We’ve had the fantastic news Otago Central Lakes has secured $180 million in new health investment, including capital funding with operating funding over four years, to expand local services and upgrade Lakes District Hospital.
This is a project I’ve been working hard at, alongside MP for Southland Joseph Mooney, Todd Stephenson MP, plus QLDC and CODC mayors.
We gathered information to state the case for our communities, and the government responded.
Planning is under way to expand locally delivered healthcare services, with a focus on growing primary, diagnostic, maternity and outpatient services and strengthening mental health and addiction support closer to home.
The Budget also has a major focus on education.
Hawea Flat School is set to receive four new classrooms, part of a $62.5m investment in schools in the South Island.
We are taking a practical, value for money approach to delivery. We’ve significantly reduced the average cost of a classroom through increasing the use of standard or modular builds, which allows us to get spades in the ground faster, deliver classrooms at a lower cost and make every dollar go further.
Last week we also announced our solar schools programme, a $30m government initiative to put solar panels on up to 500 schools across New Zealand. Schools will save money, have greater energy security, reduce school energy bills, and reduce their carbon emissions.
Early modelling by Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) shows solar panels are estimated to pay for themselves within five to seven years and a 30kW system — the standard size for a school — could save a school up to $8000 a year in electricity bills.
Schools will also have options to sell energy back to the grid, generating an estimated $6.7m in revenue over 10 years.
We’ve also had wins in roading. Our region relies on our connecting highways — if they’re blocked or closed, families and businesses in the Upper Clutha are put under stress. I am therefore pleased to see Hawea to Haast, along with Cromwell to Kingston on SH6 included in a $400m package to increase roading resilience. We know where many of the weak points on the network are.
This investment allows us to strengthen them before roads fail, rather than repeatedly paying to rebuild them afterwards.
Announced this week, National has committed to permanently double baseline funding for the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust if re-elected, giving the Trust long-term certainty to work with farmers and landowners to protect New Zealand’s natural heritage.
Some of New Zealand’s most important conservation areas aren't in national parks — they’re on private farms.
For nearly 50 years, farmers and landowners have voluntarily protected native bush, wetlands and habitats on their own land, often at their own cost.
This commitment would lift funding from around $4.2m to $8.5m a year, giving the Trust certainty to resume new covenanting and support conservation on private land.
