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Speaker 1: From the Infrastructure Commission on what our future will cost us.

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Speaker 1: As it stands, we got assets worth about two hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty seven billion dollars. That stacks up to around

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Speaker 1: fifty five thousand dollars per New Zealander apparently, which is

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Speaker 1: the average for the OECD. Apparently. Anyway, the issue here

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Speaker 1: to keep up a greater proportion of GDP is needed.

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Speaker 1: The Infrastructure Commission's Acting General Manager of Strategy, Peter Nuns,

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Speaker 1: is with us on all this.

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Speaker 2: Peter morning, gooday, Mike, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Not at all am I being slightly weird and suggesting

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Speaker 1: this is all a bit esoteric because it's based on

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Speaker 1: the idea that what might or might not happen, and

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Speaker 1: given we don't really know what that is, therefore we

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Speaker 1: can't plan with any definitive nature what the future is.

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Speaker 2: Well, we can think about what we have more and

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Speaker 2: less certainty about one thing that we've got a lot

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Speaker 2: of certainty about. If we've got infrastructure today and we

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Speaker 2: want to keep using it, we have to be maintaining

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Speaker 2: and renewing, right, yep. That's something that if we've got

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Speaker 2: if we understand what we've got well and what condition

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Speaker 2: it's in we can forecast that really well, build an

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Speaker 2: investment program around it. Then there's some other things that

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Speaker 2: are harder to forecast, like how fast as the population

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Speaker 2: can grow, how many people are going to migrate in

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Speaker 2: a given year. Yeah, and so we can think about

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Speaker 2: think about sort of what we've got certainty on, what

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Speaker 2: we don't have certainty on, and planning apportingly. Right.

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Speaker 1: So I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm glad

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Speaker 1: you raised that aspect of it. So maintenance, Yes, I

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Speaker 1: get it, We've got it. Let's keep it up to speed.

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Speaker 1: I've got all of that. Yesterday I'm reading a report.

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Speaker 1: Did you see business cases for large roading projects? Disconnected

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Speaker 1: from reality? This is the Ministry of Transport In other words,

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Speaker 1: in that particular area maintenance, we're useless. If we're useless,

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Speaker 1: do we have any hope?

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Speaker 2: I think we need to recognize that the challenges that

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Speaker 2: we've got and work on a plan to get better. Right,

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Speaker 2: Disconnected from reality is a pretty strong language, I've got

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Speaker 2: to say. But what that highlights is the challenges that

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Speaker 2: we face and planning, planning major infrastructure projects and scoping

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Speaker 2: them up in a way so that they don't run away.

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Speaker 2: Most in terms of cost and delivery time frames. Right,

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Speaker 2: we know we've got issues there. We can do better,

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Speaker 2: a lot of other people do.

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Speaker 1: How do we because I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion

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Speaker 1: that we're not able to do it. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: business of announcing a project and it blowing out is

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Speaker 1: just life, and I don't know what we do to

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Speaker 1: get around there.

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Speaker 2: I mean people see this in their homes. Right, you

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Speaker 2: know what's the average kitchen renovation cost? Blow out? Right significant?

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Speaker 2: That being said, what we can do in this area

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Speaker 2: is tighten up the practices a little bit. One of

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Speaker 2: the things that we've been advocating for at the Commission

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Speaker 2: is a bit better discipline around the project planning and

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Speaker 2: announcement phases. Right, So, in other words, rather than saying

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Speaker 2: at the outset when you've had the bright idea, when

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Speaker 2: you've recognized you've got a problem to solve, right, we're

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Speaker 2: going to build this thing and it's going to cost

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Speaker 2: X heay, we never got a problem here. We need

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Speaker 2: to do the work. We need to do the geotechnical investigations.

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Speaker 2: We need to get some people to design this thing,

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Speaker 2: figure out what it will cost to build, and whether

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Speaker 2: it's feasible and then we'll come back and tell you

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Speaker 2: you about what's next.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, but that was part of the story I

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Speaker 1: read yesterday. See, one of the plans I had, consultants

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Speaker 1: were paid one point one seven million bayonz zta at

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Speaker 1: more than two thousand dollars a day for the work

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Speaker 1: that included a state highway investment business case, while another

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Speaker 1: received two hundred and twenty thousand dollars a third almost

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Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand dollars. So the first thing we do

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Speaker 1: is going, oh, we'll net have a clue what it's

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Speaker 1: going to cost. Let's hire some people to do that.

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Speaker 1: And then they come back with a number that may

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Speaker 1: or may not be right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And I think that we've got when we

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Speaker 2: look at those things, we've got to look at the

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Speaker 2: value we're getting from those investigating investigation processes. Right, some

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Speaker 2: of that money will be well spent because we're dealing

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Speaker 2: with major, major issues. Spending a few million dollars up

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Speaker 2: front on a project that might cost hundreds of millions

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Speaker 2: of dollars candy good money. Right, Just in terms of

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Speaker 2: understanding what you're doing before you set out to do it,

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Speaker 2: you can save yourself money if you if you run

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Speaker 2: the right investigations. But I think the question that people

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Speaker 2: sometimes ask is are we sort of looping on this right?

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Speaker 2: Are we getting into a cycle where we're sort of

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Speaker 2: iterating on these things without getting more information? And that's

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Speaker 2: maybe the question that those stories pubs well.

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Speaker 1: I wish you the base with it. Peter Nuns, who's

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Speaker 1: with the Infrastructure Commission. It is a convoluted, old business.

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Speaker 1: I can tell you for nothing. For more from the

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