Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says New Zealand is late to the party in getting infrastructure built, and is open to help from the private sector.
He said the Government was open to public-private partnerships in building critical health infrastructure on a case-by-case basis.
He made his comments to media outside Ormiston Hospital in Auckland this afternoon, which he visited with Health Minister Dr Shane Reti to open a new extension at the centre.
Luxon told reporters private hospitals often do specialist services and “power through them” and these procedures are outsourced to the private sector.
There were major challenges in the public system and the Government is open to using the private sector to help with this, but he said this wasn’t a change from previous governments’ approach.
The Government “wants to get infrastructure built” whether it is in health, education or transport, Luxon said.
He said other countries do this and New Zealand has been late to the party.
Reti said just over 10% of elective procedures are completed privately at the moment. There has been a very small increase in this over the past decade.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon address media outside Ormiston Hospital, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
He said the Government was interested in discussions with the private sector about this.
The press conference follows shortly after the Government announced it would consider creating a new entity to manage the country’s school property portfolio after a ministerial inquiry found the Education Ministry’s management of the portfolio lacked transparency, clarity and efficiency.
The inquiry, led by former Foreign Affairs Minister and National MP Murray McCully, included scathing criticism of the ministry’s handling of the $30 billion property portfolio and found its ability to deliver cost-effective and timely development lacking.
The inquiry also warned of a “significant and unsustainable gap” between delivery expectations and available funding given only 153 of the 488 school works projects were fully funded, meaning almost $3b of additional capital funding was needed.
Education Minister Erica Stanford told media those projects will still be built, but they will require funding from future Budgets.
Education Minister Erica Stanford and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop speak to media about a scathing report into the Education Ministry's handling of school property management. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Stanford attacked the previous Government for leaving “a pipeline of unfunded projects”. Stanford said that the Ministry had itself realised there was a problem and begun looking into the matter before the change of government.
The McCully inquiry’s primary recommendation was to establish a new entity separate from the ministry to “assume ownership and asset management responsibility for the school property portfolio”.
This entity would take the form of a “Crown agent, Crown entity company, schedule 4A company, statutory entity, public benefit entity, or state-owned enterprise, based on further advice from the Treasury and the Public Service Commission”. Each of these structures comes with varying degrees of political independence.
Stanford said that this proposal would go to Cabinet in the “coming months”
“There was a strong consensus that school buildings funded by taxpayers should be simple, functional, cost-efficient and based on repeatable or standardised designs. The ministry’s failure to execute in line with these principles drew strong criticism,” the report says.
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
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