Delamere Scorns Clark's Scaremongering
Associate Minister of HealthAssociate Health Minister, Hon Tuariki Delamere, said today Labour leader, Helen Clark, had yet again demonstrated her lack of understanding of the country's health system.
"This woman who claims to be able to run the country is now resorting to distributing officials' suggestions on health funding that she knows are not Government policy. She is well aware from her own time as a Minister that officials suggest all sorts of things, but it is not they, but the Government, that makes policy.
"Despite that, she is happy to rouse unjustified public fear about the health system, purely for her own political advantage.
"That is not the action of a responsible leader - rather it is characteristic of a politician who has no policy, yet remains greedy for a headline, regardless of the fear she may promote in the public mind.
"The Minister of Health, Bill English, and the chief executive of the Transitional Health Authority, Phil Pryke, have both corrected Ms Clark's erroneous claims that free health care for under-sixes and other health services are under threat. Regrettably, sections of the media appear to have ignored the facts in favour of giving Ms Clark a sensational headline.
"In order to restore balance to the health debate, it would be helpful if the media reported that Ms Clark was the Minister of Health in the last Labour Government that oversaw the closure of many hospitals and dramatically under-funded health services for years - a crippling of the health system that the Coalition Government is only now managing to overcome.
"Ms Clark, through her actions, has shown she is not fit to run a raffle, let alone the country," Mr Delamere concluded.