In Brief: Are New Zealand hospitals being deliberately understaffed?
Doctors and nurses are sounding the alarm about chronic understaffing in New Zealand's public hospitals, with growing waiting lists and patients missing out on essential care. Is this simply the result of years of underfunding, or is the government deliberately keeping hospital positions vacant to save money?
In this episode of In Brief, Ollie Neas speaks with Grace Millar, lead author of the Public Service Association's Vacant by Design report. They discuss how New Zealand's health system reached breaking point, the evidence that government-imposed recruitment restrictions have left essential positions unfilled, and what Health Minister Simeon Brown knew about the consequences.
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23 Oct 2026
Undercurrents: Can Te Tiriti help us build a different economy? | Part 2
Can Māori economic sovereignty be meaningfully realised within capitalism? Or does honouring Te Tiriti require us to rethink the foundations of our economic system?
In part two of this two-part episode of Undercurrents, Ollie Neas, Jane Kelsey and Matthew Scobie explore the contradictions between the recognition of Treaty rights and the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, the opportunities and constraints created by Treaty settlements, and whether the struggle for Māori sovereignty could help build a different economic future.
Help us keep producing independent, in-depth journalism about politics and power in Aotearoa. Subscribe at https://www.publicinterest.nz (https://www.publicinterest.nz)
23 Oct 2026
Undercurrents: Can Te Tiriti help us build a different economy? | Part 1
What does capitalism have to do with the colonisation of Aotearoa? And what did Te Tiriti promise Māori in terms of economic sovereignty?
In part one of this two-part episode of Undercurrents, Ollie Neas is joined by Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey and University of Canterbury academic Matthew Scobie to explore the capitalist origins of New Zealand's colonisation. They discuss how Māori economies operated before European settlement, the role of British investors and the Crown in colonisation, and how the dispossession of Māori land and resources laid the foundations of the economy we have today.
Help us keep producing independent, in-depth journalism about politics and power in Aotearoa. Subscribe at https://www.publicinterest.nz (https://www.publicinterest.nz)
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