Deputy leaders clash on health as emergency departments face sustained pressure
Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni and National deputy leader Nicola Willis clashed over health policy on RNZ Morning Report on 15 September.
The debate followed new reports of pressure in emergency departments. Health Minister Simeon Brown said on Wednesday morning the system was under significant pressure, according to RNZ. Staff at Tauranga Hospital ED said it had run at up to 200 percent capacity without enough staff. Staff at North Shore Hospital ED reported ongoing understaffing, with some patients waiting 50 hours. Wellington Hospital closed part of a corridor this week to fit in extra beds as patient numbers rose.
Sepuloni said the pressure came from funding and access to primary care — the GPs, clinics and nurses people see first, before hospital. She said government health funding had not kept up with inflation and real costs. Labour has promised three free GP visits, free prescriptions, free maternity scans and free cervical screening, plus a loan scheme for family doctors and a jobs guarantee for new graduate nurses. Sepuloni said the free GP visits would keep people out of EDs and ease pressure on hospitals.
Willis defended the Government's record and said the strain came from decisions by the previous Labour government. National has not yet announced its 2026 health policy, but in 2023 it promised to bring back health targets, set goals for waits and treatment that hospitals must report against. Willis said the targets Labour scrapped had improved child immunisations and ED wait times. She blamed Labour for what she described as a badly handled restructure of the health system, for removing the targets and for leaving a funding gap for Pharmac, the agency that buys medicines.
On staff and spending, Willis said 2,300 extra nurses would be in hospitals by the end of the year. She said nurse turnover, the share leaving their jobs each year, had fallen from almost 12 percent under Labour to 8.4 percent. She said the Government had added multi-billion-dollar increases in each Budget, with extra money for Pharmac, work on 24/7 clinics and a new medical school at Waikato, according to RNZ.
Willis and Sepuloni have debated in this slot before. They have appeared together for Morning Report's weekly political panel, a regular deputy-leader interview RNZ formalised last year.
The broader context here is an election-year argument about who is responsible for health problems. Labour is pointing to GP costs and early care as a way to lower ED demand, with a focus on cost barriers, GP numbers and early treatment. National is pointing to targets, central management and staff numbers as the fix for the Health NZ restructure, with a focus on patient flow, staff retention and Budget baselines. For people who follow Parliament closely, the timing matters. Labour has put a costed primary-care plan out early. National's 2026 health policy is still to come. Until then, ministers will be asked to defend ED results against their own targets while saying the system is still adjusting to structural change.
Looking ahead, the test is concrete. The Government points to nurse numbers by December, turnover rates and target results for immunisations and ED waits. Labour points to funding growth after inflation, GP fees and jobs for graduate nurses. Both sets of numbers can be checked against Health NZ data, Budget papers and quarterly target updates. The Morning Report debate set out those measures plainly. Staff working in the system will compare the winter ED figures against them.
