The COVID Royal Commission has landed, and it confirms what many New Zealanders suspected. 🧵 While the initial response was balanced, with Kiwis coming together to keep others safe, as the pandemic went on, restrictions continued longer than public health advice recommended, and the economic costs weren’t given enough weight.

The recent cyber security breach involving ManageMyHealth is very concerning for patients and families who rely on this service.

Protecting patient data and privacy is a critical priority. 🧵 That’s why I’ve asked the Ministry of Health to lead an independent review into what happened, the adequacy of the data protections that were in place, how the response was handled, and what needs to change to prevent anything like this happening again.

Cabinet has agreed to restrict the prescribing of puberty blockers for patients seeking treatment for gender dysphoria or incongruence.

Let me explain the approach Cabinet has taken. 🧵 When it comes to children's health, clinical evidence must guide decisions to ensure any medicine given to young Kiwis is proven, safe and effective.

My expectation is that Health NZ should focus on its core job of providing timely, quality healthcare for all, not distracting itself by advocating against fast food outlets, or telling councils they should ban community groups from fundraising with raffle tickets. 🧵 Health NZ has been making submissions on issues that are far removed from their focus of delivering timely and quality access to healthcare, and it’s time it stopped. Here are just some examples.

#REVEALED Transport Minister Michael Wood has used the $350m ‘Transport Choices’ programme for blatant pork barrel politics.

The Minister wrote to his own MP’s asking them to pitch projects directly to him prior to Councils being able to l place an expression of interest. Not only were his own MP’s given a heads up and asked to pitch projects directly to the Minister, but final decisions on the fund were then signed off by Ministers Wood and Robertson.