Health Minister David Clark has put his stamp on the Dunedin Hospital rebuild by sending National Party appointee Andrew Blair on his way and installing Mr Hodgson to lead the rebuild. In Opposition, Dr Clark targeted Mr Blair in a way he never did, say, the commissioner team running the Southern District Health Board.
The pair sparred at a public forum this year in which Mr Blair’s seeming inability to easily recall all of the names of rebuild group members left an impression on Dr Clark, for whom it signified a wider lack of focus.
Dr Clark also made much of what appeared to be high-level delay tactics to hide a seeming inability to get a handle on the size and scale of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild. He must now show he can do more than criticise. His trusted mentor is now in charge of a project whose success is vital to both the South and Dr Clark’s reputation. Dr Clark is an inexperienced minister in an inexperienced government that is taking time to find its administrative feet.
A former party strategist, Mr Hodgson is known for a sharp tongue, aggressive style, and ferocious intelligence.His attributes will be well deployed dealing with the vagaries of bureaucracy and a ministry in upheaval. Its director-general Chai Chuah is about to depart and some of his most senior managers may go, too. Partnership groups — as they were cynically called by the previous government — provide a mantle of governance over a ministry fulfilling a role that used to be the DHB’s.
The resulting triumvirate was problematic in Canterbury DHB’s Christchurch rebuild, and an Office of the Auditor-general audit criticised aspects of the set-up.
It found tension and confusion between the parties — ministry, partnership group, and DHB — as they did not have well defined roles. That does not serve the public interest.
The additional problem with applying the partnership group model in the SDHB is having no countervailing democratic check in the process.
That does not seem to trouble Labour. It should be remembered that Labour, in an act of political calculation, last year voted with the then government to extend the commissioner regime by three years.Dr Clark’s promise to be more upfront than his predecessor about the rebuild should be treated with the same scepticism accorded to Labour’s promise to be freer with all official information. Labour has some good ideas to inject energy into the project, but it must not fall prey to the low bar set by the previous government, which placed a higher value on control than on democratic niceties. It is a good sign that Dr Clark has brought the University of Otago into the fold by appointing chief operating officer Stephen Willis to the partnership group.
Mr Willis has spoken previously about his desire for a collaborative rebuild drawing on the strengths — and land — of both parties. A joint development is sensible in the land-constrained area around the existing hospital to avoid an expensive and protracted site-acquiring exercise.A small academic centre trying to punch above its weight like Dunedin needs the combined strengths of its institutions. This is well understood by Dr Clark, who is strongly connected with the university, and Mr Willis, who has been involved in similar projects in Australia. What former National health minister Jonathan Coleman labelled parochialism in some ill-judged comments last week might form part of a solution that works.
