Trust Us, Luxon Said

National prioritises landlords, tax cuts, and roads over Dunedin's promised hospital.

Just a little something for the pain
Hospital food getting you down?
Honey now I'm not one to complain
But this hangin' around
Is wearing me out

Song by David Gray.

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Yesterday, Dr Shane Reti, the Minister of Health, and Chris Bishop, the duty Minister for looking sad, sincere and determined, announced that Dunedin’s promised new hospital would cost too much money, and they couldn’t afford it anymore.

“Sorry, chaps, tough times and all that, still, you’re a hardy bunch down here, eh, and it’s all about getting Back on Track.”

This was undoubtedly a bitter message for the local community to hear, especially the medical professionals who need this facility to deliver healthcare. But the message was clear:

The new hospital will cost $3 billion, which, to be fair, is an awful lot of money. With the cupboard bare after Old Mother Willis emptied it for tax cuts, and then some, Bishop and Reti told the people of Dunedin, “You’re not worthy, no nice things for you.” At least they looked a bit nauseated while doing so, and who can blame them?

Backing out of a firm promise to build the hospital prior to the election and now saying, “Yeah, nah, it’ll cost too much. We have to balance the needs of the bean counters with the clinical needs of Dunedinites.”

The government said yesterday that they will spend $1.88 billion, which is a lot of money, but it’s a long way short of the $3 billion it is projected to cost to build the hospital promised. These are big numbers; maybe we should put them in some context…

Like our old friend, the interest deductibility that National is restoring to benefit landlords will cost almost exactly the same amount, $2.9b. But that is just for four years.

One would assume that the $3b on Dunedin’s Hospital is a longer-term investment than that. So, we could have a brand new hospital or four years of interest deductibility for that money. The government's choice doesn’t seem like much of a deal if you don’t own rental properties and/or have health needs.

Bishop and Reti. Image: BeFunky.

Or how about those tax cuts we’ve heard so much about? Hope you’re enjoying that extra $250 in your pocket.

$14.725 billion over five years, that’s what Nicola’s tax cuts are costing us. Coincidentally, almost exactly $3b per year. Or, to say it another way, for the amount we’re spending on those tax cuts, we could have a new hospital, like the fabulous facility planned for Dunedin - every single year! Wouldn’t that have been something?

Fair enough, though; we know these guys are all about reducing government spending and the “burden” on taxpayers. So what about a great big thing they want to spend money on instead?

As you know, the government announced a few weeks back that it is spending $32.9 billion on Transport, almost all of it on roads. That’s enough for ten Dunedin Hospitals, although that roading budget, of course, covers roading projects throughout the country.

Unfortunately, information on the cost of individual roading projects seems surprisingly scarce, either not being given or, in some cases, having been redacted. In Thomas Coughlan’s article, he suggests that the road from Warkworth to Whangarei will cost a full 10% of that budget, or in other words, more than $3b - the cost of Dunedin’s Hospital - for one road.

And before someone tells me we need roads, don’t we need hospitals too?

I get it—the infrastructure badly needs improving. It’s just unfortunate for the people of Dunedin that Shane Jones and Winston Peters are based in Northland and not in Otago electorates. Whatever faults the Rodeo King and the Kumara kid have, they know about delivering on promises. Unlike this bloke:

Yeah, that’s right. Last year, in an election year, the leader of the National Party told the nation that we could trust them. Safe as houses, if they got elected, then the good folks of Dunedin would get their promised Hospital - we had his commitment.

“Now lets be clear, Dunedin Hospital, started under a National Government, mucked around under a Labour Government for the last six years, construction costs have gone through the roof, and would have been better to have got it started it and built it to what we actually need,” said Luxon at the time.

“Trust us, I don’t know any of the details on how they [Labour] have done their business case or what has changed and I need to dive into that, but we will make sure that in a growing area like Southland and Otago, that we will give it the support that is needed,’’ said the would-be PM at a public meeting in Gore.

Not many folks in Dunedin vote for National, but you get out into the region, and it’s solid blue territory. This hospital, as Luxon well knew, was not just for the people of Dunedin but would provide specialist services unavailable in the surrounding area - the whole region depended on this, not just the lefty liberals in our southern city.

The university students in that city need it, too. As the location of one of two medical schools, and with National’s pre-election commitment to fund a third medical school not even going to Business Case until 2025, it is all the more vital that we have a state-of-the-art facility in Dunedin.

There was an urgent debate in parliament on this yesterday; some of these quotes are on the longish side, but they tell the story. Of course, the government speakers spent their time blaming those on the opposition benches, building cost increases, and anything other than taking responsibility for the decision themselves.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): “…before the election, Dr Shane Reti, then spokesperson for health in Opposition, campaigned rigorously and explicitly on the fact that not only would the National Party reverse some minor changes that Labour was making to the new Dunedin Hospital but it would be fully funded, in budget, and that they would build Dunedin Hospital as always envisioned in the beginning. Today, they poured cold water all over that. They have broken their promises not only to the people of Dunedin but the people of Otago, the rural communities of Otago, South Otago, and Southland throughout a huge and important regional part of this country for no other reason than some basic cost saving.”

SCOTT WILLIS (Green): “… two National Ministers in Dunedin today willing to say anything to get elected, but simply can't be trusted. Because failing to confirm to build the Dunedin Hospital to its full capacity is a complete betrayal and an utter kick in the guts for Dunedin. Yes, Dunedinites are angry. Actually, they're furious to see two Ministers shape up in Dunedin and give us what they've given us today. We can't trust this Government one iota. They slither and squirm away from any clear answer.

Dunedin and the deep South community is like no other. We're a hardy lot down South, but we deserve access to healthcare. Not leaking roofs in existing buildings. We don't deserve stressed doctors, nurses who want to go to Australia because they can't cope with the stress this health system is under, pathologists who don't know where on earth they're going to be seated or sited. This Government is bleeding our health system to death to fund trickle-down tax cuts.”

Green MP Scott Willis. Photo: https://www.greens.org.nz/scott_willis

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Labour): “Today is a milestone day on the slipping away of New Zealand's healthcare system to one characterised by cuts, cold-heartedness, and underfunding. It is a day in which we remark on the broken promise of the National Government, who campaigned on building Dunedin the hospital that it needed, and it sought those votes with such a level of cynicism we see from what's been done today.

The people of Dunedin need a new hospital; their current hospital is unsuitable and it is unsafe—500 instances of surgical equipment being contaminated every year. It is not a suitable place to be continuing treatment for people. It needs to be replaced. The scope reductions that will be entailed by what the Government is embarking on will cause additional cost. That always happens when you build a hospital that is too small: it ends up costing you more down the line.”

You can see the Stuff/Three News report from last night here:

Or if you prefer you can see BHN’s analysis of that here.

It’s all very well to stand there and tell us that the hospital, the one they unequivocally promised to deliver, is too expensive. But if they’re spending at least that much money restoring interest deductibility for landlords, if they can find many times that money to hand out in tax cuts, and if they can pay for a road that will cost that much - then it’s not that they can’t afford to build this hospital.

It’s crystal clear that they have chosen to prioritise tax cuts and regional roading over building this hospital in Dunedin, and they should have the guts to say it. National decided that their promised tax cuts and roading projects took precedence over this hospital. Pure and simple.

Nicola Willis said she’d resign if she didn’t deliver tax cuts - but nobody said they would resign if they failed to deliver this hospital in Dunedin.

These guys will stake their reputations on delivering lower taxes but it is broken promises like this that should seal their reputation, and I reckon a few folks from Otago and surrounding areas might well remember that come the next election.

This is not just about the good folks down at the bottom of the South Island, as people from Whangarei to Nelson will well understand, having seen their own hospital needs downgraded or simply not funded by this government. Broken promises and prioritisation like this affect all of us.

National don’t care about your health as much as they care about getting re-elected, and any other claims to the contrary are simply pantomime for the cameras.

The last word today is from an MP who summed the wretched situation up well.

INGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): “What a shameful day for this Government. What a shameful day to go out and election campaign to deliberately mislead voters, knowing that they had no intention of ever delivering on the promise of Dunedin Hospital. That is callous politics. It is throwing the people of the South under the bus, and now they are shamefully trying to gaslight people to say that there is this crisis that once again doesn't exist, just to suit their political purposes.”

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