Last Monday, Health Minister Simeon Brown announced Cabinet had approved $82.85 million in government funding to build the country’s third medical school at the University of Waikato — the institution was expected to contribute more than $150m to the project.
Dunedin MP Rachel Brooking, of Labour, said she was "very sceptical" about figures used by the government to make its decision.
The project’s detailed business case was made public on Friday evening, part of a document dump which revealed the cost of producing GPs at the graduate-entry Waikato medical school would be $50 million a year cheaper than at the existing medical schools at Otago and Auckland universities.
"The business case has really been written with an outcome in mind and not traversed all of the options, and that’s just bad decision-making," Ms Brooking said.
"It’s bad way to make use of taxpayers’ money, and it seems that in general, this all will cost more."
She said the "flawed" business case would have consequences for the Otago Medical School: "those are difficult to predict exactly".
However, Labour had "no plans at the moment" to dump the medical school, Ms Brooking said.
"The issue is that we don’t think the business case is credible.
"So we’ll keep asking questions about that and try and make any assessments on good information when we’re in a position to do so."
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary said "the so-called business case is really just a public relations document, given the outlandish assumptions and comparators".
In a statement last Monday, Mr Brown said the project was an innovative model "that supports our focus on strengthening primary care, making it easier for people to see their doctor — helping Kiwis stay well and out of hospital".
Waikato University would begin construction on new teaching facilities later this year.
A full cost-benefit analysis was presented to Cabinet before any proposal was finalised, as part of the National-Act New Zealand coalition agreement, he said.
Green MP Francisco Hernandez said the government’s cost-benefit analysis used to "ram through" the Waikato Medical School made assumptions revealing the "lack of objectivity".
Mr Hernandez said the document "falsely assumed" Otago and Auckland universities could not have negotiated a four-year rural graduate programme similar to Waikato University’s proposal.
"This assumption enables the government to claim that Waikato University will train medical students ‘cheaper’ because Waikato is assumed to have a four-year programme," he said.
The government had also assumed Waikato University was more likely to produce GPs "even though Otago and Auckland could have also done a rural graduate programme".
"Fundamentally, these flawed assumptions stem from the government’s failure to run a transparent tender process from the start," Mr Hernandez said.
"Rather than putting out an open tender to every university in New Zealand, they gave Waikato University a sweetheart deal."
He called for the government to "be up front and honest about the actual costs" of the project and release the full agreement with Waikato University with all relevant advice.
"The government’s failure to rule out further handouts or to release the actual agreement raises questions on whether there were further sweetheart deals negotiated behind closed doors in the agreement that might end up with the taxpayer bailing out Waikato University."
