Anne Daniels, President
NZNO Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa

In a recent television debate between the “two Chrises”, promises were made regarding nurses. It was reported by RNZ (Newshub leaders’ debate: The new commitments and refusals to rule out | RNZ News) as follows:
Nurses’ pay: Both said they would make pay equal for nurses working at hospitals and GP clinics.

“And we put $200 million in just this year to achieve that but Christopher again is making a whole lot of promises with no money to pay for that,” Hipkins said.
Hipkins also committed to increasing nurses’ pay “when they next go into bargaining, yes of course”.

What concerned me about this debate was what was not said. Firstly, there were mixed messages. The usual line “that there is no money to pay for that” came out. Yes, $200 million was committed, but there was no acknowledgement that Primary Health Care nurse pay has not achieved parity with nurses working in public hospitals. There is a widening gap and no equitable parity for any nurse working outside of Te Whatu Ora, nor any timeline to deliver on the promises made.

New Zealand’s health funding is one of the lowest when compared to similar countries. There is money, just an unwillingness to spend it on the largest female-dominated health workforce that constantly delivers health care in an environment that is severely challenged in terms of safe staffing and high patient acuity.

The next Te Whatu Ora bargaining is set to occur in 2024. While there is a commitment to increase nurses’ pay at this time, once again there is no detail on whether it will be a pay rise over and above inflation and the cost of living. It can be done. Queensland nurses recently succeeded in such a campaign.

Lastly, pay increases are needed to improve recruitment and retention of nurses so safe health care can be delivered by experienced, knowledgeable, skilled and culturally safe nurses, where and when it is needed. This detail was absent. The fact that the lack of nurses, midwives, health care assistants and kaiāwhina is having a detrimental effect on our patients and their families, while adding huge costs in nurse turnover (estimated at over a billion dollars a year) and adverse patient outcomes (more billions), was not mentioned.

Other political parties have made different promises. Some have considered these recruitment and retention issues. Some haven’t. Comparisons of each political party’s promises have been captured by NZNO’s comms and campaigns team in a recently published political party policy scorecard and an NZNO Webinar involving Labour, National, the Greens and Te Pati Māori party health spokespeople, including Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall.

Every member, everywhere, all 60,000 of us, have a collective responsibility to vote. Our NZNO staff are supporting this vote with information that can be used to understand the difference between political parties’ positions regarding the health and wellbeing of our members.

Not voting is the loss of a real opportunity to influence the outcome of the health and wellbeing of our nation. And our power to influence is very real as we represent, at a minimum, one person for every 90 people in New Zealand, and that is not counting the influence we have with our whānau, friends and colleagues.

Nurses are respected and valued by those we care for. Vote for those who support out Maranga Mai! five fixes. Our voice counts more than it ever has and is being noted in the halls of power.

Use your voice. Vote.