The $2m contract to senior govt advisor’s business partner

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora awarded a $2m contract to MBI Healthcare Technologies, a company co-founded by embattled senior manager John Bennett.

At the time the contract was awarded, Bennett had been advising Health NZ on “system performance, reporting and accountability”.

Health NZ did not advertise the contract, saying MBI Healthcare was “the only known provider with the essential skills and expertise necessary” for the services needed.

Bennett had resigned as a director of MBI in 2020, but remains a director in two other companies with the co-founder.

Health NZ awarded a $2m contract to a UK-based company linked to embattled senior manager John Bennett, and didn’t advertise the contract because MBI was “the only known provider with the essential skills” for the work.

In 2023, Health NZ engaged MBI Healthcare Technologies to carry out work related to patient waiting lists and improving the delivery of care in hospitals.

The company was co-founded by John Bennett, Barry Mulholland and a third party in 2012. Bennett resigned as a director in 2020, but remains a director in two other companies with Mulholland.

Bennett, who was employed in a senior management role at ACC in September 2024 and has this year been on secondment back to Health NZ, was stood down by ACC on Friday and is subject to an investigation, after a series of Stuff stories reported concerns about his conduct.

Those concerns included physical contact with co-workers and appearing shirtless in a work video call, which Bennett defended as, “So, yeah, it's hugging staff members and someone putting a camera on me while I was sat there at nine o’clock in the morning in the hot weather in Auckland.”

Last week, Stuff reported that both ACC and Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora had awarded contracts to MBI Health, but a series of questions to Health NZ went unanswered, including what the company had been contracted to do, at what cost, whether the contract was advertised, and if not, why it wasn’t.

Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora’s interim chief human resources officer Fiona McCarthy has now responded that the contract to MBI Healthcare Technologies was awarded in 2023, “ to assist with the data validation of our patient waiting list and support other work to improve the delivery of care in our hospitals”.

The contract had not been advertised.

“The engagement of MBI was exempt from the open advertising requirements in our procurement processes as it was the only known provider with the essential skills and expertise necessary to deliver the specific services needed at that time.”

McCarthy said the contract ended in December 2024 because the work was completed. By that time 34 payments totalling NZ$2,006,073 had been made to MBI Health.

Health NZ remained comfortable with the awarding of the contract to a company with connections to Bennett, who since at least 2022 had been advising the agency on system performance, reporting and accountability.

“Health NZ had engaged with Mr Bennett to ensure any real or perceived conflicts of interest were managed according to Health NZ policy.”

Health NZ did not answer Stuff’ s questions about who had alerted MBI Health to the contract or whether it was aware that while Bennett had resigned as a director of MBI Health, he remained in business in two other companies with its co-founder.

Bennett said he had no comment to make on the contract.

Mulholland did not respond to Stuff’s request for comment.

ACC has not answered Stuff’s questions about what contracts it has awarded to MBI Health.

But Mulholland appears in the agency’s organisation chart as a contractor working on system commissioning and performance.