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Speaker 1: Here's the quote. Every three years, the political goalposts move. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: we call it an election obviously, but the quote is

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Speaker 1: from the infrastructure industry. Their report out yesterday tells us

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Speaker 1: the usual tale. The pipeline or lack of it is

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Speaker 1: an issue, and politics gets in the way, it holds

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Speaker 1: the country back. That Treasury report we featured this week

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Speaker 1: as well, tells us pretty much the same thing. Their

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Speaker 1: reports banned out over forty years and talks of the

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Speaker 1: fear that our debt will be at two hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of GDP if we don't do something about it. We've

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Speaker 1: got a lot of big picture issues that we know

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Speaker 1: our issues, and yet we haven't been able to crack them.

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Speaker 1: This government, to be fair to it, has tried the

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Speaker 1: big picture talk. They have announced a pretty decent pipeline

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Speaker 1: of longer term work, and they've cited various countries that

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Speaker 1: have a greater level of political cooperation than we do.

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Speaker 1: Certain sectors and projects are handled by independent bodies that

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Speaker 1: operate between governments that projectors agreed to, that project does

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Speaker 1: not interfered with if the government changes. This week's example

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Speaker 1: gave little hope, sadly, that we have the maturity to

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Speaker 1: try and change the way we continue to shoot ourselves

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Speaker 1: in the collective foot Luxe and wrote to Hipkins about

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Speaker 1: oil and gas exploration. Can we get cross party agreement?

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Speaker 1: The problem being, although exploration and applications are back open

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Speaker 1: and we've got a couple hundred million dollars of taxpayers

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Speaker 1: money to get skin in the game, the fear is

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Speaker 1: that no one's signing up if you don't know what

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Speaker 1: the rules are going to be in three years time.

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Speaker 1: Hipkin said it was desperate. So that's that then, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: Which is a shame And Hipkin should know better, act better,

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Speaker 1: and ask himself whether he serves the country well with

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Speaker 1: such a myopic response. No one really is a fan

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Speaker 1: of oil and gas, are they, But surely we all

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Speaker 1: agree it is a big help between now and whenever

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Speaker 1: the windmills and solar panels and batteries are up and running.

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Speaker 1: Does he really prefer coal? Can he not see that

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Speaker 1: keeping the lights on is kind of important? Can he

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Speaker 1: not be the bigger person about it? America, of course,

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Speaker 1: is closed down currently because the two sides hate each other.

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Speaker 1: We aren't as bad, but we could be an awful

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Speaker 1: lot better, don't you think? Surely it can't be so

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Speaker 1: hard to put common economic interest beyond simple party politics. Surely,

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Speaker 1: two major so called center parties can't be so far

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Speaker 1: apart that a basic like power supply can't be dealt

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Speaker 1: with in a sybil and collegial way. For more from

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Speaker 1: The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to News Talks at

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

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