Labour MP Dan Rosewarne has accused National of importing a culture war, in a heated exchange with Ilam MP Hamish Campbell over co-governance, Māori health programmes and race-based funding.

The two MPs appeared together on Chris Lynch Media, where the discussion over Treaty partnership arrangements broke down into interruptions.

Rosewarne, a Labour list MP based in Waimakariri, said working with Māori was justified where it delivered better outcomes and met the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty. Emergency management and health were areas where it had worked, he said, and arrangements that did not make sense should not go ahead.

Campbell said the principle should be one rule for everybody and one vote for one person.

“This is not a radical idea. Sure, we got groups in society that need extra support and different things. Let’s deal with that. We don’t need co-governance,” Campbell said.

He pointed to Three Waters and the Natural and Built Environments Act as examples of what he described as separate bureaucracy under the previous government, and said an extra layer of administration would not improve Māori health.

The number of Māori students leaving school without a qualification climbed to nearly 25 percent under Labour and had since come down, Campbell said.

“That is what I think honouring the treaty actually means, making sure that we can deliver for all New Zealanders.”

Asked whether those figures suggested National had been on the right track without co-governance, Rosewarne did not address the education numbers.

“What concerns me in all of this is when politicians try and turn those partnerships into some kind of imported culture war,” he said. “I am getting quite tired of MPs trying to put different groups of Kiwis up against each other.”

Campbell interjected to say that was exactly what Rosewarne was doing by raising co-governance.

“This is not the New Zealand way. It’s not the New Zealand I served in Afghanistan for,” Rosewarne said. “And I find it offensive when opportunist politicians try and undermine the social cohesion of our nation like that.”

Campbell said childhood vaccination rates for Māori had risen sharply under the current government, and that National had settled more Treaty claims than Labour.

“But we don’t separate people on race. We don’t have a separate governance structure because you’re one ethnicity or the other.”

Rosewarne said social cohesion meant tolerance, equitable outcomes and fair representation. The evidence showed Māori and Pacific people had different health needs to other ethnicities, and the system should be responsive to that.

Labour has confirmed it will not reinstate the Māori Health Authority, which the current government disestablished. Asked whether that suggested the authority had been doomed from the start, Rosewarne pointed to Labour’s Māori campaign launch last week and said further announcements would come closer to the election.

Campbell raised Pharmac’s previous funding of a diabetes medicine for Māori and Pacific patients but not others.

“You can’t tell me that non-Māori actually wouldn’t benefit from that drug as well. Yes, Māori do have a high prevalence of diabetes. Yes, we need to address that, but we don’t do it by separating people into ethnic groups, blocking access to a medication.”

Rosewarne rejected the suggestion that Labour separated New Zealanders by ethnicity, saying the party targeted assistance where it was needed. Campbell pressed him on how that squared with the Māori Health Authority, which he described as a separate governance structure.

There had been a concern that Māori health was declining, Rosewarne said.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. And I think that this race baiting is plain wrong, Hamish.”

Campbell rejected the characterisation.

“It is not race baiting. We’re actually delivering better health outcomes for Māori than the Labour Party did, and we’re not setting up a separate bureaucracy.”

Graduate nurses

The MPs also split over Labour’s promise of a job in the public health system for every eligible New Zealand-trained graduate nurse.

Campbell said Labour’s claim that only 54 nurses had been employed was cherry picking, and that more than 2,000 additional nurses had been employed since September 2023. Health New Zealand recorded its highest ever number of nurses last year, he said.

Labour’s policy would increase nurse numbers by about 300 over the next couple of years at a cost of about $523 million, working out at roughly $1.5 million per nurse, Campbell said. That money would come out of business as usual funding allocated for population growth.

“Where are you going to pay for your cancer treatments? Where are you going to pay for your elective surgeries if you take out that funding for this policy?”

Campbell said the better focus was on capacity, including an extra 96 beds in Tower Three at Christchurch Hospital to improve patient flow and take pressure off the emergency department.

Rosewarne said graduate nurses would need to go into all areas of the health system, including aged care, and compared the policy to training pathways in other public services.

“You join the defence force. You’re not expected to complete your training and then go hunting for a job afterwards. The same principle applies for police with police college, corrections, customs, and there’s others.”

Spending public money training nurses, telling them there was a shortage and then leaving graduates struggling to find a position was wasteful for taxpayers and did not help patients, he said.

“The logical step is to make sure that those graduates can actually get into the workforce and contribute to the health system that they’ve trained for, rather than waving them off to Australia.”

Campbell said the point about aged care was valid, because Health New Zealand did not employ nurses working in GP clinics or aged care facilities.

On the proposed Rangiora urgent care centre, Rosewarne said the project had been promised since he first stood as a candidate in 2017 and was still not further ahead. His understanding was that it would not run 24 hours and would not offer the range of services originally planned.

March 15 memorial

Both MPs said the families of the victims of the March 15 mosque attacks should lead decisions on the national memorial.

Campbell said the Erebus memorial was an example of a process getting ahead of what families wanted, and that the March 15 memorial should be in an accessible location.

Rosewarne said it was not his place to tell Christchurch or the families where the memorial should go. He recalled the care taken by police, hospital staff and government agencies to respect Islamic customs in the days after the attacks.

“I’d like to see that same spirit carried through into the memorial itself. So whatever form it takes and wherever it ends up, it should be something that honours the victims and reflects the Muslim community’s perspective, and also helps future generations remember the way New Zealand came together in that response.”