Crux Dunedin podcast: with Mayor Jules Radich

Speaking to Crux on the day of our Dunedin launch Mayor Jules Radich has confessed his disappointment over the council's decision not to sell Aurora and also shared his frustration with the Queenstown Lakes District and Central Otago Otago District mayors for not throwing their full weight behind the Dunedin hospital campaign.

Mayor Radich says eight out of ten regional mayors have fully supported the campaign for a new Dunedin hospital but Queenstown's Glyn Lewers and CODC's Tim Cadogan were instead "looking to see what they can get for their own district."

"A new Dunedin hospital, a tertiary hospital, is for the benefit of the entire lower south island. Certainly Central Otago and the Southern Lakes need some of their own secondary facilities, but Dunedin has to be the main centre for advanced, tertiary medical needs."

"The combination of the hospital, the university and the medical school produces access to all types of advanced medical skills for Dunedin and that's what you need - a full range of specialists and specialist support staff, not just doctors and nurses."

"We are only 10% into the 2024 Dunedin hospital battle so far - there's much more to come."

The mayor also said that he still supported the sale of Aurora to cut down council debt, adding that he was surprised at the level of emotion and the scale of opposition to the sale. "Debt levels will be higher as a result - we have to turn this ship around. Council debt is highly problematic."

The Crux Dunedin podcast also discusses the possibility of a unitary authority that could help share some of the Otago Regional Council's relative wealth across all of the region's local Government bodies.