There is much talk from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon about the need to spend every dollar wisely, but it is hard to see how ignoring Treasury advice on this fits with that.
In these straitened times, and when the health system is crying out for more doctors, the scant consideration of dramatically boosting the intake of students to the existing medical schools was irresponsible.
Treasury’s suggestion of a trial allowing the Otago and Auckland schools to train more doctors to avoid the need for significant spending on new infrastructure seemed sensible, given the doctors would be produced more quickly and cheaply.
As Treasury pointed out, there was no capacity constraint at the two existing schools, something the universities had explained themselves in a joint report to the government.
It is a cop-out for Health Minister Simeon Brown to say Treasury’s advice would have ignored the needs of rural communities. As we have previously said, if the concern was that extra places at the existing schools would not necessarily boost general practitioner numbers and those practising in rural areas, the government could tag its funding to ensure that.
Treasury had gone as far as asking whether it was possible to trial the sort of training to be offered at Waikato, based on a programme offered at the University of Wollongong, within the existing infrastructure at Otago or Auckland. There is no evidence there was any proper consideration of that idea.
There have already been concerns expressed by the existing schools the alternatives they could offer were not given full attention, which must cast doubt on the cost-benefit analysis the government has relied on.
University of Otago vice-chancellor Grant Robertson, in communication with the Universities Minister Dr Shane Reti, was clearly frustrated at the amount of input the Otago school had into the business case for the new school, with severe limitations on the time given to provide information.
Of course, Treasury was not the only agency to express concern about the project, but no notice was taken of them either.
The government, perhaps because of the questions its Act New Zealand partner had about the project, felt obliged to go through a business case process for the school.
More and more, the decision runs the risk of it appearing to be pork-barrel politics.
It is just one of many instances of poor process surrounding the government’s policies and law-making where politicians are not up-front about the background to decisions, leaving the information to dribble out through Official Information Act requests.
Recent data released from the Ministry of Regulation showed in more than half of new policy proposals sent to it this year the usual policy process was not followed.
The ministry has taken over the role of overseeing the Regulatory Impact Statement process which is supposed to examine most new government policy.
But when public servants undertaking this work are asked if they face "notable constraints" on their ability to carry out a "normal policy process", increasingly they find they do.
So far in 2025, 59% of responses on this cited notable constraints, compared with 55% last year, 49% in 2023 and 40% in 2022.
Given the amount of urgency being applied to law making, it is unsurprising time pressure was given as a major limitation by respondents. Limited public consultation and data and evidence gaps also featured.
Regulation Minister David Seymour sees this as proof the policy making process is broken and in need of his proposed reform, rather than the government conveniently choosing not to follow existing processes to suit its own ends.
Whatever the excuse for sloppy policy processes, it does not help public trust in our democracy.
In the case of the Waikato Medical School, the outcome of this flawed process is unlikely to be the most cost-effective and fast way to increase the number of New Zealand trained doctors.
