Incoming deputy prime minister David Seymour says National hasn’t come close to proving that a proposal for a medical school at the University of Waikato is a good use of taxpayers’ money.
David Seymour gets a grilling from Waikato Chamber of Commerce chief executive Don Good on the proposed University of Waikato medical school. Photo: Chris Gardner
“There’s one party that wants to do it, and if they can make the case this is a good use of taxpayers money, then we will support it,” Seymour told a Waikato Chamber of Commerce business lunch at Sky City, Hamilton, today.
The post-lunch question and answer session was dominated by questions on the lack of progress on opening the nation’s third medical school in the region.
The National Party campaigned on the lead up to the last election of establishing a new medical school at the University of Waikato to address New Zealand’s doctor shortage.
“Without getting into an extended argument, I could tell you that they haven’t come close to doing it, and if you want to blame someone, I would not blame the person who is standing up for careful use of taxpayer money, I would blame the person who made a promise that is maybe a bit harder to stack up than initially indicated.”
“If you want to say bugger it, we are going down the parochial route, each area of the country should be out for what they get, regardless of cost: benefit analysis, well that is another approach,” Seymour said.
“But New Zealand has been there before. Every region had its thing from the Government, and we went broke.”
“I stand here on the basis of careful use of taxpayers’ money. If there’s a clear objective and the best way to achieve the objective to subsidise the University of Waikato is to build a medical school, I’m all in. But the onus is on the proponents of the idea to show that it stacks up and I think if I was annoyed about why it hadn’t happened, I would be asking them about why they haven’t been able to do that.”
Seymour said he would be happy to release a critique of the proposal, if Minister of Health Simeon Brown released his ministry’s analysis.
Chamber chief executive Don Good said he had “a whole bunch of questions on the medical school” which he would send to Seymour’s office.
“If this community has concluded that the path to salvation is the construction of a medical school at the university then there may actually be bigger and deep-seated problems here than the lack of a medical school,” Seymour said.
“We would agree with the Government approving it if the advocates could put up the case.”
Good told The News Seymour probably did not understand the depth of passion for the medical school.
The News sought comment from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
David Seymour speaks to the Waikato Chamber of Commerce. Photo: Chris Gardner
