You can watch my debate here: youtube.com/watch?v=9w8lBX61…

Just last week I fronted up to RNZ to debate Labour’s health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall, head to head and on the record. I’d encourage everyone to have a listen, because the contrast could not be clearer. In that debate she conceded that Labour would keep National’s health targets. Finally, an admission that they are working. Today Chris Hipkins has torn up that promise. This is the same Chris Hipkins who, as Health Minister and then Prime Minister, oversaw exploding waiting times, worsening emergency department performance, and a serious decline in childhood immunisation. Now he wants to scrap the very targets fixing the mess he left behind, targets his own health spokesperson committed to keeping only days ago. In that debate, I stood behind the progress we’ve made as a country over the past three years in our healthcare system, while acknowledging there’s more work to do. Chris Hipkins should be far less comfortable defending his record, and clearly he knows it. That’s why he’s so desperate to distract from Labour and their mates' nine new taxes, which Kiwis are rightly concerned about. New Zealanders remember the mess he left behind, and no amount of spin will convince them he’s the one to fix it. Perhaps he missed the debate. He should go back and watch it.