This talk about how the abolition of DHBs will lead to the elimination of "postcode lotteries" is so naive it makes me want to cry.

Our neoliberal bureaucracy's idea of reducing inequity is not to ensure everyone gets what they need: it's to ensure everyone comes up equally short of what they need.

Targeted funding for disabled students in school is a real-world example of how that works under a centralised model. It's based on a competition system that is supposed to identify the 1% of 'neediest' students. Then it undergoes something called 'moderation'.

Moderation is based on the presumption that every area of the country should have the same relative number of disabled students. So if a particular region identified more of them, their funding per student gets reduced.

So: without social guarantees that needs will be met, as opposed to approximated, people will still experience the same kind of health care, just on a more uniform basis. Call it homogeneised inequity.

Centralise, by all means, I'm all for it. But unless you also commit to aggressively increase funding and establish stricter duties of care, you're just shuffling chairs.