Political pet projects that get overturned by incoming governments could be a thing of the past if a new infrastructure body achieves its aims
Infrastructure minister Chris Bishop has announced that the National Infrastructure Agency will be established in December. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
For years the infrastructure sector has been trying to take the politics out of promised projects; to get a pipeline of work that everyone agrees on so the country isn't constantly dreaming up bridges, railway lines, and power schemes that never happen.
It costs us billions to fund business studies and plans for these projects, only for many of them to be abandoned with a change of government that has different priorities.
However New Zealand may have just inched forward in the near-impossible task of putting aside politics to get long-term agreements on infrastructure.
Infrastructure minister Chris Bishop has announced that the National Infrastructure Agency will be established in December. Its aim is to get projects set up and funded, and will be the 'shop front' for private investment.
To do that, it is repurposing the existing Crown Infrastructure Partners, which was set up originally to drive broadband delivery.
Also announced was an extension of Rau Paenga, a Labour invention which came out of the Christchurch earthquake rebuild, which will have its mandate expanded to help government agencies too small or without the expertise to deliver their projects in-house.
As well, the Infrastructure Commission's work continues to develop a long term list of infrastructure priorities that will have assured funding no matter what government is in power.
The Infrastructure Commission has an emphasis on independence, says the Chief Executive of Infrastructure New Zealand, Nick Leggett.
"We talk about bi-partisanship - the independence of an agency that can give advice, come up with a 30-year plan, prioritise projects based on evidence and data... the Infrastructure Commission was started five years ago and it's done quite well but it has never fulfilled that mandate it had for that 30-year plan. The government's really sharpened the focus there, so there's more than just one path of this announcement that we should be thinking about.
"From the infrastructure sector's perspective this is good news because it's about building muscle in the system that plans, funds and delivers infrastructure for New Zealand."
Leggett says when we talk about bi-partisanship it's not about saying governments shouldn't be able to choose what they do.
"But for goodness sake we shouldn't politicise and overhaul the system every time the government changes."
He says this reset will help all parts of infrastructure delivery.
"If a system gets sort of toppled every time there's a change of government or it isn't clear, the politics overtakes everything and what we want is for the system to be consistent even if the political priorities aren't because that way we'll get things built faster, there'll be more certainty in the system and what that does is allows for more efficiency, more effectiveness, more productivity and we don't have this boom/ bust cycle that really cripples infrastructure in a small country.
"There isn't a Labour or a National way to build infrastructure, there's just a proper, and consistent way."
This year Leggett led delegations to the UK and Europe to look at how countries about the same size as ours, including Ireland and Denmark, deliver their infrastructure.
He tells The Detail what they learned from countries that have managed to put aside political differences to grow their assets.
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