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