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Speaker 1: of months ago, thirty billion is enough. Do you stand

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Speaker 1: by that?

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Speaker 2: You so do, As you've heard from the tuition up.

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Speaker 2: It's just that we're funded enough, we're just not spending

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Speaker 2: it well. I mean put that in context. Every health

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Speaker 2: system in the world would like to have more funding,

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Speaker 2: as would I but for the key services we need

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Speaker 2: to deliver, as you correctly pointed out, for the biggest

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Speaker 2: organization in New Zealand, probably one of the top six

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Speaker 2: between Australia and New Zealand. It's a big organization and

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Speaker 2: so thirty billion will help those deliver cour services.

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Speaker 1: Is it so gargantua and no one's quite got a

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Speaker 1: hand on its totality.

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Speaker 2: Oh that's a very good point, And I think the

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Speaker 2: answer that would be yes, that's what happens when you

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Speaker 2: throw twenty DHBs together on short notice in the middle

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Speaker 2: of the pandemic. How did we think that was going

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Speaker 2: to play out? You know, that's the structure we've got.

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Speaker 2: That that's the cards we've got. We've just got to

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Speaker 2: play them really well. But yes, it is a big entity.

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Speaker 1: And when you look at the size of the entity

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Speaker 1: serving five million people, does it seem too big?

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Speaker 2: Look, that's something that as you'll be aware of, the

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Speaker 2: Commissioner's working on with the statements we've made around how

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Speaker 2: we're going to get back to fiscal stability, around reducing

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Speaker 2: some of that back office because it is just too big.

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Speaker 2: I think my aster that would be a yes, it

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Speaker 2: probably is too big, but we probably had people in

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Speaker 2: the wrong places our front line. Clearly, we've got some

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Speaker 2: vacancies we need to fill, and we have some positions

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Speaker 2: in the back office that we may not need so much.

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Speaker 1: The Treasury suggest it could cost us ten percent of

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Speaker 1: GDP by twenty sixty one. Is that too much? Is

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Speaker 1: that a worry.

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Speaker 2: Again in that context that you could fill Health with

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Speaker 2: as much as you'd like to give it. We want

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Speaker 2: to be wise users of taxpayers money. If we look

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Speaker 2: at where we position in the OECD for the amount

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Speaker 2: we spend on GDP, we generally sit in the middle.

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Speaker 2: We box above our weight. But of course you'd always.

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Speaker 1: Like more this Treasury stuff I'm reading this morning, top down,

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Speaker 1: bottom up? Do we trust Treasury? The Treasury actually know

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Speaker 1: what they're doing or we're just just throwing darts boards here?

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Speaker 2: Oh, Treasury are very detailed, particularly around budget time, very

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Speaker 2: detailed around what costings might be if they start a

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Speaker 2: year out, if not further. And so the bottom up

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Speaker 2: was Health New Zealand approximation and the top down was

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Speaker 2: Treasury's approximation. And it, as with most budgets this summer

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Speaker 2: meeting in the middle.

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Speaker 1: All right, appreciate time, Shane Retty. Here's the Health minister.

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Speaker 1: The details are the finer details of There's some very

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Speaker 1: good work done by Thomas Coglin in the Herald this

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Speaker 1: morning if you want to watch. But I mean some

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Speaker 1: of these numbers, I mean thirty billion one in thirty seven.

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Speaker 1: You know one point five percent of the entire population

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Speaker 1: eighty three thousand city. It's a city and a reasonable

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Speaker 1: sized city of people who work for health New Zealand

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Speaker 1: and still WI sit there going, oh, you can't get

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Speaker 1: access to a doctor. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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