Speaker by Various Artists

I spent the first two weeks after the release of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics in a state of anger – how dare our elected leaders and their friends treat us like this? How dare they try to control the media, to assassinate people’s characters, to exact their utu on anyone who stood in their or their paymasters’ way?

That was before the later allegations, in emails that Hager didn’t have access to, that are said to point to real corruption of the kind I see in developing countries, the kind that New Zealand doesn’t think it has. We’ll need a shed load of luck to hang on to our “least corrupt nation” status from Transparency International now. How dare they besmirch all of our reputations for their pathetic little self-interests?

That was then, this now, halfway between the book launch and election day. The media seems finally to have awaken from its long sleep and is starting to ask hard questions about its members’ relationships with attack bloggers. People are starting to realise that their views of Opposition politicians, not to mention the fates of recent party leaders, may be entirely due to image manipulation by shadowy figures who can phone the Prime Minister. It’s time to move the conversation on to ethics, specifically how we can ensure that behaviour like this from ever tarnishing our country again.

I’m going to use a loaded word: moral.

Morality is a set of restrictions we mostly agree to with the aim of not hurting others. We are held to some kind of morality – our laws ensure that morality violations are often criminal acts. People in leadership positions are expected to be at least as moral as the rest of us, and we are all expected to obey the law and for good reason.

The Prime Minister spluttered when Radio New Zealand’s Guyon Espiner asked him after the book launch if accessing private information on other people’s computers – something he condoned being done to the Labour Party – was the kind of moral leadership New Zealand could expect from him, but Guyon’s point was well-made. And yes, downloading that private information was a criminal act as well as being unethical. But this isn’t a party-political tirade, there are plenty of those about at the moment. It’s a call to arms to fix the underlying issue.

New Zealand needs moral leadership right now. That’s not some religion-driven statement about telling others what to do lest it offend someone’s god, rather that we need leaders who uphold the law, are seen to do themselves what they tell others to do and do not abuse third parties for their own ends.

But, while installing a new prime minster (if that were to happen) and running a sufficiently wide-ranging enquiry into what has gone on (ditto) might exorcise some of the current evil, it will not be enough to events like these happening again. We need to change aspects of the system to prevent a race to the ethical bottom.

So, how can we as citizens of our polity and country, change things so that politicians and their friends do not have the incentive or the ability to control our perceptions to fulfil their own ambition, so that they remain moral? I can think of a few things.

First of all, the Official Information Act needs to be strengthened. The Act begins:

The purposes of this Act are…to increase progressively the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand in order—

1.                                  i.         to enable their more effective participation in the making and administration of laws and policies; and
2.                                ii.         to promote the accountability of Ministers of the Crown and officials,—

and thereby to enhance respect for the law and to promote the good government of New Zealand…

That’s right, the framers of the OIA thought that information should be made increasingly available to people, and tied this to good governance and enhancing the respect for the law. Seems we have the opposite going on right now.

That Act, written during the oppressive government of Muldoon, has been sadly abused in recent years, and by governments of both stripes. Departments won’t release information without clearing through Ministers’ offices, they almost invariably leave it until the last possible minute (and often later) and they quite frequently, when the enquirer is a journalist, tip off some other media first so the journalist’s story gets told by someone else. It’s no surprise that one of the core allegations in Dirty Politics relates to the OIA. We need to strengthen the OIA and remove ministers from the ability to control the manner of their departments’ releases.

But we also have to ask how media and bloggers, (disclosure: I’m an occasional blogger) should be required to make clear their allegiances and their motivations, to prevent, or at least shine a light on, their abuse of others. Some of the core allegations of Dirty Politicsare that bloggers were presenting others’ copy as their own, often because they were being paid to. 

Political blogs don't have to be balanced, we all understand that.  But perhaps we need to find a way to make them subject to at least a basic level of transparency and fairness as the media are, as recently proposed by the Law Commission.  

I’m looking for other ideas, but most of all I’m looking for some ethical politicians who will run with the idea of fixing the system after the election. I’d like to see conversations being led by those we elect to govern us on how we remove the incentives to outdo each other in nastiness. Otherwise we run the risk of the same elected dictatorship, or a different one.

Back to the present: maybe we’ll see more despicable rage vented on our families by ministers and their friends, but I sincerely hope not. Our main task is to change the system so they can’t do that any more.

About forty-three years ago, when I was a mere 55-year-old lad, I was fishing off Red Mercury Island in a cabin motorcruiser that I’d built. A fairly large yacht came slipping past quite close to us, very peaceful and quiet, and I said to my son, Graeme, “That is what we should have.” That decided me on building what eventually became ‘Loxley’ a 37-foot ketch.

At the time I was thinking about building Loxley, some members and boat designers of the Ferrocement Association were offering advice to people who were interested in this type of construction. It seemed to be a much simpler and cheaper approach than the traditional wooden boat-building that I’d done before, and so I decided to join the club to learn about ferrocement before I committed myself to doing another build in wood.

Ferrocement construction was a completely revolutionary concept at that time, but history shows it as a very short-lived blip in boat-building fashion, that would soon be overtaken by low-cost GRP methods. Nevertheless, it seems to me that someone should write about the history of a ferrocement build in New Zealand, and Russell Brown has been kind enough to give me a little space on his website to tell you my story (and a little break from thinking about the election).

At any rate, swept up in revolutionary fever, I eventually decided to build a Herreshoff design, called ’Nereia’ in ferrocement instead of wood. It was necessary to make several modifications to the design to allow for the difference in the construction. One of the boat designers in the club advised me what to do – for example, I was using cast iron billets for ballast instead of lead, so he pointed out that I needed to widen the keel six inches at the centre to allow room for more cast-iron to be used to make up the required weight. Several of these designs had already been built in ferrocement and were very successful.

I purchased a set of plans. They were extremely detailed, covering everything including the sail plan and masts. But it was a daunting moment looking at those sheets of paper and thinking about turning them into an actual boat. I remember thinking to myself: now where does one start?

I began the process of building the boat according to the advice of the Ferrocement Association, but despite my exhaustive labours nothing much appeared to be happening for a long time. However when the hull started to take shape I suddenly had a great many visitors coming to look at Loxley. A lot of them wanted to know if they could help me in any way, and many of them did and were very useful. Some of them were particularly interested in the construction of the boat, and watched it develop and came back many times. We ended as quite good friends.

Ferrocement construction consists of building a rough wooden skeleton mould of the yacht. To this is attached a framework of six millimetre reinforcement steel, horizontally at two inches centres, and diagonally at four inches centres. Four layers of galvanized half-inch chicken netting is placed each side of the steel reinforcing, then tied together very tightly with steel wire. All of this sits on a half-inch thick plate of steel cut to the shape of the keel, and reaching about three feet up the stem. Plastered with special cement, the finished thickness of Loxley’s hull was less than an inch.

A specialist plasterer must be used for ferrocement boats. The plasterer that ended up doing Loxley had previously plastered 29 boats before ours. It was very exciting when the day finally came to plaster it. We had a lot of helpers and family all doing their task or watching. Even Garth Tapper (the famous portrait painter) came along to help.

We all watched it develop from a mass of steel into a lovely yacht. It had to be covered so that the plaster didn’t dry out, and I kept it hosed down and wet all the time for a week so as to cure the cement. I plastered the inside of the boat myself. This was just filling the inside plaster work and covering all the steel work – so I converted an old vibrating sander into a wooden plastering trowel. It was a wonderful tool and made the job very easy, producing an excellent finish.

 

Above: Lifting Loxley onto the transport trailer.

The decks and cabin sides were the next thing, and when the cement was cured I installed the wooden bulkheads that give rigidity to the whole yacht. There was still a lot of work to do, as all I really had was a bare shell. The experts advised me to keep as much weight off as I could above the waterline. By the time the hull had hardened I was able to install the ballast and the large steel tanks: one for diesel and the other for drinking water.

It was now watertight, so I could start work on the inside, and fit the diesel engine in place. I had found a firm in Leeds that were converting new Ferguson diesel tractor engines for marine use by fitting a marine gearbox with the controls. They were 32 horsepower and most suitable for my boat. I lodged the money with my bank, and they wrote to the firm and said that when they got the Bill of Lading and the engine was on board the ship, they would forward my payment.

When it finally arrived in New Zealand, my wife’s brother – who was a Custom Agent at that time – arranged for a carrier to deliver it to me as soon as it came off the ship. I was so pleased with it when it arrived, and couldn’t wait to start it. We put the engine oil in and some diesel fuel then fired it up. It sounded great.

It was time to get the masts made and put the order in for the timber. I was lucky that the Odlin’s Timber Company Manager understood that it had to be first-class timber. He got his men to select all the timber for the masts from a new shipment of Oregon pine that had just arrived. They selected beautiful faultless straight-grained timber, and then cut it to the selected sizes for both masts. Building masts is a specialized trade and was beyond my capabilities – so I got professional mast-maker to make them and they did a wonderful job.

There was still a tremendous amount of work in the masts for me after they were delivered. There are so many fittings, pulleys, cleats, etc. attached to them, and I had to get them all made by the local welder and then galvanized.

I think the welder got so sick of the sight of seeing me that he must have felt like shutting the door and pretending he was closed. But he made them all for me, and after I had varnished the masts with many coats of polyurethane, they were at last ready to step into the boat.

Loxley was eventually ready for launching in 1974; we were lucky to find a safe mooring on the Wade River, which is just north of Auckland. It had taken me four years of my spare time to build her, but I had thoroughly enjoyed it and was now looking forward to enjoying some sailing.

I got in touch with a man called Logan, who was an expert at moving yachts this size. The designer estimated it to weigh 12 tons (if it were built in wood) including five tons of ballast. Because it was designed with a lot of buoyancy it needed to be this heavy, but we did not know how much this boat weighed in ferrocement. However when it was all complete with masts and everything – much to everyone’s surprise – it floated exactly on the designed water line.

Above: Manoeuvring Loxley up the driveway.

I live at the bottom of a long drive, which is only 10 feet wide and with two power poles close to the fence – and Loxley was 11’4” wide at deck level. Just before the boat-movers were due it rained for seven days, and the ground became saturated. Loxley didn’t seem to want to leave us; she became stuck in the mud. It took us four days to get her out. Eventually a giant bulldozer with a hefty winch was procured and hauled Loxley onto hard ground with sheer brute force.

Above: Loxley about to be launched at Westhaven (with me standing on the deck just behind the bowsprit).

We leaned her over in the cradle to one side to miss the poles and finally got her parked on the road. What a relief to see her there. It took ten years off my life getting it safely out of the mud and onto the road at the end of our driveway. At the launching ramp at Westhaven Marina, my daughter, Briar, officially christened my new boat as ‘Loxley’.

Above: Loxley about to leave the cradle.

The launching was perfect and Loxley slipped into the water and floated like a swan. The masts were so long that I wondered how I could get them to Westhaven. The manager from Odlins Timber came to my help and said that he would pick them up from my house, and take them down to the boat for me the next time he was taking a truckload of timber that way. The mainmast was very long; the mizzenmast was somewhat shorter. We placed both masts on top of some long timber that he was delivering, and he took them down to Westhaven and placed them alongside the launching pad for me.

I was lucky that I was able to hire a mooring for a few weeks, and make use of all the facilities of Westhaven Marina for stepping the masts. I stayed them temporarily with fencing wire so that we could measure the length of the shrouds and stays. John Burns’ marine section made the rigging for me and I fitted the items in their places, one at a time. Better still, my wife and I could live and sleep on the yacht while we finished the rigging. It was lovely, so different, just like another world for us. A dance band across the harbour played in the still of the night:

Baby Blue, Baby Blue, do you know,
I’m still in love with, you-oo...

We didn’t mind the noise as it fitted our mood and we were so cosy and warm, nicely tucked up in our comfy double-bunk. The cabin was nice too, I had lined the inside with oak marine plywood – and with sparkling new paint, varnish and upholstery it looked really good.

I just bought the working sails for a start. So now it was time for our first sail, and to see how Loxley got on with sailing. Of course we could always use the diesel engine as a last resort.

Having built the yacht I knew it from stem to stern. My son, Graeme, and I decided to motor into the main harbour then we could sail straight down the Waitemata where we had plenty of space. Neither of us had ever sailed anything before, but then I had never built a 37-foot yacht before either.

So we started the engine, cast off and worked our way into the harbour, hoisted the mainsail and Loxley sailed away. She was happy in the sea, that was obviously where she belonged and we were surprised how easy she was to handle. I knew that I had a good sea boat, and that once we got to know one another better we would get on very well together. What a wonderful feeling it was for me; the culmination of four years hard work into a boat that seemed to have suddenly come alive beneath my feet.

Above: Loxley fully rigged.

The time ran out for our hired mooring. We had to get out of Westhaven and go to our pile mooring in the Wade River. It was a good safe mooring but quite a bit further away by road. We sailed Loxley there and moored her without any trouble. Somewhere to moor boats in Auckland was a big problem for all boaties, so in a way we felt lucky to be there. We joined the Weiti Yacht Club that owned the moorings on the Wade River.

It was 1974, I would be 60 years of age in two years’ time and I thought that if I could retire then we would have the time to enjoy sailing Loxley, and do a lot of things that we had always wanted to do, but never had the time. My wife and I were still comparatively young, and both fit and well.

It seemed to me that I had spent most of my life working. I started my working life the day I left school at 14 years of age. Now I felt as though it was time to take it easy, and for my wife and I to start enjoying our retirement years. You were entitled to superannuation at 65 years of age at that time, and so I thought I would have to work a little longer before it could happen.

A General Election was due and the leader of the National Party was Robert Muldoon, a politician whom I particularly hated. He promised to bring in universal superannuation payments at 60 years of age if his party were elected. He won the election, brought in the legislation, and it passed in parliament just before I was 60 years old. Thank you very much Mr Muldoon! I received my first payment a week after the Christmas following my 60th birthday.

So now my wife and I could retire and begin to enjoy the rest of our days together and live some of our dreams. That was all a long time ago, and in our later years we enjoyed a very happy and wonderful retirement with many years of sailing in our lovely little ferrocement boat.

Seldom has New Zealand seen such super-harmonies in the traditionally separate spheres of music  and investigative journalism. The release of New Zealand prog-rocker Nicky Hager’s latest album Dirty Politics coincided with the well known citizen journalist group Shihad’s book FVEY, a polemical exposition of the surveillance state Aotearoa has become.

The two works paint a picture of a changing New Zealand. The once pristine 100% pure image has been displaced and these implications of scum and villainy mean a great deal of cognitive dissonance for the small state in the South Pacific that has traditionally topped international lists of transparency and rocked out to the likes of Tim and Neil Finn and, of late, the dulcet tones of Lorde.

The first chapter of FVEY, ‘Think You’re So Free’, gets straight to the point exposing how New Zealand has changed. The direct challenge in the chapter title is reinforced by its message where the authors have searched for courage, proof, and for a leader who’ll speak the truth, but come up lacking. Themes of the right to privacy, the need for steady economic conditions, and a clean environment are channeled through a lens where the author assumes citizens are sleeping, and asks “When do you think we’ll wake up?”

Following on themes from their first album, Secret Power, Shihad take up the idea this sleep walking has allowed our Government to engage in spying on a massive scale. The author reveals that through the ECHELON base at Waihopai the Five Eyes Network (from where the book gets its name) can hear everything you say, that privacy is dead and ends on the revelation that by engaging in this behaviour the government has sold our freedom.

In ‘The Great Divide’ Shihad explain why they wrote FVEY, dedicating it to the weak, those who are hungry and need compassion and protection. An exposition of New Zealand’s growing inequality gap is entered into which flows into the next chapter, ‘Model Citizen’ which outlines a government plan to mass medicate the country. 

FVEY investigates themes of privacy and  the grey areas where democracy has fallen down. A nod to a Huxley-inspired, soma-wrapped future where nothing you do is safe from prying eyes (of which there are five) is given. It makes some heavy allegations to back this up.

• at one point a lion was let out of its cage and that it was the Prime Minister who did it (chapter 4)
• The government employs executioners (chapter 3)
• There was a zombie outbreak that was covered up (chapter 5)
• The government has been engaging in alchemy and successfully turned lead into gold (chapter 6)
• The government’s procurement strategy has been “cheap as fuck” in order to cut costs. (chapter 11)

While the referencing is sparse, the Government has been utterly silent on the allegations made in FVEY and seem to be playing a game of ‘ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away’.

The segue into Dirty Politics is clear: among the murky allegations of our devolution into a surveillance state, Shihad say there are a group of blood thirsty élites who are “borderline psychopaths who’ll do it for the thrill”. Dirty Politics clearly picks up on this theme, being a concept album based on the Hager’s impression of the well known right-wing attack blogger Cameron Slater, who could bee seen as that aforementioned thrill-seeker (Simon Lusk’s Plan, track 5).

The first track on the album ‘The Rise of the Bloggers’ starts softly, with tones of Hager’s previous album The Hollow Men, (another experimental album whose music was completely composed of brash melodies and leaky whistle overtones). It slowly builds and crescendos with attacking riffs which paint a picture of an apocalyptic future where bloggers have replaced the media.

‘The PM’s Black Ops Man’, shifts down a gear with  Metallica-like power chords which jar the listener awake with the haunting chorus hook line of “death by a 1000 leaks / it will shut down their donors / shut down their IT systems / they are going to die hard this week”.

Track 4, ‘The Crusher and the Attack Dog’ is a duet with acclaimed New Zealand singer, Hayley Westenra who sings from the perspective of the eternally tortured Justice Minister Judith Collins. This rock-rap track is derivative of the Dr Dre Eminem collaboration Forgot About Dre. Hager and Westenra trade insults in the bombastic fashion of their subjects.

Collins: you know the rule. always reward with Double

Slater: I learned the rule from you! Double it is.

At track nine, Hager trades in his bass-heavy guitar-laden modus for novelty accordion and polka tones. It’s a fast paced number which traces the trials and tribulations of the protagonist, David Farrar, a blogger come pollster come hat-wearer who has to juggle his blogging, polling, and millinery fascinations. It’s a novelty track, not quite as well practised as the other songs on the album, but bears a chilling element of contrast from the rest of the album.

The final track, ’The Smiling Assassin’ takes aim right at the Prime Minister. With themes of trust, transparency, and tricks Hager ties up the album with a lyrical masterpiece perfectly pitched to its proletarian prog rock tones. The track itself has a whimsical military feel to it, reminiscent of FVEY’s final chapter and ends with the haunting lines:

“The remarks exposed both Key and Slater

The friendly and unfriendly faces of National

Who secretly collaborated

throughout a period of dirty politics”

Many music critics have written off Dirty Politics as left-wing smear, and in an extraordinary turn of events the Prime Minister reviewed the album, despite claiming to have never read it. 

With both FVEY and Dirty Politics, you need to listen/read the whole album/book to pick up the nuance of this watershed moment of New Zealand’s musical/political history. Each track/chapter is full of references to pop culture and current events which which point toward a darkening of the long white cloud. 

Dirty Politics: how attack politics is poisoning New Zealand’s Political Environment

by Nicky Hager

Craig Potton Publishing

★★★★☆

FVEY

by Shihad

Roadrunner

★★★★☆

Health funding is tricky.  Politically, it's often about robbing Peter to pay Paul, and my experience of working in the public mental health system for many years is that mental health is often the "black sheep" of the health system.  In the past, for this reason, spending on mental health treatment has been "ring-fenced" and specific targets (like via the mental health "blueprint") have set up to ensure adequate funding and service provision.

It's also a tricky thing to know at what level health is actually being funded.  It's one thing to say that funding for the health budget has been increased (as the National government claimed in this year's Budget) in dollar terms, it's a different question as to whether it has actually increased relative to population growth and demographic factors.

Much cleverer people than me are clear that his year's health budget was actually a relative cut in health spending of $232 million dollars.  Analysis from the Green Party, conducted independently by economic consultants BERL, also concluded that the proposed budget outlined for the next three years by the National Government will continue to underfund our public health services, and therefore by default our public mental health services.

So if mental health is your interest, your profession, your life or your experience here's what the main parties have to say about what they will do with our health dollars. Where possible I've given the whole mental health policy (if there was one) from the party's website, and have also approached all the relevant health spokespeople (if there was one) for comment.  At the time of publication, only Kevin Hague of the Green Party had replied.

 National Party

The only policy I've been able to find on the National Party website relating to, or mentioning, mental health is as follows:

"Support young people with mental health issues to get the help they need, and improve services via the PM's Youth Mental Health Project."  (Click here for more on this policy)

I also approached the Minister of Health, Hon. Tony Ryall, for comment and further details.  He did not respond to my enquiries.

Let's not forget that it is this National led Government that has overseen the dismantling of the Family Court-funded access to couples counselling, attempted repeatedly (albeit unsuccessfully, but only due to massive protest) to severely limit access to the ACC sensitive claims counselling funding for victims of sexual violence and continued to tighten eligibility for what used to be called the Invalids Benefit and counselling funding provided by WINZ.  Increased funding for young people with mental illness will do little to counterbalance these losses, in my view.

Labour Party

The Labour Health policy, on the other hand, is quite detailed and health spokesperson the Hon. Annette King, who I heard speak recently, is clear that mental health is a priority for the Labour Party.

From the Labour Health Policy 2014:

(Click here for the whole policy document)

"Mental health will be one of Labour's top eight health priorities when in Government.  Labour will:

• Acknowledge the importance of mental health by restoring it as a health priority for District Health Boards.
• Require District Health Boards to set appropriate targets for the restoration and enhancement of mental health services.
• Re-instate the ring-fence for mental health funding.
• Enhance the provision of acute services to those most in need.
• Work to ensure equity of access services to those most in need.

• Work to ensure equity of access to health care for those experiencing mental illness.
• Support early intervention programmes for those with mild to moderate mental health issues as a method of providing low cost access to services and reducing costs in the provision of secondary services.
• Include good mental wellbeing as an objective of putting children at the centre of polcy making.
• Support those experiencing lower acuity mental illness through to recovery and/ or self-management and encourage where desirable the transfer of ring fenced funding from hospital to community-based support arrangements.
• Review the contracting arrangements for mental health providers with a view to creating more consistent and efficient approach to contracting.
• Ensure that when community mental health contracts are tendered that priority is accorded to organisations transitioning to a living wage.
• Provide increased resources to the office of the Health and Disability Commissioner to recognise the associated increased workload that has accompanied the trend towards growing interaction with mental health services.
• Work with mental health consumers, mental health organisations, service providers, District Health Boards and the Department of Corrections to eliminate the avoidable use of seclusion and minimize the use of restraints in mental health facilities including psychiatric wards and "at risk units."
• Acknowledge sexual violence as a major cause of mental health issues and work to address the consequences for this."

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

The Green Party has a fairly comprehensive and detailed set of mental health policies:

(Click here for the full policy document)

"The Green Party will:

• Ensure mental healthcare training and practice is grounded in holistic, humanistic perspectives that recognise each individual as whole.

• Encourage mental health providers working within multi-disciplinary teams that hold the well-being of the client at the heart of their practice. Wherever possible, clients have a ‘primary’ provider who remains with them through their recovery process.
• Ensure skilled facilitation of multi-disciplinary teams that enables collaborative ways of working and provides collegial and professional support.
• Utilise client-assessed outcome measurement tools to compare service effectiveness.
• Fund innovative initiatives based on overseas experiences or new initiatives, particularly those that indicate high recovery rates with low/minimal drug use."

I also spoke briefly with Kevin Hague, Health spokesperson for the Green Party, and he outlined the following for me, in response to questions.

Firstly about Labour's policy of re-introducing the ringfence approach to funding for mental health:

"I do favour resuming the ringfence, but it has to go hand in hand with forcing DHBs to actually meet blueprint volumes.  Broadly our policy and Labour's are congruent."

And with regards to the Green Party's priorities for mental health spending he had this to say...

"My top priorities (within mental health services - of course our wider social and economic policies will make a significant difference) would be:

"1. restoring a funding path to services (including NGOs) that matches the need services are trying to meet (in contrast to current real terms cuts over past 6 years)
2. Ensuring good access to counseling, brief interventions and other treatment as part of the primary care level, but either directly or through PHOs
3. Ensure full range of community-based support services for people with ongoing mental illness, including residential services, so they don't get stuck in inpatient units (or left unsupported)
4. develop some indicators for service quality in mental health that align with best practice and will require systemic improvement to achieve
5. AOD services ramped up, especially (and in conjunction with other mental health treatment services) for Corrections clients"

United Future

When I heard the Hon. Peter Dunne speak to this policy, he was clear to differentiate that it represented United Future policy, and that as such he was not speaking as Associate Health Minister:

(Click here for the full policy document)

"United Future will:

• Encourage government agencies to work together on early intervention, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in mental health
• Ensure that the right balance is struck between inpatient and community care to prevent people becoming a danger to themselves and society, but with recovery within the community remaining the goal
• Increase resources for mental health professionals to ensure that those patients who may pose a risk to others or themselves are adequately assessed and treated
• Increase the number of community-based mental health workers to ease high caseloads
• Fund child and youth mental health inpatient beds at a level sufficient to achieve the objectives set out in Rising to the Challenge – the Mental Health and Addiction Service Development Plan 2012-2017 and the Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project;

• Tackle the issue of the lack of accommodation and employment support options for people recovering from mental health problems in the community;
  Increase drug, alcohol and mental health treatment programmes for prison inmates
• Improve workforce development and funding available for youth-focused counselling services as the first line of defence, rather than over-prescribing pharmaceuticals for mental health problems
• Ensure DHBs plan for secure facilities for treatment of young people with mental health problems
• Promote more research to address youth related health problems such as suicide, alcoholism, and bulimia"

New Zealand First

The New Zealand First Health policy outlines some broad goals, and I also approached the NZ First Health spokesperson Barbara Stewart with some questions about their specific policy.  She didn't respond to my inquiries.

(Click here for the full policy outline)

"New Zealand First will:

• Increase the options of mental health services available, working towards a community view instead of a medical view of services.
• Improve residential services for people who have severe illnesses or disabilities and/or substance abuse problems.
• Provide additional resourcing for child and youth mental health services, and the necessary resources and funding to address the continuing appalling state of mental health services by completing the full implementation of the recommendations of the Mason report."

Maori Party

Specific mental health policy appears a little thin on the ground, other than ongoing support for Whānau Ora, and more specifically supporting the Prime Minister's Youth mental health intitiative via targeted Whānau Ora funding.

(click here for more on this funding)

More generally:

"The Māori Party is committed to... ... inclusion of the 6 week GP check in Well Child/ Tamariki Ora services to ensure signs of postnatal depression and congenital heart disease are identified... [and] ...continued research and evaluation into the effectiveness of suicide prevention, intervention and postvention for whānau Māori."

Mana Party

(Click here for the full health policy outline)

"The Mana party will:

• Increase access to and funding for mental health services, including those for children and young people.
• Support the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes when made available under prescription from a health professional.
• Give communities a veto over whether and where liquor outlets, fast food outlets, and pokie venues are established."

Internet Party

The Internet party has a very detailed policy document on the use of "E-Health" solutions, but very little else that I could find on health policy.  The document doesn't refer directly to mental health.

ACT

ACT makes the following policy statement about health funding generally:

"ACT does not support free healthcare as this results in the provision of a service which is not valued."

Says it all really.

(Click here for more on their health policies)

Conservative Party

The Conservative Party makes the following statement about health:

"A belief that all New Zealanders should have reasonable access to quality health care and education regardless of their ability to pay."

(Click here for more on their "principles")

They make no specific statements about mental health, although I have previously expressed some concern about the party's lack of understanding in this area as indicated by the stigmatising use of language in their promotional material see: Off the Couch: Not mental.

So, what's the moral of the story? Well, it should hardly be a surprise that the minor parties on the right either explicitly don't support funding of mental health, or have very little to say about it.  The other minor parties, largely on the left or centre-left, seem to support ongoing and increased mental health funding.  Of the three major parties, the Labour Party and the Green Party have the most detailed and well-developed polices as to how to increase and make more effective the public mental health system.

And for those of you that think this is a minority issue, as I wrote about last week (see: Off the Couch: What is normal?) just under half of us will experience a mental illness or an addiction at some point in our life, and one in five Kiwis currently are.  Make your vote count.

Kyle MacDonald is a psychotherapist and is the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists Council spokesperson on Public Issues.  He writes a regular blog “Off the Couch” at www.psychotherapy.org.nz and can be found on Twitter: @kylemacd

If you had told me the media were going to focus on a Canterbury Labour candidate invoking Shakespeare, I would have hoped it was me. The thing is, the James Macbeth Dann for Ilam campaign, superbly managed by Public Address alumnus Stephen Judd, is a by-the-book one. Door knocking. Phone canvassing. Thousands of deliveries. Emails from Stephen telling me not to say stupid things. It’s a hard slog, it’s not particularly glamourous, and it’s not very media-friendly.

I’m standing in Ilam because I think the rebuild has been handled disastrously, and the person overwhelmingly responsible is the local MP, Gerry Brownlee. While we are realistic about our chances, we think that what is happening in Christchurch should be a defining issue of the campaign. Every vote I get in Ilam sends a message to the Beehive - the recovery isn’t working. We should be debating convention centres and cost-sharing agreements, housing and transport. I’ve done my best to raise these issues - on the doorstep, in the media and through my blog.

But a serious conversation about Christchurch’s debt track, rising rents and EQC inspections isn’t as fun as a debate with Colin Craig and Jamie Whyte, or another expose on the critical issue of Epsom school zoning. With launch of Nicky Hager’s book, this election has launched itself into a surreal orbit. The last two weeks have been consumed by the Prime Minister being asked very specific questions about a book he deliberately hasn’t read.

It’s been a respite from the sideshows - Jamie Whyte, Kim Dotcom, Colin Craig, Winston Peters periodically saying something stupid or controversial and getting a whole lot of attention. One positive about Dirty Politics is that when National emerge from the filth, they may have to resort to “the issues that matter to New Zealanders” - you know, policy and shit.

There are big questions - massive questions - that could be asked of National about their plans for this city. In 2011, they ran on the slogan “Rebuilding Christchurch” (named after my blog, of course) and that was about as detailed as they got. In 2014, it seems to be the same.

There are a number of questions that I think the people of Christchurch deserve to have answered.

What are you going to do to fix EQC, and all the insurance claims that are still outstanding?

Are you going to renegotiate the cost-sharing agreement with the council, or are you going to stick with the plan of forcing the council to pay for things that they can’t afford, like a stadium, whilst compelling them to sell productive council assets?

And, probably most importantly, if re-elected, would a National-led government have Gerry Brownlee as earthquake recovery minister, or would you look to find someone who wants to work collaboratively with people, rather than unilaterally imposing a vision upon them?

Key likes us to believe that he and National are “safe economic managers”. The growth this country has had (outside of Auckland property) has largely been driven by Canterbury - both the dairy boom, and the rebuild.

With the bottom falling out of the milk powder market, there is little Key can do to restart it - he can’t nuke ECan twice. So that leaves the rebuild as the major driver of the country’s growth. You’d think with something that important, we’d be having a serious conversation about it. This is of national importance, yet gets next to no coverage. 

I’m trying my best to raise these issues, and the profile of the campaign. I’m still regularly blogging about it, both at my blog, and occasionally over at the Standard as well.

I’m part of the editorial team of a new book that is launching at the end of the month, explicitly about the rebuild and the Blueprint. I’ve done some slightly left-of-centre things, such as this video, or my twitter avatar, to draw attention in different ways.

But the reality is that the media would prefer a sensational, stupid, or salacious hook rather than a solid campaign. That might be better for attracting eyeballs or advertising, but it doesn’t help when you’ve got a complex, convoluted subject like the rebuild. If the coverage of the contest in Christchurch continues at this trivial level, then it will be the people of this city - left, right, unenrolled, everyone - who will be worse off.

Authorised by James Macbeth Dann, 2/250 St Asaph Street, Christchurch.