We made the front page. And unfortunately, the reason why is pretty grim.

Today’s The Post leads with new reporting from Andrea Vance showing the Government’s $95 million-a-year boost for general practice is being funded by a corresponding reduction in the budget for hospital and specialist services.

Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show that from 2026/27, $95 million is being shifted out of hospital and specialist services and into primary and community care.

Health economist Bill Rosenberg, of Kaitiaki Hauora, told The Post the arrangement amounted to “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

And that’s exactly the problem.

Primary care desperately needs more funding. Nobody disputes that. But taking money from hospitals already struggling with workforce shortages, overflowing emergency departments, delayed treatment and enormous unmet need is not an investment in healthcare.

It is moving the same inadequate pot of money around.

This is why we repeatedly, and somewhat exasperatingly, call on the Government to properly fund our public health system to meet the needs of everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand. Shuffling inadequate funding from one desperately stretched part of the system to another is not properly funding healthcare.

The Government has repeatedly promoted its GP funding boost as evidence of increased investment in healthcare. But if that investment comes at the expense of another part of an already stretched public health system, New Zealanders deserve to know.

Our health system needs enough funding to meet the needs of the whole population. Hospitals and general practice should not have to compete with each other for it.

Read Andrea Vance’s full front-page investigation in The Post.