Speaker 1: Kiodra.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Infrastructure is
Speaker 2: top of the agenda for the government for the last
Speaker 2: months of twenty twenty four. The Prime Minister this week
Speaker 2: released his Q four Action Plan, with plenty of targets
Speaker 2: focusing on getting things built. Among the forty three objectives
Speaker 2: is the highly controversial Fast Track Approvals Bill, which it's
Speaker 2: hoped will speed up the delivery of regional and national
Speaker 2: projects of significance. The focus on infrastructure comes a week
Speaker 2: after the government announced Dunedin's new hospital could be downgraded
Speaker 2: due to budget concerns. To discuss houses, roads, hospitals and
Speaker 2: that niggli issue of budgets. Today on the Front Page,
Speaker 2: we're joined by Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop. Minister this latest
Speaker 2: action plan from the government. Do you think these have
Speaker 2: been a success so far? These action plans? Have you
Speaker 2: achieved everything you've wanted from them so far?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Chris Luxon as Prime Minister has did a real focus
Speaker 5: for as ministers in the public service on getting things
Speaker 5: done and getting results and being really clear about what
Speaker 5: we're trying to achieve. And so we started at the
Speaker 5: end of last year and we've been rolling on through
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four and the vast bulk of things we
Speaker 5: want to accomplish.
Speaker 4: Every quarter have been done.
Speaker 5: So it's about setting a focus for the public service
Speaker 5: around what we try and deliver and for.
Speaker 4: Ministers as well.
Speaker 5: So it's been working well so far and looking forward
Speaker 5: to Quarter four, which of course has started now, well it's.
Speaker 1: The big one.
Speaker 2: Hey, infrastructure is the focus of the latest one. Do
Speaker 2: you think you can solve our infrastructure woes in the
Speaker 2: next quarter?
Speaker 4: And if only that was true.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of things we've got to do to
Speaker 5: get better infrastructure and better deliver in New Zealand. But
Speaker 5: there's a few things in the Quarter four plan which
Speaker 5: will help. Passing the fast track fill it into law
Speaker 5: this quarter will make a difference in terms of consenting.
Speaker 5: We've got a couple of resource management bills working their
Speaker 5: way through the Parliament as well, and looking forward to
Speaker 5: some decisions around infrastructure funding and financing for new housing
Speaker 5: as well. So there's quite a lot on the agenda,
Speaker 5: lots to do, but you know, there's much more to
Speaker 5: do beyond this quarter. If it be solved in one
Speaker 5: quarter that it'd be a great thing, but that's not
Speaker 5: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, one of the main things you want to achieve, hey,
Speaker 2: this quarter is finalizing that Fast Track Approvals Bill.
Speaker 1: What's the point of this bill from your perspective.
Speaker 5: Well, we've got an infrastructure deficit, and we've got a
Speaker 5: housing crisis, and we've got very ambitious climate goals and
Speaker 5: we need more renewable energy and you know we just
Speaker 5: simply can't do that with our current planning system. So
Speaker 5: the Fast Track Bill is all about making it easier
Speaker 5: to get on and build the projects that New Zealand
Speaker 5: needs for the future right around the country, for everything
Speaker 5: from mining to quarrying to renewable energy, through to housing
Speaker 5: and broader infrastructure projects. So it's not about deathic creating
Speaker 5: the environment or sacrificing the importance of the environment. But
Speaker 5: it's about cutting through the red tape. You know, it
Speaker 5: shouldn't take eight years to consent a wind farm, for example.
Speaker 4: That's nuts.
Speaker 5: You know, we should be getting on and building these
Speaker 5: projects because the zeeland needs them.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to that bill, how confident are
Speaker 2: you that we won't have another leaky home saga situation.
Speaker 4: Oh, very confident.
Speaker 5: This is not about sacrificing environmental protections or quality. It's
Speaker 5: about cutting through the red tape and green tape to
Speaker 5: make it easy to do things.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure Bulger's government assured the same thing back
Speaker 2: in the nineties though.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, But I mean Fasstrack is not about the
Speaker 5: Building Act, for example, the Building Code. This is about
Speaker 5: resource consenting and other permits he required, like the Wildlife Act,
Speaker 5: Public Works.
Speaker 4: Act and things like that. So it's not about the
Speaker 4: Building Act.
Speaker 5: And you know it's been well chemist what happened there
Speaker 5: in the early nineties and then later on reforms lead
Speaker 5: into the leaky homes of the early two thousands.
Speaker 4: It's not about that then. It was quite distinct issues.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to that bill, including appointing a
Speaker 2: panel to projects, do you think you've done enough to
Speaker 2: appease the fears over those environmental concerns.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I.
Speaker 5: Think you're never going to appease everybody, and that with
Speaker 5: people out there who just be radically opposed to fast.
Speaker 4: Track whatever we do.
Speaker 5: But people should bear in mind we did base quite
Speaker 5: a lot of the substance and the process of the
Speaker 5: law based on what the last government did as well.
Speaker 5: I mean, they had their own version of fast track
Speaker 5: through the COVID nineteen period, and admittedly ours is larger
Speaker 5: in scope and bigger, but you know, the substance and
Speaker 5: some of the processes are the same.
Speaker 4: So you're never going to satisfy everybody.
Speaker 5: But you know, we've made some sensible changes to the
Speaker 5: bill to try and ameliorate or mitigate some of the.
Speaker 4: Concerns that have been expressed.
Speaker 5: And you know, I listened to those concerns and good faith,
Speaker 5: and we've made some changes to the bill, and you know,
Speaker 5: whether or not it satisfies everybody was suspect it won't,
Speaker 5: but you know, we're going.
Speaker 4: To charge on.
Speaker 1: If we want to build a new road.
Speaker 2: Say but midway through we find that a family of
Speaker 2: endangered birds or skinks or something it calls the area home.
Speaker 1: What happens then?
Speaker 2: Are these the kind of things that get projects tied
Speaker 2: up in the environment core.
Speaker 5: It's typically not halfway through a project, because as part
Speaker 5: of the process of getting resourced sent and permissions to
Speaker 5: do various things, you've got to do quite a bit
Speaker 5: of pre work before you go off and get a
Speaker 5: resource consent. So I think it'd be quite a rare
Speaker 5: circumstance in which you're building a road and you happen
Speaker 5: to come across a you know, endangered species or something.
Speaker 4: You know, that would be a very very unusual situation.
Speaker 2: Didn't it happen with Transmission Gully. I'm just going off
Speaker 2: memory here.
Speaker 4: Well, Transmission Gully had a lot of different issues. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was a whole other ca Well, it was.
Speaker 5: It was a very complex piece of engineering, and they
Speaker 5: did have resource consenting challenges with the Regional Council for
Speaker 5: a variety of complicated reasons. And I would put Transmission
Speaker 5: Gully in the category of a project that was actually delayed.
Speaker 4: Because of resource consenting.
Speaker 5: So one of the things they missed, i think from memory,
Speaker 5: two or three earthworks seasons because they're waiting for various
Speaker 5: different consents before they could go and build it.
Speaker 4: It's one of the reasons why it took so long.
Speaker 5: So that is actually a bit of a clacic case
Speaker 5: study as to why things take a while. But you know,
Speaker 5: no one wants to see the destruction of endangered species
Speaker 5: as a result of projects that are built through frustrated.
Speaker 3: Studship plan is not dark planned and if there is
Speaker 3: a mineral.
Speaker 4: If there is a.
Speaker 3: Mining opportunity and it's impeded by a blind frog, goodbye Fredy.
Speaker 2: When it comes to roads of national and regional significance,
Speaker 2: how are we going to pay for them?
Speaker 5: Well, ultimately they'll be paid for by a combination of
Speaker 5: road users and the Crown. And the way we pay
Speaker 5: for roads in New Zealand is primarily out.
Speaker 4: Of field texas and road user charges.
Speaker 5: That's the primary mechanism because the ultimately road users pay
Speaker 5: for the roads that they use. We're looking at using
Speaker 5: tolls as an additional mechanism to help pay for the
Speaker 5: roads because they provide the revenue stream to help the
Speaker 5: financing of some of these roads. And so we've made
Speaker 5: a commitment to do that as a coalition government. And
Speaker 5: you know many New Zealanders will be familiar with toll
Speaker 5: roads overseas Sydney and Brisbane and Melbourne and Featherfield as
Speaker 5: well in Europe for example. We've got to roads New
Speaker 5: Zealand right now. I've got the Northern Gateway north of Aukland,
Speaker 5: got top of toll roads around Toron. They have plenty
Speaker 5: they do. It's just the New Zealand right now, we're
Speaker 5: just saying we want to make more use of them.
Speaker 2: Why haven't we started using to roads more and more
Speaker 2: like the rest of the world has, do you think?
Speaker 4: I think there's a variety of reasons for that.
Speaker 5: I think there's probably a view that when you drive
Speaker 5: on a road, you've already paid for it because it's
Speaker 5: been built and you pay petrol tax, and that's true
Speaker 5: up to a point, but also tolling is just an
Speaker 5: alternative mechanism to paying for the use of the roads
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 4: I think some people would probably argue, you know, when you.
Speaker 5: Have paid two dollars eighty or whatever, you know, it's
Speaker 5: slightly frustrating and annoying to have to do that. So
Speaker 5: there's a sort of basic administration that people don't like.
Speaker 5: But it's actually pretty easy to do these days. So
Speaker 5: I think politicians have probably been a bit fearful on
Speaker 5: the past of authorizing the use of toll roads.
Speaker 4: But you know, the reality is the roads have.
Speaker 5: To be paid for, and holding is a thing that
Speaker 5: can bring forward the construction of roads that wouldn't otherwise happen,
Speaker 5: or might happen later than they otherwise would.
Speaker 2: My colleague Thomas Coglan last month wrote about a report
Speaker 2: that had been written by the Infrastructure Commission for you
Speaker 2: about the roads of national significance in Northland. The commissioner
Speaker 2: warned that this road network between Auckland and Funradai alone
Speaker 2: would eat up ten percent of the country's infrastructure over
Speaker 2: the next twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Is that justifiable?
Speaker 5: Well, we're having a good look at that road and
Speaker 5: it's a really important connector for Northland to Auckland and
Speaker 5: one of the best things we can do for the
Speaker 5: economy of Northland to make it better connected to its
Speaker 5: larger economic market of Auckland its surrounding area. So you know,
Speaker 5: we take on board the Infrastructure Commission advice and we've
Speaker 5: got a big job to do over the next few
Speaker 5: years when it comes to funding the roads and the
Speaker 5: infrastructure we need around the country.
Speaker 2: Ten percent is a pretty big chunk ky. Someone in
Speaker 2: in the cargo probably won't care about that road.
Speaker 5: No, you know, everyone's a strong advocate for the particular
Speaker 5: area of the country that you know when they want
Speaker 5: to see investment, and this is just the example of
Speaker 5: the challenge we've got as a country where you know,
Speaker 5: we have a between one hundred and two hundred million
Speaker 5: dollar infrastructure deficit that's been built up over twenty to
Speaker 5: thirty years and it's going to take quite a long
Speaker 5: time to address that, and that's why we're really focused
Speaker 5: on getting the system right around infrastructure investment. We're creating
Speaker 5: a new funding and financing agency, National Infrastructure Agency. We're
Speaker 5: looking at the instructur Commission to doing a thirty year
Speaker 5: plan for the country to try and build a bit
Speaker 5: more by partisan consensus around what.
Speaker 4: Projects we need.
Speaker 5: We are looking at new tools like toll roads, you know,
Speaker 5: new funding mechanisms like our value capture and different forms
Speaker 5: of rates. It's the simplest way to put it to
Speaker 5: capture some of the value of public sector investment in infrastructure.
Speaker 5: So we're doing all that we can across the whole
Speaker 5: range of different workstreams across the government to redress our
Speaker 5: infrastructure deficit.
Speaker 2: Why haven't we gotten international investment in some of these
Speaker 2: roads and infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Do you think are we just that opposed to it?
Speaker 5: Well, that welcome that hasn't been put out for that
Speaker 5: in the past. So you know, the previous government had
Speaker 5: a particular aversion to the use of private capital to help.
Speaker 4: Address our infrastructure needs. We don't. We're very open minded
Speaker 4: to it.
Speaker 5: So that's been quite a shift, and there is a
Speaker 5: degree of interest offshore and investment into New Zealand. Our
Speaker 5: foreign investment laws are very hostile to private capital flowing
Speaker 5: into the country. We've got one of the most hostile
Speaker 5: foreign investment regimes in the developed world, and Gompment stones
Speaker 5: some work on that. It's part of the coalition agreement
Speaker 5: with the act Party obviously as well. So we want
Speaker 5: to make it easier to invest in New Zealand. So
Speaker 5: the variety of reasons in this work underway on all
Speaker 5: of those things.
Speaker 4: Once we've got more to say about that, we'll say it.
Speaker 2: While we're on infrastructure to need in hospital, Chris, how
Speaker 2: can a projects budget jump from around one point two
Speaker 2: billion dollars to an estimated three billion dollars?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, very good question.
Speaker 5: This is part of the issue with the new to
Speaker 5: need and hospital project is it's been a bit of
Speaker 5: a shamozzle all the way back in twenty seventeen when
Speaker 5: cindera June said they'd start construction in the fift three
Speaker 5: years and here we are in twenty twenty four and
Speaker 5: we've got half an outpatient building being built and they
Speaker 5: haven't started the impatient building seven years on, and it's
Speaker 5: been a very troubled project right from the start, and
Speaker 5: unfortunately there's been a real lack of transparency around the
Speaker 5: project over the last few years and we've now inherited
Speaker 5: it and we're just trying to be as upfront and
Speaker 5: transparent with the public about what the actual facts are.
Speaker 5: And you know, I realize that people are unhappy about that,
Speaker 5: but I genuinely feel we've got a duty to be
Speaker 5: upfront with people about the problems with the project. I mean,
Speaker 5: the site was selected in twenty eighteen. They bought the
Speaker 5: old Cad Prefectory site. They spent eleven million dollars on
Speaker 5: the land, so they got the land pretty cheap, but
Speaker 5: they also had to buy about fifty five million bucks
Speaker 5: worth of land around the Cad Prefectory site because they
Speaker 5: actually needed more than than they thought. The land is contaminated,
Speaker 5: it's on a swamp. It's on very marshy, swampy land,
Speaker 5: so that has necessitated quite a lot of design work
Speaker 5: to make changes around that. It's surrounded by two different
Speaker 5: state highways, so it's a very very challenging site that
Speaker 5: the hospital is currently designed to be built on. And
Speaker 5: that has driven a lot of cost escalation.
Speaker 2: It sounds like that site shouldn't have been chosen in
Speaker 2: the first place.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't want to, I thought, I don't want
Speaker 5: to get into litigating the path because that site has
Speaker 5: been chosen, and it was chosen by the previous government.
Speaker 5: The project is so complex that you know, it was
Speaker 5: really hard to find a contracted a bit on the
Speaker 5: project and they had to do what's called an early
Speaker 5: contractor engagement process where basically the current lead contractor or
Speaker 5: the current contractor that have been helping, as I understand
Speaker 5: it anyways, that have been helping to design up the
Speaker 5: speck of the project so they can actually price it properly.
Speaker 5: So that that in itself has been an interesting process.
Speaker 5: The reality is that an extremely complex project. People say,
Speaker 5: you know, well, how can it be that a hospital
Speaker 5: cost getting near three billion dollars? And I had exactly
Speaker 5: the same reaction. I asked exactly the same questions as
Speaker 5: the publican now asking, and those are the facts. And
Speaker 5: as Infrastructure Minister, alongside Shane and the rest of the team,
Speaker 5: you know, we've got to deal with that and you know,
Speaker 5: we're just trying to We've inherited a really, really tough situation,
Speaker 5: and we are trying to do what is right for
Speaker 5: the people of to need and but also what's right
Speaker 5: for the country and get the project back on track
Speaker 5: as quickly as we possibly can so that we can
Speaker 5: move forward.
Speaker 3: The people of this region are hopping mad best demon
Speaker 3: about this depreciation of the hospital that they've.
Speaker 4: Been waiting for us for so long.
Speaker 2: This project is in people's hearts and it will not
Speaker 2: They will not be messed with lot in even one
Speaker 2: story of the new child block would mean the new
Speaker 2: hospital would have fewer beds than what we have now.
Speaker 1: Are we just terrible at estimating costs? Do you think?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 5: I think the site as a particular problem and is
Speaker 5: very very challenging, as is the project. I mean, the
Speaker 5: rough report makes it clear that even now the sort
Speaker 5: of project scope, exactly what they're going to build is
Speaker 5: still being debated and litigated. So it's kind of hard
Speaker 5: to cost up a project when you don't know exactly
Speaker 5: what you're building. So as I say the project has
Speaker 5: had a number of challenges and a number of problems,
Speaker 5: I think it would be fair to say that those
Speaker 5: problems have not always been ventilated to the public properly.
Speaker 5: We are now doing that and it's really tough for
Speaker 5: the people of Dunedin who I realize they are upset
Speaker 5: about it, but they're going to get a new hospital.
Speaker 5: I want to make that really clear Dunedin and the
Speaker 5: wider region, because it's not just a incident.
Speaker 2: Do we know when they should it be expecting that
Speaker 2: hospitals are all a bit.
Speaker 5: Up in the year at the moment, well, we're thinking
Speaker 5: advice urgently on the two options that we've laid out
Speaker 5: on the table. The inpatient building is due to be
Speaker 5: complete currently in twenty twenty nine, so it's five years
Speaker 5: away anyway, and so we're just taking our time over
Speaker 5: the next few weeks and a couple of months to
Speaker 5: get some clarity in some finality, and once we've made
Speaker 5: a decision, we'll make that clear.
Speaker 2: This week, former Prime Minister Bill English told The Herald's
Speaker 2: Money Talks podcast that he wishes he had pushed more
Speaker 2: on housing supply. You've made big calls on our housing
Speaker 2: issue yourself, it is in fact a crisis, saying prices
Speaker 2: need to drop with this infrastructure focus. What do you
Speaker 2: want to see change in our housing sector?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Bill English realizes like I do, and
Speaker 5: like the government does, that the root cause of so
Speaker 5: many social problems in New Zealand is unaffordable housing. You know,
Speaker 5: it's a massive driver of poverty, it's a huge driver
Speaker 5: of inequality. It's one of the reasons why we are
Speaker 5: not as a productive country as we otherwise could be
Speaker 5: cities that grow and allow people to move to their
Speaker 5: cities more productive cities, and so so many of our
Speaker 5: problems as a country come back to housing, and that's
Speaker 5: because we haven't sorted out the fundamentals of our housing market,
Speaker 5: which is about land supply, infrastructure funding and financing, and
Speaker 5: making sure that councils are incentivised to.
Speaker 4: Go for housing growth.
Speaker 5: So that's why we've got a really comprehensive program of
Speaker 5: reform around housing. You know, we've made some progress already.
Speaker 5: We've made some decisions around land supply making it easier
Speaker 5: for councils to grow out but also go up, so
Speaker 5: more density but also more green fields as well.
Speaker 4: We've got work underway around.
Speaker 5: Infrastructure funding and financing, and that's part of the Quarter
Speaker 5: for Action plan we were talking about before.
Speaker 4: But there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 5: Housing is an extremely important problem to solve in New
Speaker 5: Zealand and we're determined to do it.
Speaker 2: And lastly, Minisa, should there be cross party deals to
Speaker 2: assure big infrastructure projects are actually built or should we
Speaker 2: just keep expecting to spend millions of dollars in preparation
Speaker 2: and have plans scrapped every three years once another party
Speaker 2: is in power.
Speaker 5: Look, I am keen to build more bipartisan consensus on
Speaker 5: big projects, but I think the critical point is that
Speaker 5: you've got to get your ducks in a row and
Speaker 5: do the work up front and be really clear about
Speaker 5: what problem you're trying to solve before you charge off
Speaker 5: and start commissioning work and doing projects. So you know,
Speaker 5: for example, the City Rail Link as a project that
Speaker 5: will open in the next couple of years, that started
Speaker 5: life back in twenty sixteen. From memory, construction started and
Speaker 5: construction continued all the way through the last government and
Speaker 5: it started life under national or be opened by a national.
Speaker 4: Government with the work. You know, a lot of the
Speaker 4: work was done.
Speaker 5: Under labor transmission gullies, but the same you know, eventually,
Speaker 5: construction started in twenty fourteen, finished in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: Cinder Aderne opened it and so where you've got big
Speaker 5: projects where you know everyone agrees that on the need
Speaker 5: to do them, that's great. The issue with some of
Speaker 5: the projects that have been canceled in the last couple
Speaker 5: of years, and Label would probably say the same, is
Speaker 5: that they.
Speaker 4: Were not sensible projects. I mean Auckland light Rail.
Speaker 5: You know, thirty to forty billion dollar tram I wasn't
Speaker 5: actually a tramm by the end. That actually speaks to
Speaker 5: the project right because it started life as a three
Speaker 5: hundred million dollar tram project down to Minion Road and
Speaker 5: ended life as a thirty five billion dollar underground metro
Speaker 5: system all the way out to the airport and Auckland.
Speaker 5: So that in lot of itself speaks to just the
Speaker 5: problems with the project over seven years, which is then
Speaker 5: it goes back to the point I made before, which
Speaker 5: is about getting the fundamentals right of our system.
Speaker 4: Let's get a thirty year plan in place.
Speaker 5: Let's get an infrastructure commissioned plan that the country can
Speaker 5: get behind. Let's get proper business casing and proper scoping
Speaker 5: done properly so we don't end up with situations like
Speaker 5: Newdon Needum that in and of itself will help create
Speaker 5: a much better degree of bipartisan consensus around a pipeline
Speaker 5: and better plannings, and that's what I'm really focused on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining US, Minister.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Silves and sound engineer Patti Fox. I'm
Speaker 2: Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday
Speaker 2: for another look behind the headlines.