The S-Files

All Hail the Plan

Contra Celsum is compelled to nominate Dr Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Immigration for an S-Award, Class II.

The S-Award expert on our editorial staff acknowledges that there has been little of late to warrant S-Awards being given. However, Dr Coleman's recent grand contribution to civic society cannot be ignored.

Citation:

The situation is this: the Immigration Department is getting tough on tourists who happen to be pregnant and who stay on in New Zealand to have their babies. We in this country are long familiar with international bludgery where non-residents ride into town and straight to the publicly funded hospital to secure "free" treatment--that is, treatment funded by long suffering tax payers.

We applaud all efforts to stamp this nefarious practice out. We would also like eventually to get rid of the "public" health system entirely, but that it another matter. In the meantime we are stuck with it so we consider it a worthy enterprise to exterminate the rorts in the system, wherever they may be found.

But suddenly Dr Coleman has moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. He is showing that he has lost whatever modicum of common sense the man may have had and he is now valiantly fighting windmills. Why? What would persuade the normally urbane Dr Coleman to engage in such errant stupidity? It is the Plan. The bureaucratic rationing Plan. This is statist thinking at its finest--exquisitely Stalinesque.

In its most recent budget the Government pronounced maternity services to be stretched (no pun intended) and poorly resourced. The Plan awarded extra state rations. But the working hypothesis is that there was not enough plant, equipment, and staff to help birth the next generation.

Well, said the Planners at the Immigration Department. If that's the way the wind is blowing, we will trim our sails to catch the fair wind. If anyone is here on a tourist visa, and falls pregnant, they must immediately be despatched back whence they came. Why? Because they cannot have their baby here. Maternity services are stretched and resources must be rationed. The Plan operates in an elegant, pristine, finite, zero-sum world. If a tourist gets maternity care, that is one less New Zealand mother that will get care.

Ah, we just love the Plan. It is so rational. So clear. So elegantly consistent. So precise. All of the above. But it is also stupid and asinine with the engineering elegance of a clunking Skoda.

The NZ Herald carries the case of a Lithuanian mum-to-be. At this point in the citation we must enter a disclaimer. We are assuming the Herald's report is accurate and complete in its details. We are taking it at face value--and, yes, we acknowledge that this is a generous assumption.

Nevertheless, we are told that a Lithuanian lady came here with her spouse to visit relatives when she was three months pregnant. Complications arose, discovered during a routine check, which have meant that she has been confined to bed. Medical staff have said that it would be dangerous to travel, putting both her and her baby's lives at risk.

Enter the Great White Charger, upon which is mounted Dr Coleman. He splendidly sits astride the Plan and revokes the lady's visa, requiring her to travel back to Lithuania. The Herald reports:

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman said yesterday that New Zealand "simply does not have the healthcare resources to offer maternity services to visitors" even if they were prepared to pay.

What! Is this woman and her spouse prepared to pay? Well, yes, they have medical insurance and can meet all costs. So, who says then that NZ has insufficient maternity resources to take care of this woman and her child? The Plan. And the Plan is holy and inviolate.

Now, even the most obtuse amongst us would reason as follows. Health care is a scarce resource--like most other things in this world (except stupidity which appears to be without limit, at least in certain quarters.) Cost, fees, and prices are an effective rationing mechanism. Our Lithuanian guest can purchase maternity health care. There are apparently medical personnel who are willing to sell their services to care for her and her child. Therefore, by definition, there is no shortage of maternity care for this woman, in this country.

Ah, but the Plan says there is. And the Plan is never wrong. All hail the Great Stalinesque Plan. One presumes this was a Five Year version, this Great Plan?

What have we come to as a society when a needy woman is refused medical care, and forced to fly home at risk to her life and that of her unborn child, because a Plan says so? Despite her being able to pay for the care--so there is not even a grumbling taxpayer to assuage.

Where is bright, bubbly, preppy John Key when you need him? Come on John. Think outside the square. You know how state schools have been funded for years by overseas students--reducing the cost to the taxpayer. Education is now one of our great exports. Why not announce that your solution to the shortage of resources in maternity care is to encourage all pregnant ladies who so desire to come to New Zealand to have their babies--provided they come with their maternity care fully funded in advance (whether through insurance or cash).

Turn maternity services into a growth export industry. We confidently promise you that within a very short time we will have no shortage of resources in the maternity sector in this country, and costs to the taxpayer will have prodigiously fallen.

Ronald Reagan famously stood at the East German border and said, "Mr Gorbachev, tear the wall down!" We say to the Minister of Immigration, Dr Coleman, tear up the Plan. It is a pernicious nonsense that leads to the absurd. Send the stupid bureaucrats who wrote the Plan on gardening leave, pruning the roses outside of maternity wards. Get a grip and stop being so stupid.

Dr Jonathan Coleman, NZ Minister of Immigration: S-Award, Class II, for actions in the public square that have been Stupid, Short Sighted and Supercilious.

Stop Press: Dr Jonathan Coleman has changed his mind. In a volte face, the papers are now reporting:

Immigration New Zealand has offered a heavily pregnant Lithuanian tourist a permit to stay in the country to give birth because of risks to her and her baby's health. . . .

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman this afternoon said Immigration New Zealand's decision to decline Mrs Skiauteris a visa was "a poor one".

"I believe that declining the permit was a poor decision by the department. I am pleased that common sense has prevailed and that the woman has now been issued a permit allowing her to stay in New Zealand," he said.

Dr Coleman said a report by the Auditor-General had found an unacceptable variation in the quality of decision making between branches and that "substantial improvements" must be made.

In the light of the retraction, Contra Celsum withdraws the S-Award Class II from Dr Coleman, and replaces it with an S-Award Class I for actions in the public square that have been Smart, Sound and Salutary--in the end. But as our parents taught us, it's all well that ends well.