Government delays to the New Dunedin Hospital build have cost an estimated $40 million. Meanwhile, the National MP for Tauranga is really mad about a Dunedin seesaw.
Nothing annoys a politician more than reckless spending, and nothing makes Sam Uffindell seethe more than a seesaw. Earlier this month, the National MP for Tauranga travelled to Ōtepoti Dunedin, where one particular activity during his visit was more surprising than a husband in a supermarket: Sam Uffindell had a bone to pick with a seesaw.
In a 28-second video released on his social media last week, Uffindell stands in a play area on George Street, the main street in Dunedin’s CBD. Beside him is a 12-metre-long red seesaw with big silver handles. One end of the seesaw is up, and the other, presumably, is down. It’s been raining and it looks like it’s late in the afternoon, so Uffindell has the playground to himself. As Dunedin’s soft winter skies fade behind him, Uffindell prepares to let rip an absolute yarn.
“Tauranga City Council got their coffee machines for half a million,” he begins, as a news story about his hometown council’s spend of $470,000 on staff coffee pops up on the screen. “But Dunedin has gone and topped them with – wait for it, wait for it – a $600,000 seesaw in the middle of the city!”
Uffindell is flabbergasted by his own story, which features an amount of money so outrageous it would make the good people of Tauranga choke on their cappuccinos. He raises his hands skyward in bafflement, then brings them to his head in disgust. It’s about time seesaws got their comeuppance, and Uffindell is here to help.
“I mean, how stupid do you have to be?” he continues. It’s clearly a rhetorical question, because Uffindell is also having a lovely time bouncing that naughty seesaw up and down. Then, he gets out his pointy finger. “Look, city councillors! Look, CEOs! It’s not your money!” he says, pointing towards the camera. The money – all of it, everywhere, on every slide and swingset in the land – belongs to ratepayers. “Stop wasting it on stupid vanity projects, and get yourselves in order!”
As far as political videos about seesaws go, this was quite the ride. Playgrounds are obviously emotional places where facts aren’t important, because the most baffling thing here is that Uffindell’s fury over a child’s toy that goes boing-boing is entirely misplaced. That $600,000 seesaw he’s so enraged by? It’s not actually a $600,000 seesaw.
The playground Uffindell is ranting about was part of the three-year Dunedin Retail Quarter redevelopment, which was completed in 2024 and was driven by the need to replace ageing underground water infrastructure. It features not one, not two, but three different seesaws (one of which is wheelchair accessible), as well as soft fall surfaces, seating and adjustable talk tubes. The total cost of the play area was $586,000 (less than 1% of the total redevelopment budget), with the three seesaws costing a total of $244,700 (which averages out to about $81,500 each). The play area received a $250,000 donation from lead contractor Isaac Construction.
Even without the donation that covers the entire cost of the seesaws, that’s still a lot of money – but so was the $41 that I paid for eggs, cheese, milk and butter at the supermarket this week. Uffindell is right – Kiwis are doing it tough. Maybe back in 2021, the Dunedin City Council just wanted to create a vibrant, family-friendly space that was inclusive and accessible to all, which would also attract people to the city centre who would then contribute to the local economy by supporting local businesses and help create a sense of community and belonging. Think again, seesaw losers!
If Uffindell really wants local evidence of unnecessary government spending, then boy, does Dunedin have a story for him. Just two blocks from George Street is the building site of the New Dunedin Hospital, which will serve the lower South Island stretching from Rakiura up to Central Otago and across to Waitaki. Sadly for Uffindell, there is no jaunty play area there yet, just an expensive pile of broken promises.
Planning for the new hospital began officially in 2015, but the build has been plagued by different governments’ cuts and delays ever since. In July 2023, National campaigned on restoring funding to build the hospital if elected. “Trust us,” Christopher Luxon promised, more than once. In September 2024, days after the final piles were put in the ground, the government announced that the hospital redevelopment would be paused and downgraded, and 35,000 southerners marched in protest.
In January, minister of health Simeon Brown announced a scaled-back build, with the new hospital to open with fewer beds than the current one. Building work has only recently restarted, and additional cuts to services are suspected.
It’s estimated that this dizzying merry-go-round of government wibble-wobbles cost taxpayers $100,000 a day. To put it in Uffindell terms, that’s more than one snazzy seesaw every 24 hours. It’s calculated that at least $20m of extra costs arose after the National-led government put the project on hold in September 2024, while other estimates put the figure closer to $40m.
That amount should make everyone’s pointy fingers come out to play, but back in the children’s playground, the National MP has seen enough. “This is just madness,” Uffindell concludes in his video, wiping some pesky little raindrops off that annoying little seesaw. Maybe Uffindell was wishing he’d brought a towel with him, so that he could have a proper hoon on the play area – or maybe he was climbing some mental monkey bars to work out how many seesaws you could buy with $40 million of taxpayers’ money. Madness, indeed.
