By John O'Neill

We are in election mode again and every medium is brimming with allegations that the public health system of New Zealand is collapsing or growing cancerously, underfunded or extravagant, bureaucratic or freewheeling - out of control. The opposition seeking to be government and the frustrated ideologues of privatisation come together in a frenzy of criticism. In order to generate what can pass for rational argument they trawl the statistics with a net so fine that that nothing escapes, however trivial. Having hauled all this material on board they throw back that which is excellent or good or even mediocre leaving the dregs from which they hope to ferment a storm.

Unfortunately we have become so accustomed to the game that we allow it to proceed without protest even though we know that, taken seriously, it would be to our serious disadvantage. It is time to tell the real story from our own experience and show those who would rob us of a treasure that we are awake to their sabotage.

It is 8.30 am on July 8, 2005. My wife and I wait, nervously holding hands, in one of several adjacent examination rooms for doctors to arrive. We had come a long way since June 18 when Eileen went rather casually to her Whangarei GP with a bothersome mouth ulcer. He took one look and sent her to an ear/nose/throat specialist for urgent attention. She was re-examined within two hours and a diagnosis of probable cancer confirmed. Biopsies were taken for pathology and we were offered the choice of free CT scan within two weeks or private CT scan within two days. We opted for the fast-track and slid seamlessly out to the private health service and then back to the public. Meanwhile we had been booked into Auckland Hospital for expert assessment.

My wife and I wait, nervously holding hands, in one of several adjacent examination rooms for doctors to arrive. From 8.30 to 12.30 on the day of the clinic we saw waves of experts from various disciplines, surgeons, radiotherapists, dentists, nurses, physios, speech therapists and others. Up to 30 people of many nationalities all came and saw and said little. We were released for lunch while they all got together and brainstormed the problem. Back to work and the surgeons sat us down and made their recommendations, asked for our agreement, dashed off to make arrangements and booked us for surgery on 18 July, ten days later. The pre-operative tests were all done there and then and a social worker came to assist with financial and support information. She then booked us into Domain Lodge for the two weeks of the procedure, jointly funded by Government and the Cancer Society. Further transport assistance was offered because of the distance we had to travel plus one adequate meal per day for the support person - me.

What a day that was! I thought then and am more convinced now that such comprehensive intervention would cost tens of thousands of dollars, even if it were available in a private insurance system. One would need to be the Pope or the President in any other country to even approximate the quality of service given freely to persons of many years and very few dollars and absolutely zero influence.

We presented on the day. The major surgery was done and 12 hours later, Eileen was in the critical care unit with one-on-one monitoring and nursing. Back to the surgery ward (a single room) on the following day and we were set on the rehabilitation and recuperation phase in modern, pleasant surroundings.

Okay, no TV provided. What a shame!

In the papers I read garbage almost daily which completely negates our experience. One says we in NZ have not mastered the knowledge economy and therefore cannot afford to provide the health services of richer countries such as Ireland. My extended family in that fortunate country hooted when I mentioned this. They simply could not believe the speed and efficiency with which we were moved through a complex process or the quality of care available to us. One can only assume that the purveyor of that opinion was ill-informed on both countries.

The plain fact is that our public health service walks on two legs, finance and commitment. We must understand that our taxes are our best insurance and private schemes are woefully deficient despite multiplying premium costs to the old and needy. Anyone who stands for office on the promise to assist private providers while cutting taxes is a destroyer of a system that has taken many decades to build.

Unfortunately we have short memories. All this should not have been a revelation to me. When our daughter was fighting pancreatic cancer two years ago we had not yet been squeezed out of health insurance by rising premiums. We felt vindicated in our support of the health provider over many years - until push came to shove and the best private hospital available flicked us over to the public system after one attempt at a palliative procedure.

Auckland Hospital persisted and restored some quality of life to her after no less than three attempts. It’s called commitment and it cannot coexist with the bottom line.

So, this year as in every election year, we are asked again to separate fact from fallacy and examine carefully the offers of saving a few dollars in taxes while “taking the fat” out of the health system which, in our experiences, is lean but never mean. It proves its efficiency daily and is the envy of the world.

I spent a couple of hours driving from Auckland to Whangarei last Friday towards the end of a whistle-stop visit home. I’d been paying close attention to the various party billboards over the week and on balance had already given the billboard battle to Labour – despite early missteps.

I know a lot of bloggers got off on the National billboard campaign, contributing new ideas and such, and they also got the thumbs up from AUT lecturer Dave Bibby. But, at the risk of being a lone dissenter, as I was heading north I became more and more convinced their entire approach is misconceived.

Both major parties are using attack ads. There aren’t any punches being pulled on either side. However, one side, Labour, barely even acknowledges the other as a valid alternative while National has devoted half of each of its billboards to advertising its competition.

The National billboards not only sign over half of their space to Labour branding, they also carry a picture of Helen Clark. At first this seemed reasonable – if you are going to attack you have to show who you are attacking. But more and more as the miles (sorry, kilometres) slipped away it began to dawn on me how wrong this was.

In the first few days of a campaign people read the billboards but pretty soon they become background noise. When you are driving, they are always background noise. I had to keep reminding myself whose ads the National billboards were. Who were they advertising again?

The Labour billboards are not universally good. Some are effective and some aren’t. But what they do have in common is not conceding one inch (sorry, centimetre) of space to advertising National. No National colour, no picture of Don Brash. You are never in any doubt whose ads they are with each ending with the simple message: “You are better off with Labour”.

When I arrived in Whangarei the Northern Advocate was talking about Helen Clark’s recent visit. It was just after she appeared to have claimed the initiative by promising zero per cent student loans. Up north she was promising more surprises.

I have to say, too, that I heard the phrase “transformation leadership” being applied to Don Brash while I was over there. That would be fair enough, if he did more than promise tax cuts. There’s nothing very transformational about promising tax cuts when that’s exactly what everybody expects from both him and from National.

It’s more of the same.

For now, the parties are pretty much neck and neck. There’s a lot of policy yet to come and a long way to go in the campaign. But so far National has been predictable. They need to start surprising.

You know you are back in New Zealand when there are bombs going off all around the world and The New Zealand Herald's editorial is about the colour of the paving in Vulcan Lane.

I flew in on Saturday having read The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian on the plane, and picked up the local paper when I landed. There was a big wrap-around section on the London bombings, but the editorial, well, you know ...

The poor leader writer did his or her best to instill the story with the kind of significance it needed in such a week. It was not just about paving stones, but a "wider malaise", said the Herald. Hell, the issue was comparable to recent events in the European Union!

"As in the case of the European referendum, the politicians and their bureaucratic servants (or is that the other way round?) were convinced that they had done their best to bring their constituents onside. The uproar shows how wrong they were and whether Vulcan Lane stays vaguely pink or goes blue, that lesson ought to be learned."

Indeed.

On Monday the paper carried a far more interesting piece, from The Observer, titled "Give the crime its true name" by Nick Cohen. This piece (which is better in the original) like many recent blog posts, picked up the latest BBC-beating meme about how the broadcaster refused to use the word "terrorist" in relation to the London bombers.

The BBC has a policy which, strangely, requires reporters to use words which specifically describe the perpetrators of a crime. So "terrorist" is out and "bomber" is in. Cohen, in a complex argument that I am not doing justice here, describes this as "castrated language".

Accuracy is of course something reporters strive for. It's really quite an important concept in what they do. I was taught, for instance, that you never use constructions such as "Mr XXX believes ..." Why? Because nobody knows what Mr XXX believes except Mr XXX. All a reporter knows is what Mr XXX says. If he doesn't say it, you can't report it.

You can report what he says, what he does, and what others say about him, but you can't report what he believes.

What has that got to do with the "T" word?

Well, you may know someone has set off a bomb, and is therefore a bomber, but to know they are a terrorist, you have to know why they set off the bomb. Considering the bomber's brain is splattered all over a train or a bus this can be hard to ascertain, no matter how obvious it may seem on face value.

When you abandon such tried and true principles you can get some very odd results. Take the headline I read while flying in in The Australian: "Five police bullets end it all for train bomber who tried again".

That "train bomber who tried again" turned out to be a Brazilian electrician. Much more BBC, and more accurate as it turned out, was The Sydney Morning Herald's "Bomb suspect shot dead on London tube".

Were the people who killed over 50 people in the underground terrorists? Certainly. Should reporters eagerly throw the "T" word around? Should they ascribe motives to people rather than accurately report their actions? Should they assume guilt on the basis of statements from those in authority?

Certainly not.

I wandered up Durham Lane today and saw the blue paving stones proposed for Vulcan Lane. For what it's worth, Auckland, they look okay to me.

(Disclosure: Rob O'Neill works for The Sydney Morning Herald)