Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on day two of infrastructure investment summit

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Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB Political Editor on day two of infrastructure investment summit · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: It is the last day of the Investment conference, where
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  Speaker 1: the government has been trying to impress foreign investors. At
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the summit. We had some announcements already doing up Christ
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  Speaker 1: Jorge Men's prison, maybe building some new courthouses, the Northern Expressway.
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  Speaker 1: They're asking for registrations of interests. There's the Italians are
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  Speaker 1: quite interested. It all wraps up today and Jason Walls
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  Speaker 1: is covering it. Are you there?
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  Speaker 2: I am indeed. Good morning, Andrew.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, are you there at the conference?
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  Speaker 2: Oh right, not quite yet. I'm heading along later this morning,
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  Speaker 2: but yes, I'll be there today.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think it's going?
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's hot. I'll tell you what. It's hard
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  Speaker 2: for us to kind of say. We're locked in a
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  Speaker 2: little media room. I think little media room. It's actually
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  Speaker 2: quite a nice media room, but we're locked in there, nonetheless,
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  Speaker 2: and we can't actually get access to the delegates or
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  Speaker 2: anybody on the floor of the actual venue. We have
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  Speaker 2: this little TV screen that we watch everything going in from,
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  Speaker 2: but we get ministers coming in fairly regularly to give
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  Speaker 2: us little updates of how things are going. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: it does seem to be going well. We've had a
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  Speaker 2: couple of investors come in and tell us how keen
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  Speaker 2: they are to invest in New Zealand assets. We had
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  Speaker 2: the Italians come in, for example, and say that they're
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  Speaker 2: keen on the Northern Expressway. So you know, it's looking
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  Speaker 2: good for the government in terms of the amount of
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  Speaker 2: investment they're going to receive. Chris lux And telling us
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  Speaker 2: yesterday he's expecting all he's hoping for tens of billions
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  Speaker 2: of dollars worth of investment. So we'll just have to
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  Speaker 2: wait to see if the proof is in the pudding.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and the one thing that came out of yesterday
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  Speaker 1: is that all foreign investors are worried about the pipeline
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  Speaker 1: of work. They don't want to set up shop here
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  Speaker 1: and then run out of work and then have to
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  Speaker 1: retrench and leave the place again. And so the big
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  Speaker 1: question about that is what Barbara Edmund, the Labor for
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  Speaker 1: that spokesperson, is going to say today and whether she
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  Speaker 1: supports a pipeline of work.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's going to be interesting to see what Labour
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  Speaker 2: say because they've already come out and said that they
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  Speaker 2: don't support public private partnerships and places like prisons. And
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  Speaker 2: that's a big deal because obviously the government wants work
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  Speaker 2: to be done in those areas, and one of the
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  Speaker 2: big themes in the summit is bipartisanship. In the past,
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  Speaker 2: we've had so much shopping and changing of governments and
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  Speaker 2: it means that key infrastructure projects are being green lit
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  Speaker 2: and then cut, and then green lit again and then
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  Speaker 2: cut and that's just not very good for business consistency.
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  Speaker 2: So having labor there is good because it means that
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  Speaker 2: there is some sort of semblance of consistency to say
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  Speaker 2: that that both parties are going to be working together
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  Speaker 2: for the long term to get these in infrastructure pipeline developed.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well, Jason, we look forward to your coverage today.
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  Speaker 1: We look forward to hearing what Barbara Edmon has to say,
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  Speaker 1: and let's hope something works for all of this and.
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  Speaker 2: This for more from Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks it Be from five am weekdays,
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  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.