McAnulty, Verrall on campaign trail

Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall made what was her second visit in the past six weeks to the region yesterday, visiting – along with Wairarapa MP Kieran McAnulty – the Tararua Health Group in Dannevirke and Dr Kevin Wong’s dental clinic in Masterton.

“The day’s been a mix of understanding some of the issues around service provision in smaller communities and talking through some of the practicalities of how the free dental for under 30s will work,” Verrall told the Times-Age.

This itinerary is an example of how electioneering as an incumbent minister is different from their earlier experiences on the campaign trail, McAnulty said.

“That’s because we’re working as well as campaigning, so while the visit to Dr Wong’s clinic was campaign-related because it’s about something we will do if re-elected, the visit we had further north
was purely ministerial.

“But the fundamentals are exactly the same. I’m a big believer in two ways of campaigning – street corner meetings and door-knocking, which I’ve been doing a lot.

“At the same time, I now have a record to stand on: I’ve been local MP for three years, here’s what I promised, here’s what I delivered, and here’s what I’m going to do.”

One of the key things McAnulty is promising to do if re-elected is “get the funds to have an expanded hospital” because Wairarapa Hospital [the focus of Verrall’s earlier visit] “is no longer fit for purpose, it’s not big enough”, which he reckons adversely affects both ED wait times and the ability to attract staff.

With Verrall chipping in with an assurance that “the Minister is quite sympathetic” to his aim, McAnulty said he’s confident about being able to secure the cash: “Everything I promised in 2020 I’ve delivered on, so back me and I’ll do it.”

For her part, Verrall views the biggest health issue of the election as also coming down to money – specifically what Labour has delighted in calling National’s “$3 billion hole” in its policy costings.

“The issue there is that to get the changes we all want in health will cost money. We’ve increased investment substantially, but there’s so much more to do. And that’s the challenge of their poorly costed tax cuts – health is a big budget, and it’s very hard to find that money without cutting into health [services].”

McAnulty takes the opportunity to compare this with National’s promise to reverse SH2 speed limits, which “probably won’t be able to be delivered”, which he then contrasts with Labour’s dental policy.

“The way we’ve gone about our dental policy is upfront and pragmatic,” he said.

“We want it to be for everyone, but we can’t do that yet because we don’t have the staff. But we’ve got a plan to get there and, in the meantime, we’re going to do the under 30s and over time expand it out.”