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Speaker 1: Now another crack at central government over infrastructure. The bloke

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Speaker 1: who's been heading the CRL this is the Oakland City

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Speaker 1: Rail and he's leaving to go to Ireland. He wants

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Speaker 1: more cross party deals around big projects by chopping and changing,

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Speaker 1: he argues, and he's probably right with governments. Each government

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Speaker 1: comes in suddenly we're building a road, and then we're not,

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Speaker 1: and then we are, and then we're not. The cost

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Speaker 1: of course goes up so infrastructure. New Zealand's tub executive

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Speaker 1: Nick Leggett is with us on this Nick morning, Hi, Mike.

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Speaker 1: First excuse this is the CRL. It's billions of dollars over.

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Speaker 1: It's years late. And his argument this is Sean Sweeney.

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Speaker 1: His argument is the international thinking is you can't actually

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Speaker 1: price this stuff accurately. Is he right?

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Speaker 2: Yes, he is to a degree. And I mean when

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Speaker 2: Sewan Sweeney says something about infrastructure, we should all listen.

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Speaker 2: The point he made was until you engage a builder

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Speaker 2: and you get all your founders in line, you don't

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Speaker 2: really have a project. And that's something New Zealand does

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Speaker 2: very badly. You think about all the projects that we've

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Speaker 2: had around the country that have been sort of out

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Speaker 2: there in theory, whether it's light rail for Auckland, a

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Speaker 2: second half across and let's get well into moving. All

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Speaker 2: lots of money, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on planning,

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Speaker 2: business plans and the like, but no funding ever confirmed,

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Speaker 2: nobody actually ever engaged to build. They're just a nice

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Speaker 2: idea until you actually lock anything in in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: is really bad might and actually push and go and

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Speaker 2: as a result we get very very poor efficiency. It

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Speaker 2: costs US billions of dollars a year, and we don't

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Speaker 2: have the system lined up, and we don't have the

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Speaker 2: political consensus that takes these projects like CURL, which you

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Speaker 2: know ten years in the mating, it doesn't We don't

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Speaker 2: have the guarantee across political cycles and funding cycles to

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Speaker 2: lock them in and get the efficiencies that are small

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Speaker 2: country like New Zealand desperately needs.

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Speaker 1: Can we ever do it? Because the ideological gap, especially

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Speaker 1: at the moment, is enormous. So if you look for example,

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Speaker 1: at the roads of national significant PPPs, tolling, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: You look at the Labor Party, they hate roads, they

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Speaker 1: don't like PPPs, they like late rail, they like buses.

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Speaker 1: They're a mile apart. How do you depoliticize that.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think what we've got to do as a

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Speaker 2: country is expect our politicians to get more in the

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Speaker 2: same room and agree on some of the basics. Now

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Speaker 2: some of it. No, we're always going to have some disagreement.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's that's positive, that's good. That's why

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Speaker 2: we have different political parties. But Mike, it's the system,

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Speaker 2: it's the funding, it's we don't have a mature system.

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Speaker 2: It's very scatter. Again, we don't agree on principles like

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Speaker 2: actually Shawn Sweeney very accurately said, we're obsessed about price,

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Speaker 2: but actually what we've got to do is focus on

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Speaker 2: quality and value because quality lasts forever. And there is

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Speaker 2: this we've got one, you know, one party, Trackergy said,

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Speaker 2: and let's drive the cost of everything down. We don't

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Speaker 2: measure the economic benefit we get from infrastructure. We don't

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Speaker 2: consider that well enough. And I think this is about maturity.

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Speaker 2: And I can tell you, you know, we've visited other countries

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Speaker 2: this year and you can see for yourself places even

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Speaker 2: closer neighbors like Australia, there's just more political consistency. We

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Speaker 2: need a we need our two major parties at least

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Speaker 2: to build some form of consensus on the way the

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Speaker 2: systems built and on some of the big projects. When

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Speaker 2: you look at countries like Ireland, when you look at

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Speaker 2: countries like Denmark, you can have all political parties in

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Speaker 2: a room talking and agreeing on the key components of

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Speaker 2: what's important. Infrastructure, that long term pipeline, Sean Sweeney is

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Speaker 2: a classic example of where talent is leaving our country

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Speaker 2: skills that we badly need because there isn't a project

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Speaker 2: pipeline that guarantees those people, that gives them the confidence

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Speaker 2: that there's going to be work coming up, and then

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Speaker 2: to rebuild to bring in the people and the machinery

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Speaker 2: that costs even more. So if we do care about product,

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Speaker 2: but if we care about our medium to long term

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Speaker 2: economic growth, would get this right and we would reach

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Speaker 2: across the aisle. Look, the government is trying earnestly to

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Speaker 2: build the infrastructure system back up. What we've got to

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Speaker 2: have assurance about is when there's a change of government

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Speaker 2: at some point in the future that government doesn't come

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Speaker 2: in unravel things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, both on you well said, Nick, appreciate it very much.

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Speaker 1: Nick Leggot Infrastructure new Zealand chief executive good to see

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Speaker 1: it can be potentially done for more. From the mic

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Speaker 1: asking breakfast listen live to news talks there'd be from

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Speaker 1: six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio