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Speaker 1: Well, it looks like on the Dunedin Hospital thing, the

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Speaker 1: government's got a fight on its hands. About thirty five

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Speaker 1: thousand people protested over the weekend, outraged at the plans

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Speaker 1: to downscale the hospital, which has blown its budget. Infrastructure

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Speaker 1: Minister Chris Bishop is with me now, haybersh good morning.

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Speaker 1: You have got a problem on your hands, you haven't you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's no sugarcoating it. It's a frustrating situation

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Speaker 2: and I share the frustration of the people of Dunedan.

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Speaker 2: This project has been a shamuzzle for a large number

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Speaker 2: of years. When you go back to twenty seventeen, you know,

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Speaker 2: just into our doing, said they'd start construction on it

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Speaker 2: in the first three years and get up built. And

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Speaker 2: here we are seven years later and we've only just

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Speaker 2: laid the piles on the impatient building, on the outpatient

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Speaker 2: buildings only half complete. So there's been an abstlordinary series

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Speaker 2: of events over many years on this I haven't heard it.

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Speaker 2: Alongside Shane Ready and alongside the rest of the government,

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Speaker 2: we are now making as much information public about it

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Speaker 2: as possible because that hasn't been the case. I think

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Speaker 2: the people of Dunedin probably don't agree with me on

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Speaker 2: most things at the moment, but they probably agree with

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Speaker 2: me that the transparency area on this project has been

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Speaker 2: a shopper. So we are being as upfront and transparent

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Speaker 2: as possible about the problems with the project.

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Speaker 1: Is your problem, the contractor.

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Speaker 2: So we've been looking into that. I'm advised that the

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Speaker 2: what happened in twenty twenty one is under the previous

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Speaker 2: government they awarded CPB what's called an early contractor engagement contract.

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Speaker 2: And the reason they did that, I'm advised by the

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Speaker 2: officials is that this project is so complex that the

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Speaker 2: Zeland market has never delivered a hospital project like this.

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Speaker 2: This goes back to the site selection. This is the

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Speaker 2: old Cadbury site that was purchased for sixty five million bucks.

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Speaker 2: Well the Cadbury was eleven million bucks, but there's another

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Speaker 2: fifty million of bucks they land they had to purchase

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Speaker 2: as well. It's contaminated, they've had to assess the flood risks.

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Speaker 2: They've got got a hospital. It's a matter above the ground.

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Speaker 2: That's an eleven twelve story building. It's an extremely complex project.

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Speaker 2: The three state highways surrounding this hospital site. So the

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Speaker 2: market had never delivered something like this before. So the

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Speaker 2: official advice of the previous government was select the early contractor,

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Speaker 2: engaged CPP, and they've been working with the health officials

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Speaker 2: to design the project alongside pricing it. We've just received

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Speaker 2: in the last few weeks the revised pricing for the

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Speaker 2: cost to deliver the inpatient building, and it's several hundred

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Speaker 2: million dollars above the appropriate amount. So that's the situation

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Speaker 2: as it stands.

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Speaker 1: What I mean is, have you have you checked whether

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Speaker 1: other contractors could actually build it to budget?

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm limited into what I can say because there's

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Speaker 2: obviously a commercial process we're going to go through here

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Speaker 2: as well, so I don't want to publicly ventilate on

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Speaker 2: radio about exactly what's going on, but clearly we will

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Speaker 2: want to be driving as much value for money for

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Speaker 2: the Crown as we can of What.

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Speaker 1: Are your options though, I mean, are you able to

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Speaker 1: are you able to get out of this contract?

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Speaker 2: Well, we need to. We need to assess whether it's

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Speaker 2: worth going back out to the market. Yeah, and bear

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Speaker 2: in mind that would add a long time to the hospital.

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Speaker 2: So there's no easy options here, right, this is the situation.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, surely, surely you guys have just you know,

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Speaker 1: put your finger in the wind, just had a bit

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Speaker 1: of a chat to the industry and seeing if this

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Speaker 1: is completely out of whack or if actually this is

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Speaker 1: what everybody would would charge you.

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Speaker 2: I think what I would say to that is you

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Speaker 2: can be assured that we are being as diligent and

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Speaker 2: as rigorous and as thorough as you would expect the

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Speaker 2: government to be with spending two billion dollars to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we are getting value for money. But there

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Speaker 2: are no easy options here. We've got a way up

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Speaker 2: the trade offs between going out to market and potentially

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Speaker 2: delaying the actual start of construction on the impatient for

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Speaker 2: another long period of time, which again I think the

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Speaker 2: people have the need and would say to me that

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Speaker 2: the terrible idea. Just get on with it and you know,

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Speaker 2: driving value for money to make sure we actually get

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Speaker 2: on with the hospital. So there's a lot of different

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Speaker 2: trade offs we're trying to juggle here, and I've been

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Speaker 2: as being as up front and transparent with you as

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Speaker 2: I can within the confines of what I can say initially, and.

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Speaker 1: I do realize you hands will be a bit tied there,

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Speaker 1: and thank you very much for your time, really appreciated

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Speaker 1: christ Biship, the infrastructure and a.

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