Hon Simeon Brown
Minister of Health

Kia ora koutou katoa

It’s a real pleasure to join you at the inaugural New Zealand infrastructure investment summit.

I’d like to welcome our overseas guests, as well as our local partners, organisations, and others.

I’d also like to acknowledge:

• The Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and other Ministers from the Coalition Government here today.
• Acting Director General of Health, Audrey Sonerson
• Executive Director of the Health Assurance Unit, Hamiora Bowkett

As Minister of Health, my top priority is ensuring all New Zealanders have access to timely, quality healthcare.

That is fundamental for any developed nation with a public healthcare system.

We are well aware of the challenges that healthcare faces around the world, and New Zealand is no exception – New Zealand has an ageing population, patients are presenting with more complex needs, and we are in a global contest to attract, retain, and train the healthcare workers Kiwis need.

But patients and workforce issues aside, we fundamentally need quality infrastructure if we are to provide Kiwis with the timely, quality healthcare that they need. This means modern, fit-for-purpose hospitals and primary care facilities.

Since becoming Minister of Health, I have travelled throughout the country to visit our frontline workers and the patients they are serving. Many of the hospitals and facilities they are working in need upgrading – whether it’s inadequate ventilation, not enough bed spaces, or simply not having a breakout room to tell patients confidential news.

These challenges are not new and have existed across successive governments.

The result has been decades of deferred investment, inadequate facilities, and health infrastructure in need of repair or replacement.

We’ve all read the stories.

Just this week, it was the cancer patient at Auckland City Hospital who had to boil water in a kettle – just so they could wash - because the ward had no hot running water.

Our Health Agency – Health New Zealand is also grappling with outdated infrastructure that is inhibiting changes to models of care that improve patient outcomes and drive efficiencies.

A number have significant seismic risks, and other older buildings on our hospital campuses are not clinically fit for modern models of care

Hospitals run on investment, and the Government is investing significantly in health. Every year the Government now spends around $30 billion on health – around 20 per cent of all Government spending. And we’re spending more than ever before. In Budget 2024 we announced a $16.68 billion funding uplift over three years, investing in the frontline to continue to deliver services to New Zealanders.

But we must also think to the future needs of Kiwis and plan for an ageing population, and health infrastructure plays a significant role in that.

The provision of health services for New Zealanders requires modern facilities. When building new, we want to build in a smarter way so these facilities can last for generations and so they can be flexible enough to incorporate new models of care and the latest technology when required. Spaces that don’t become redundant after 10 years, but are future-proofed, provide great workspaces for staff, and an even better experience for patients.

Today, I am going to announce the Government’s current health investment pipeline and the changes we are making to deliver better healthcare facilities in the future; and the opportunities to partner with New Zealand in the delivery of this infrastructure.

There are currently 67 health infrastructure projects that have been approved by Ministers – worth a cumulative $6.39 billion – in our infrastructure pipeline.

Like all countries, New Zealand is looking at new and innovative ways to deliver maximum value from the billions of dollars we currently invest.

Our health system’s delivery arm, Health New Zealand, owns one of the largest estates in the country with over 1,270 buildings across 86 campuses, at a value of $38 billion.

And it is delivering a large infrastructure programme.

Health New Zealand is currently delivering around 1,200 capital projects.

Of these projects, 67 make up the bulk of this capital spend: $6.39 billion – these comprise of larger and more complex projects across each of Health New Zealand’s four regions.

Now that Health NZ has been established, New Zealand has a consolidated pipeline of health infrastructure projects.

Previously, New Zealand had 20 District Health Boards, which individually decided upon their own infrastructure needs. Delivery was piecemeal and uncoordinated. Planning didn’t fully consider the future capacity needs of the community beyond their own catchment boundaries.

And digital infrastructure was even more fragmented. On becoming Minister of Health only 6 weeks ago – I was surprised to learn there are over 6000 digital applications used across our Health system. Approximately 1 digital application for every 16 staff.

By having a unified public health system, the Government now has just one delivery entity to deal with and can ensure there is a coordinated and deliberate pipeline of large capital projects.

It means contractors and investors are working with just one client – not 20.

Investment in health infrastructure is spread right across the country, with $2.6 billion in the north, more than $800 million in the central North Island, around $450 million in the lower North Island, and $2.5 billion in the South Island.

These projects address ageing infrastructure, growing demand, and service resilience challenges by expanding hospitals, upgrading critical infrastructure, and introducing new specialist and mental health facilities. The investment reflects a strategic effort to ensure the healthcare system remains modern, accessible, and fit for purpose.

Significant progress has already been made across the four regions, with most projects in their design or delivery phase.

The $759 million Whangārei Hospital Redevelopment in the Northern region addresses limited space, ageing infrastructure, and increasing patient demand.

The first stage of the project includes the now-completed Whānau House, which I had the pleasure of visiting last month, a Child Health Unit which is under construction, and construction of a much-needed new acute services building which will include theatres, emergency care, radiology, and an intensive care unit. You can expect to see some procurement activity on this project in the coming months.

Here in Auckland, the $316 million Manukau Health Park Expansion and work to upgrade essential infrastructure at Auckland City Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre, with total funding of $670 million, are underway.

The Taranaki Base Hospital Redevelopment in the Te Manawa Taki region is a $403 million project that includes the construction of the New East Wing Building that will house emergency services, maternity services, intensive care, radiology, and neonatal care.

The new renal centre at Waikato Hospital, a $40 million project, opened last month in Hamilton. It’s 70 per cent larger than the old one, and the largest integrated centre for kidney dialysis and transplants in Australasia.

Another project underway at Waikato is the $136m Adult Acute Mental Health facility.

In the Central region, there are $127 million worth of critical services projects underway at Hawke’s Bay Hospital. These include multiple projects announced earlier this year, including the redevelopment of radiology facilities, expansion of surgical services, and electrical supply upgrades.

I announced last month a new prefabricated 28 bed inpatient unit to accommodate surgical beds, enabling the hospital to meet current capacity demands while planning for longer-term development at Hawke’s Bay.

The Wellington Hospital High Dependency Unit, a $17 million project to provide capacity for 12 critical beds is complete and due to open shortly.

And finally, the biggest project health has ever taken on – the high-profile New Dunedin Hospital in the South Island with a budget of $1.88 billion.

There are two phases to this project.

The outpatient building is currently in the delivery phase and is a new 15,000 square-metre facility that will include clinic rooms, a day surgery, and radiology services.

The second stage of this project – the inpatient building – will include an expanded emergency department, operating theatres, intensive care units, and high-dependency beds. It will provide 71,000 square-metres of new hospital space and is in the detailed design phase, and commercial contractual negotiation.

There are currently 15 projects worth $2.8 billion in design phase, and 48 in the delivery stage, worth three and a half billion. In the last two years we’ve delivered a billion dollars of health infrastructure projects across the country.

However, at current estimates, we cannot build capacity fast enough to meet the demands of a growing population.

This presents us with a real challenge and a pressing need to do things differently.

New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit that has built up over decades and we have to do things differently if we are going to address that.

I can confirm today that we have developed a new approach that we call “Building Hospitals Better.”

This approach has a clear and logical base that won’t be novel to everyone here in the room today, but does represent a significant change to how things have been done in this country when it comes to our public health facilities.

With a clear picture of our health estate - 1,200 buildings across 86 hospital campuses – it’s time to apply some new thinking in how we upgrade and build new public health facilities.

The Building Hospitals Better approach means taking a staged approach to building and redeveloping hospitals, applying standardised designs rather than each building being unique, considering alternative financing and funding arrangements, and aligning design of hospitals with the wider digital, clinical, and service planning for health.

Rather than building one large structure, new or redeveloped hospital campuses can be more effectively delivered by building smaller, more manageable sized facilities in stages.

Smaller builds rather than one large building also means we can deliver healthcare faster to the community.

This is what we’re now proposing for the Nelson Hospital and Whangarei Hospital Redevelopments, and what we will continue to look at doing across other redevelopments as appropriate.

Sequencing and staging a build on a hospital campus in order of priority will add capacity, with more health services to a city or region achieved in a shorter timeframe.

This is a win-win. Staff can provide patients with the latest models of care sooner in modern facilities and it is more achievable from a construction and workforce point of view.

Market intelligence will also give us insight into what is actually viable in the regions from a construction and workforce perspective. Breaking down projects into stages can allow buildings to be commissioned earlier while work on the remainder of the site continues. An example of this approach has been the progressive upgrade of the Taranaki Base Hospital campus over time.

By having a scale of builds more geared towards the New Zealand construction market and the local supply chain, it means we can invest in facilities in other regions concurrently and provides more certainty on delivery timeframes and costs.

New Zealand has a public health system. The key requirement is that a public health system delivers timely, quality healthcare to the public.

Patients are not focused on who owns the hospital where they will receive their surgery. They just want – and rightly expect – to receive their care in a quality, fit-for-purpose building.

In 2025, Health New Zealand requires some major project partners to help them deliver on some pressing infrastructure needs in the regions, as well as other projects around the country that are part of a wider pipeline of work that I’ll be announcing in the coming months.

Today, I want to make explicit that the Government is open to public private partnerships to help deliver the health infrastructure Kiwis need and deserve, and we welcome market proposals for health infrastructure.

We are open to all funding and financing proposals that will help us catch up on the infrastructure backlog. That includes long-term contracts for services where other parties build the infrastructure that is then used to deliver contracted public health services.

This will be a shift in approach for New Zealand, but we simply cannot afford to do what we have always done. All of this will require Health New Zealand to take a long-term view that moves from transactional arrangements to collaborative, enterprise-based partnerships.

This brings me to announce some further news.

This month, Health New Zealand will begin market engagement to establish a panel of National Major Project Delivery Partners to support the delivery of our multi-billion-dollar pipeline.

Adopting a panel is a shift from traditional transactional procurement models and towards creating collaborative, enterprise-based partnerships.

These relationships will align incentives, facilitate efficient transfer of design responsibility and risk allocation; promote innovation to deliver better outcomes for patients and communities; and allow for direct conversations regarding different risk sharing arrangements to build, design, operationalise, and maintain this infrastructure.

I am pleased to announce that by the end of this month, an Advance Notice will be published on GETS – the Government Electronic Tender Service – by Health New Zealand to procure the National Major Project Delivery Partners Panel. This Notice represents the start of a broader effort to transform New Zealand’s healthcare infrastructure and will set the foundation for our long-term goals.

It is also the start of the Whangārei Hospital Redevelopment project I mentioned earlier going to market, before going to tender in early 2026. The Panel will provide the market access to Health New Zealand’s current pipeline of $6.39 billion and growing.

We want to hit the ground running, so Health New Zealand will also be holding market briefing sessions for pre-registered parties in the coming weeks in Auckland, Sydney, and Brisbane.

After these market briefings have taken place, Health New Zealand intends to release a Statement of Participation on GETS and invite submissions.

This presents an exciting opportunity for us all, and I am excited to hear that our international partners are already forming relationships that can support the building of modern infrastructure across New Zealand that will help us deliver the future health care Kiwis expect and deserve.

By working together over multiple projects, we aim to build mutual trust, enhance efficiency, and ensure New Zealand’s health infrastructure is resilient and fit for the future.

Today, I’ve spoken about New Zealand’s first ever consolidated pipeline of health infrastructure projects. Alongside that, Health New Zealand is currently developing a 10-year Health Infrastructure Plan, which will allow visibility of health investment into the future and the health infrastructure priorities the Government has identified.

I want to give certainty to the market that Health New Zealand and the Government is a committed partner in building health infrastructure in New Zealand.

In conclusion, as Minister of Health, my focus is – and will always be – on delivering timely, quality healthcare to New Zealanders. And to improve patient outcomes we must ensure we have modern infrastructure to help provide the healthcare Kiwis need.

Health infrastructure has been neglected for decades, but we’re turning that around.

Over the next 24 months, projects and opportunities just under $1 billion will hit the market.

We are open to a range of funding and financing tools to deliver this infrastructure – including PPPs and long-term contracts for services.

New Zealand has the need for great health infrastructure – and lots of it.

And we have the plan, the people, and determination to build it.

What we want is to forge great relationships to do it with excellence, efficiency and energy.

Thank you.

The Major Health Infrastructure Projects Underway report is available here.

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