BusinessNZ’s Post

Hi - I totally agree with this. Look at the shambles produced when big infrastructure is at the whim of politics. We have to have a long term view of infrastructure and how we fund it.

I note PPP are tacked on to this majoritarian call for a bipartisan compact. Why not tack on a Greens imperative for less infrastructure? Or indigenous rights under the Treaty/Tīriti? If indeed you want a 'broad' consensus. Otherwise any 'bipartisan' compact will last only until the more diverse emergent generations take on a majority, and btw they are the ones who have to stump up for any major infrastructure into the future.

This piece nails it by setting out how, in practical terms, we can and should expect more agreement from our major parties. This will smooth out a pipeline and get better value for our spend from the resulting continuity.

When the Crown had cash accounts - there was something of an excuse for the flip flop approach described here. Post the Public Finance Act there is no excuse. This has been reinforced by the formalised role of the PREFU. Here is what you will likely have to play with: play within bounds. The Cabinet is responsible for educating all MP’s on exactly what the $ cash surpluses are - or are not, and what the debt appetite is, or is not. After all, absent changes in revenues (read taxes) - it’s about limiting spending, or borrowing more. Borrowing by the Crown to Build, Own and Operate (BOO) infrastructure is fractionally cheaper than giving a Crown franchise to a private BOO, unless there are no commercial counterparts in the project - reducing profit margins in design; construction, and operation. However, it then places all the risk on the Government. We need a broad political consensus around: - risk; -what local monopoly margins need to be limited too; - deep insights into what our capability actually is, and - the capacity to read and understand financial reporting. Councils and the Crown can’t spend their revenues - only their surpluses or the amount of debt that is prudent for an asset to service.

A long term approach to developing and supporting a highly skilled infrastructure workforce is fundamental to delivery and I hope a bedrock principle of bipartisanship. Our history of short termism has left us with an overdependency on casual labour, while many of our talented people are lured offshore when the pipeline halts.

This could easily happen by switching National Party policy from an industry-captured policy model to an evidence-based economic development model. Labour tend to deliver poor infrastructure outcomes through technocratic capture, but that is generally a result of poor management process rather than unhelpful politics.

Finally the grown ups in the room are making smart decisions. This flip flop approach, boom bust mentality based on what colour you voted for is decimating our businesses. So many people who lost jobs in the 3 Water sector have now moved on. Shortly we are going to need them back…..but at what cost!!!!! And TIME!!! Our sector is is struggling now no clear direction, but all agree we need to do something.

That may be a laudable aim, but ts a bit rich coming from a party that destroyed infrastructure, sank our ferries, refused to look at the damage caused by cancelling a contract by message service, and put NZ on a negative footing with every offshore nation working on contract for us. Shattering land infrastructure being built to withstand earthquake damage and pulling the plug on contractors and staff in the hundreds. Now they want a groupthink on large infrastructural projects, they simply cannot be trusted.

Add education, health, and energy to the foundations that need insulated alongside the need for a long term national economic strategy to underpin and inform national investment decisions, stake our place in a global economy and lay a solid foundation for foreign investment - ie what are our big plays for 2050 and beyond to increase prosperity, opportunity, productivity, and desirability for foreign investment and talent.

So basically the article reads as we should all do things like National. No thanks. PPP doesn't work. Never has. Dunedin needs a hospital and this govt doesn't care. We needed rail enabled ferries. This govt canned that, at what cost? As for fast track. No thanks when it involves rorting the system and raping nature. Sure, let's be bipartisan. But not the way you want.