Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the new infrastructure plans and agency

Transcript

Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the new infrastructure plans and agency · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Back home now and we're talking infrastructure. A new Infrastructure
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Agency and a National Infrastructure Plan will be established on
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  Speaker 1: the first of December. The agency will serve as the
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  Speaker 1: shop front for PPPs, public private partnerships and any other
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: private investment in infrastructure. Nic leg gets the Infrastructure New
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  Speaker 1: Zealand Chief Executive. He's with me this morning. Hey, Nick, Hi, right,
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  Speaker 1: good to have you with us this morning. So I
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  Speaker 1: want to know the most important thing here surely is
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  Speaker 1: well two things. One is whether the politicians can agree.
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  Speaker 1: But who's going to run this this new agency and
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  Speaker 1: what will their priority be? Is it climate and emissions
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  Speaker 1: or is it economic development?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the agency won't be stood up until the first
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  Speaker 2: of December, and it's going to be rolled from an
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  Speaker 2: existing agency called Crown Infrastructure partners which has done a
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  Speaker 2: lot of really good work around the country, sourcing finance
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  Speaker 2: for communities, administering government infrastructure funds and actually getting stuff built.
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  Speaker 2: It does have a good history. But the new National
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  Speaker 2: Infrastructure Agency, which you know will be the name of
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  Speaker 2: the new organization, will do that additional work and that
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  Speaker 2: is be the shop front for private public private partnerships,
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  Speaker 2: which will be back on the agenda and that's important,
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  Speaker 2: not because every project that New Zealand builds will be
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  Speaker 2: a public private partnership, but rather because we just need
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  Speaker 2: that as an additional tool in our toolbox. We can
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  Speaker 2: get benefits from those. I think that we probably we've
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  Speaker 2: got some maturity, We've got to mature the model a
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  Speaker 2: little bit improve them. But the truth is that we've
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  Speaker 2: got some challenges with infrastructure in this country. I think
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  Speaker 2: most krews know that we rank bottom or near the
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  Speaker 2: bottom on the OECD for the value that we get
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  Speaker 2: when we spend a dollar, and which means I think
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  Speaker 2: we're fourth from the bottom. So we just we just
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  Speaker 2: don't extract the value because our system takes too long things,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we stop, start the pipeline and politicians come
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  Speaker 2: in and change stuff and it's important.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the funding. But in terms of the prioritizing
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  Speaker 1: what we need to fund, you know, won't it be
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  Speaker 1: critical how they set this agency up and what its
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  Speaker 1: task is is it is it reducing climate carbon emissions
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  Speaker 1: or is it economic development? You know what's the overriding.
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  Speaker 2: Well that that direction will come. I mean the government
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  Speaker 2: obviously you have to give that direction. The government are
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  Speaker 2: very focused on on productivity and economic development. Carbon emissions
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  Speaker 2: will be part of that, the Minister made Reducing carbon
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  Speaker 2: will be part of the Minister made that clear. But
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  Speaker 2: the overall direction will come from the thirty year Infrastructure Plan.
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  Speaker 2: And this is the problem. I mean, it's you know,
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  Speaker 2: heaving five minutes with you talking about it is really important,
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  Speaker 2: but there's there's a lot going on here. And what
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  Speaker 2: we're saying about this the system that builds our infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: is the thing to get right and it's the thing
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  Speaker 2: that we shouldn't have the tooling and throwing over between
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  Speaker 2: you know, a change of government. What we need to
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  Speaker 2: do is you know, the priorities might change between one
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  Speaker 2: government to the next, but the system needs to be
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  Speaker 2: sound and pretty secure because when you change stuff, and
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  Speaker 2: we know that through health and we know through vocational education,
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  Speaker 2: when you when you change things, you actually stop progress.
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  Speaker 2: And the government were really clear here they said, oh,
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  Speaker 2: we could have pushed a few more things together, but
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  Speaker 2: we actually wanted to keep momentum so we can deliver
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  Speaker 2: infrastructure in our first term. And I think that's really
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  Speaker 2: important because this stuff shouldn't be party political right that
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  Speaker 2: these agencies should be able to go go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: do their work and get stuff built for New Zealand.
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  Speaker 1: And clearly, clearly we haven't actually been doing that very well.
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  Speaker 1: As you've outlined. Neck Leget Infrastructure New Zealand Chief Executive.
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• 3:59
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