They could probably have rested easy when the latest and greatest of protest vehicles, Cliff the ambulance, made it to the capital on Wednesday.
With the greatest of respect to the skills of the drivers of the intrepid ambulance, which earlier in the week had made its way up the South Island and across on the ferry (no easy task in itself these days), it does not strike one as the sort of conveyance that is able to take on stairs.
Having travelled throughout Otago and Southland to promote the campaign, its journey to Parliament was to serve as a backdrop for a delegation of southern mayors and local body representatives (including, full disclosure, Southern Say’s better half) to deliver a petition to local Dunedin MP, Labour’s Rachel Brooking.
Unsurprisingly, a large Labour contingent, including neighbouring Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary, were on hand to welcome their visitors and to accept the New Zealand Nurses Organisation-instigated petition, which eventually weighed in at an impressive 34,406 signatures.
Most of the Green caucus were also there, including Dunedin list MP Francisco Hernandez and Taieri list MP Scott Willis, who has previously given several impassioned speeches about the Dunedin hospital rebuild in the House.
More unexpectedly, a contingent of southern government MPs, including Act New Zealand Southland list MP Todd Stephenson, Waitaki National MP Miles Anderson, and Southland National MP Joseph Mooney, also turned up.
The southern backbenchers have, mostly, kept quiet as uproar erupted across the region following the government’s announcement that the costs of the new Dunedin hospital project had blown out so excessively the whole thing needed to be reconsidered.
No surprise there, given about 35,000 very angry people marched through Dunedin in protest at that decision, and that fury has not dissipated — as the petition presentation demonstrated.
Also, two of those three gentlemen are first-term backbenchers, while second-term MP Mr Mooney is a select committee chairman so is not yet in a position to influence the upper echelon of the government.
Mr Anderson has previously made a very cautious comment on the subject on Facebook, saying he would "continue to advocate for, and highlight the current regional sentiment around the Dunedin Hospital to the Minister at every opportunity".
Quite how many opportunities he gets is anyone’s guess, but it’s a reasonable approach to take.
Mr Mooney, likewise, has earlier penned a carefully thought-out comment on Facebook, which said the government remained committed to building a new hospital in Dunedin, and that he was "strongly advocating within government for much needed, modern, fit-for-purpose hospital facilities for the future of the growing southern region".
On the morning of the march Mr Stephenson issued a statement in which he delicately balanced Act’s fiscal rectitude message with expressions of concern about health service needs across Otago, Southland, and particularly Central Otago.
Mr Mooney drew the short straw of addressing the rally (and, incidentally, good on them all for turning up to face the music), and stressed the MPs cared very deeply about the health of the people of the South.
"We will be building a fully functioning hospital for the South," he said.
"Thanks very much for coming and expressing the concerns and interests of our region. We will be addressing those and you will be hearing more from us shortly."
Whether "hearing more from us shortly" means something is in the wind or they were convenient placeholder words we will just have to wait and see, but it was an intriguing sign-off.
Not present at the rally was the senior southern government representative, National Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds, but she was inside the building with Health Minister Shane Reti waiting to privately meet the visiting mayors afterwards, a gathering she later called a positive one.
Less positive however, were Mr Willis and Ms Brooking who - with the campaigners watching on from the public gallery - railed against the government during that afternoon’s general debate.
"This government seems to want to close their ears, but we say to this government: don't park an ambulance named Cliff at the bottom of one; fulfil your promises to our people and stop letting people fall; and don't patronise us with the false ideas of overblown costs and bluster," Mr Willis said.
Ms Brooking, meanwhile, emphasised the South’s message was to build the new hospital once, and to build it right.
"This is a great demonstration of local voice in action, because many of those councillors - and some of them are here and I'm sure they won't mind me saying - don't always agree with each other and they will vote for very different political parties.
"But on this matter, they are aligned and in full agreement about building this new hospital - this tertiary hospital, this inpatient hospital, this teaching hospital."
And with that Cliff was on his way back home.
Whether his journey had the desired effect remains to be seen, but it’s probably worth giving him a good service and a tune-up: he may yet need to ride again.
A winning effort
While he is not yet a winner on the hospital front, Mr Willis did have one notable victory this week: he was very honoured to have taken out the Ye Olde Cider Jug at the Waitati Brewers Convention for his "Fairly dry but bubbly" apple cider.
