Attack on Health Minister

Press, 14 May 1982, Page 3

Attack on Health Minister

PA , Wellington The Minister of Health (Mr Malcolm) was a "loud, noisy, bombastic and spectacular crasher, the evil Kneivel of the National Party Cabinet,” Labour's spokesman on health, Mrs Ann Hercus, told the conference. »

She accused Mr Malcolm of leaving “a trail of devastation" in the Health portfolio in just a few months.

Mr Malcolm was also attacked by Labour's health committee chairman. Dr M. E. R. Bassett, who dubbed him a “sycophant” who with the Government's 3 per cent spending cuts had “touched every part of the body except the private parts.”

Mrs Hercus said Mr Malcolm, “a walking casualty outpost all by himself,” was presiding over a system

which was subsidising private hospitals at the expense of public ones. The fundamental principle of the health system over the last 45 years had been access on the basis of need and not on the ability to pay, she said.

Mrs Hercus said the health vote had risen recently a little faster than some other areas of Government expenditure. “But so, too. has Government expenditure on support for private enterprise, in the form of export incentives, S.M.P.s, and a whole raft of grants, loans, and subsidies,” she said.

Mrs Hercus agreed there was a place for private enterprise in the health system, as choice was important.

“But I am arguing that there is no place for massive and increasing State subsidy

of private enterprise at the expense of public health care,” she said. The conference voted for reforms to the health system.' Delegates urged that tax deduction of health insurance premiums be stopped by a future Labour government to “curb the increasing drain the private sector is making on public health sector finance.”

It called for free contraceptives, including tubal ligation and vasectomies, under the health system but deleted a call for free tampons after Mrs Hercus told the conference it would cost almost ?13 million a year to provide tampons. for all women between the ages of 15 and 55. Taxes on alcohol and tobacco advertising should be used to fund education programmes against drink and drugs, the conference also asked.