Boyack Rachel; Rurawhe AdrianRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): Thank you Mr Speaker. Last week the Labour Government's fantastic health Minister the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall visited my electorate of Nelson to make an exciting announcement that our Government is rebuilding Nelson Hospital. The rebuild of Nelson Hospital is the largest capital project in a generation and I'm delighted to be able to speak about our new hospital and the exciting project that is about to start.The current buildings at Nelson Hospital are outdated they are cramped and they require earthquake strengthening. The Minister and I toured part of the hospital and I've visited parts of these buildings before as well—they are cramped there is equipment down the corridor there are bathrooms that are not fit for purpose there is an emergency department that needs to be expanded. When the former health Minister David Clark did a stocktake of all hospital buildings in New Zealand it was found that the George Manson and Percy Brunette buildings were some of the worst hospital buildings in New Zealand. These two buildings require significant earthquake strengthening. The Percy Brunette building will need to be strengthened and repurposed. The George Manson building is continuing to have work assessed to determine whether it needs to be either strengthened or completely pulled down. The initial plan for this building was to completely demolish it once the new building was in place—there is current work occurring that could mean we could save that building and repurpose it; but I'm confident in the work that's being done at the moment to make that full assessment.Another reason why we need a new hospital is that our population is growing—it's growing and our population is ageing. Our current hospital serves 170000 people across Te Tau Ihu the top of the south areas of Nelson-Marlborough and into Tasman. It's predicted to grow by 2040 to 186000 people. That's why I'm so delighted that as part of this announcement the hospital building itself will have an increase in beds from 161 beds to 255 beds. The number of theatres will increase from six theatres to eight theatres. There will be a bigger emergency department. And one of the groups who have been very excited about our new building is our helicopter pilots from our emergency helicopters that fly around the region. They're delighted they're going to be able to land on the top of a building rather than their precarious arrangement flying over my home and people who live in the Nelson south area and landing on a very small patch of gravel right next to a set of traffic lights. So they were delighted when I spoke to them recently about the improvements being made to Nelson Hospital.The new hospital building will be built across the top of our current car park. There will be significant work that will require a couple of years' worth of work to do all of what we call enabling works. That includes the engineering and architectural design the planning clearing the site laying the pipes and the infrastructure needed before we build this very large new building. A lot of people have asked me What will happen to our car parking; where will we park when we go to the hospital?" And the hospital has leased car parking from the nearby fields called The Broads owned by Nelson College so we will have temporary car parking in place while the new hospital is built.I'm grateful that our Government has taken the time to fully scope and cost this project. Previous senior leaders pleaded with me to do this job properly and to not cut any corners. The National Party only promised $500 million—that was part of a campaign budget that had shonky numbers around it and it's why I'm so grateful that our Government has pledged the full amount for this hospital: $1.098 billion because that is what it will cost and it is what Nelsonians deserve.Make no mistake that National's plans have billions of dollars of holes in them; their tax cuts will mean cuts to important projects like Nelson Hospital. The new Nelson Hospital is what patients deserve it's what the staff of Nelson Hospital deserve and it's what the people of Nelson deserve and I'm proud to be the Nelson MP delivering this project for Nelson.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation 2023/24 Estimates Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill."