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Speaker 1: Only the government's promised boots on the ground for the

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Speaker 1: six billion dollars worth of infrastructure they announced yesterday. Construction

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Speaker 1: due to start on projects like hospital units, schools and

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Speaker 1: roads between now and Christmas. They reckon four and a

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Speaker 1: half thousand jobs will be created per billion dollars spent.

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Speaker 1: Alan Pollard is several contractors in New Zealand. Chief Executive Ellen,

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Speaker 1: good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good one.

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Speaker 1: Right now, did we know the timeline the start date

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Speaker 1: for these projects already? I mean some of them we did.

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Speaker 1: But was this announcement useful?

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Speaker 2: Well? I think I was useful. We certainly knew the

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Speaker 2: projects are coming, but we didn't really have any clear

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Speaker 2: invocation when just then they said the shuttles make it

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Speaker 2: on the ground. So it's very helpful to know that

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Speaker 2: within a very short time that of work coming to market.

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Speaker 1: Is the industry ready for it? Can we scale up,

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Speaker 1: get the people back that we've fired, or is it

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Speaker 1: very ready to go? Now?

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Speaker 2: Well, we do have capacity, and now the industry has

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Speaker 2: been understrained though, as you've noted for about the last

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Speaker 2: twelve months and a cross construction, we've lost about fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand workers. So you know there is some capacity to

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Speaker 2: so up work. It is going to be challenging though.

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Speaker 2: You know that's that over time, as more and more

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Speaker 2: protests come to market, it's going to be quite difficult

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Speaker 2: to find people.

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Speaker 1: So when do you envisage that we might hit a

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Speaker 1: crux point in terms of staffing and workforce.

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Speaker 2: Well, it very much depends on when the projects are scheduled.

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Speaker 2: But if you look at the government's infrastructure plans, the

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Speaker 2: land transport plans and local government plans, there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of infrastructure investment needed in coming probably over the

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Speaker 2: next eighteen to twenty four months, so we're going to

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Speaker 2: have to scale up quite quickly.

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Speaker 1: Chris Bishop says that there's you know, they got the

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Speaker 1: National Infrastructure Pipeline, which is by Infrastructure Commission managed by them.

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Speaker 1: They are showing planned future works totaling two hundred and

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Speaker 1: seven billion dollars across central, local government and private sector.

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Speaker 1: Is that all lined up, paid for dates ready or

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Speaker 1: is that all just a bit get this point, that's.

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Speaker 2: All sort of and anticipated through the various planning processes,

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Speaker 2: not necessarily funding undocated at also, and that's our challenge

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Speaker 2: that it's a very healthy pipeline at work that's coming

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Speaker 2: into the future, but in terms of the health of

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Speaker 2: the civil industry in particular, we need to have proteins

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Speaker 2: coming to market now, so that's why this announcement is

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Speaker 2: actually very timely.

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Speaker 1: Ellen, appreciate your time this morning. Allan Poloche, executive at

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Speaker 1: several contractors in New Zealand. For more from earlier edition

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Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it be

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Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.