What's funny is....
.....New Zealand is running a massive budget surplus right now (around 5% of GDP, similar to the US having a US$550b surplus), and a left-wing "people's government" of high-taxing, big-spending chardonnay socialists are running the show. (The highest income tax is 39% on incomes over US$44,000, with a national 12.5% good and sales tax on virtually everything, including all food and medicines.)
So, we have a government that campaigned partially on a platform of properly funding "social services" still letting people die on surgical waiting lists and closing hospitals after six years in power and the biggest budget surpluses in history. Maybe it's the funding model and not the funding level that's the problem.
(Ex-pat Kiwi)