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Speaker 1: Now, there's a bit of news round when it comes

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Speaker 1: to infrastructure. Last quarter's Infrastructure Commission update shows an increase

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Speaker 1: of sixty point four billion dollars since the previous quarter.

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Speaker 1: The total value of projects now set at two hundred

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Speaker 1: and four billion dollars. That's a lot of money, that's

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Speaker 1: a lot of projects, but how many have broken ground? Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the government's announced an overhaul of the Public Works Act,

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Speaker 1: which will aim to speed up infrastructure processes. Infrastructure New

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Speaker 1: Zealand Policy Director Michelle McCormick is with me. Now, Hello, Michelle,

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Speaker 1: good morning injury. So how many have broken ground? Do

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Speaker 1: you know?

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Speaker 2: We've got fifteen hundred in underway under contract, so that's

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Speaker 2: forty eight point six billion dollars, which is quite significant.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, we've still got a wee way to go.

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Speaker 2: So there's still you know, out of a total of

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Speaker 2: seven thousand, six hundred projects in the pipeline, just over

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Speaker 2: half actually have funding committed, So there's a bit of

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Speaker 2: work to do before we actually get all those into construction,

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Speaker 2: and I mean all so just because they're in the

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Speaker 2: pipeline also means that, you know, there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: work to do in terms of getting consenting as well

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Speaker 2: as the funding aligned. So what is good news though,

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Speaker 2: is that we've got a lot more organizations contributing to

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Speaker 2: the pipeline information. So that's not only the government, local government,

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Speaker 2: but also the private sector. So the value of having

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Speaker 2: the pipeline and it's been visible both right across New

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Speaker 2: Zealand to know what work force we need, but also

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Speaker 2: internationally too to see what opportunities there are now.

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Speaker 1: I know that the construction industry has complained about the

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Speaker 1: fact that the government canceled a lot of the projects

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Speaker 1: and their bid to actually cut government spending. So have

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Speaker 1: we canceled a lot?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, things did stop, that is very true, and things

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Speaker 2: are taking a while to get going. As I said,

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Speaker 2: just because it's in the pipeline doesn't mean there's shovels

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Speaker 2: in the ground, so all their pre work. You can

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Speaker 2: take several years actually to get consents to acquire properties.

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Speaker 2: So maintaining workforce here has definitely been challenging over the

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Speaker 2: last couple of years. There haven't been that level of

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Speaker 2: activity to keep people active and we have seen people

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Speaker 2: go after or.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately exactly of course, if we don't give them work,

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Speaker 1: they go and find it and they find it overseas.

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Speaker 1: I talked in my intro about the overhaul of the

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Speaker 1: Public Works Act that's going to allow agencies like NZTA

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Speaker 1: to enter into acquisition agreements with landowners and enable collaboration

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Speaker 1: between agencies. You've got to buy the land before you

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Speaker 1: can start building on this. Is this making a difference

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Speaker 1: or will it make it? Hope?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely should help speed things up. So we're

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Speaker 2: looking at legislation being introduced the middle of the year,

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Speaker 2: but what has been signaled is really promising. It will

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Speaker 2: cut some of the red tape at the moment MDTA

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Speaker 2: has to go through the Minister to get those final

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Speaker 2: approvals once you know they are in negotiations. But also

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Speaker 2: when we've got some complicated development space where you know

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Speaker 2: you might have one agency during the roading, others providing telecommunication.

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Speaker 2: You know, each of them had to go through their

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Speaker 2: own process and now we can actually see that griped

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Speaker 2: together and acquired for one purpose. So that just makes

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Speaker 2: total sense.

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Speaker 1: Well, bring it on, Michelle, We love the work. Michelle McCormack,

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Speaker 1: the Policy Director Infrastructure in New Zealand. For more from

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