Watch and learn Christopher Luxon.
Readers if you do nothing else watch the 7.42 video of David Seymour in action. If for no other reason than it has taken me all morning to get it acceptable for this post.
Here is a link in case the video does not play in the actual post. – it does on the link..
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360620860/its-censorship-public-health-leaders-slam-trumpian-edict
‘It’s censorship’: Public health leaders slam ‘Trumpian’ edict
March 20, 2025 •03:26pm
Play Video
7:42
Seymour backs Brown, slams ‘hectoring’ public health officials
Public health leaders say the Government’s insistence on vetting advice from senior public health doctors is unprecedented and deeply concerning.
But Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has hit back at concerns, saying he’s “cheering on Simeon [Brown] putting those muppets back in their box”. In doing so, Seymour indicated the vetting directive had come directly from the health minister’s office.
During a meeting on Tuesday, medical officers of health were told they would need “national level” approval before making public statements about health concerns.
Why doctors fear they’ll no longer be able to speak freely.
Health Minister Simeon Brown then doubled down on the edict, saying it was justified given he didn’t want public health doctors making submissions about “fast food restaurants” or “leading advocacy campaigns”.
His comments, and the directive from National Public Health Service director Dr Nick Chamberlain, have faced backlash from public health experts.
Seymour then suggested public health experts had failed to focus on infectious disease, saying they’d been unprepared for the arrival of Covid-19.
“We’ve had far too much hectoring and lecturing about our private health choices, by people who are supposed to be focused on public health,” Seymour said, during a press conference on Thursday.
Who said what
Sir Collin Tukuitonga, a University of Auckland professor and former national director of public health, said it was “unheard of” to see such ministerial and bureaucratic interference in day-to-day public health work.
“It’s a very Trumpian approach, with Government dictating to various agencies what they can and can’t say. It’s absolutely ridiculous. We must push back on this stuff. It is unacceptable in Aotearoa and I hope the public see it for what it is,” Tukuitonga said.
He said he saw it as “censorship”.
“They’re being told they can’t do their jobs and they have to refer to ministerial officers for approval. I mean, it’s ridiculous. They’re being censored,” he said.
He said medical officers of health, who were doctors specialised in public health, shouldn’t face vetting processes that no other speciality was subjected to.
“It is unheard of. It is like telling a surgeon, ‘you can’t operate on that patient. You have to operate on this instead’. You have to trust people’s professional judgement,” he said.
Professor Michael Baker, a University of Otago public health expert, said it was crucial for medical officers of health to have the ability to speak on issues impacting health across the country.
“The importance of that has been recognised for decades,” he said.
“Having to go through a centralised vetting process, which will be risk averse and potentially politicised, will ultimately reduce the ability of our system to respond to public health issues,” he said.
He said it had been common for medical officers of health, who were based around the country, to be involved in a variety of issues. He said it was important that the nationalised public health service, through Te Whatu Ora, was used only to improve the quality of advice – not to limit the advice medical officers of health may choose to give.
Sarah Dalton, the executive director of the senior doctors union, ASMS, said providing public health advice about fast food was entirely legitimate.
She said it was important, for the nation’s health, that public health doctors were able to raise these evidence-based concerns about diets, the built environment, alcohol and tobacco.
“The idea that clinicians are silenced at the whim of a politician would be a really grim day, I think, for our country,” she said.
She said that doctors, in the the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) collective contracts, had a contractual right to be able to speak freely and publicly to share their expertise.
The minister’s argument
Health Minister Simeon Brown said he supported the directive from Chamberlain, which was communicated during Tuesday’s meeting.
“The Government expects timely, quality health service, not for Health NZ to be making submissions about McDonald’s up and down the country. We want them to be a health service not health police,” he said.
He said the submission against the Wānaka McDonald’s was a clear example of advice medical officers of health should not be issuing.
“To be making submissions opposed to McDonald’s shops and getting involved in public policy matters is not their role. We have been very clear about what their role should be and shouldn’t be,” he said.
No Minister 
Surely they got used to that in 2020-21, and even since then?:
In case these people haven’t noticed the distrust in “The Experts” is based on the simple fact that much of what the recommended has turned out to be wrong, as some other medical experts said at the time.
Meanwhile….“Trumpian”?
Pfft. The go-to insult and attempt to destroy an argument without actually making an argument by simply associating it with …. TRUUUUMMMMPPPPPP.
During the now famous Pierre Poilievre “Apple” interview that was one of the gambits the POS reporter tried and Poilievre simply countered by asking the twat what he meant by it? Naturally he couldn’t explain.
Any stance that baker offers, demands an automatic opposite view.