Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the Government's approach to public-private partnerships for infrastructure

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Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the Government's approach to public-private partnerships for infrastructure · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government has released it's refreshed Public Private Partnership framework.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It was part of the National Act coalition agreement and
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  Speaker 1: the government says it'll help deliver a new generation of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: vital infrastructure projects. Interestingly, the fore word written by Labor's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Barbara Edmonds. So is that a sign of some bipartisanship
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: on this issue. Nick Leggett is Chief Executive Infrastructure New
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  Speaker 1: zealandies with me this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Hey Nick, Hi Ryan?
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  Speaker 1: What sticks out for you here? I mean the first
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  Speaker 1: one that they look at is the risk, So who's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: taking on all the risk? And at the moment we
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  Speaker 1: might be putting people off by putting too much risk
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  Speaker 1: on the contractors.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that has been a bit of
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  Speaker 2: an issue here. And of course if you want public
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: private partnerships to be successful, you've got to actually attract
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  Speaker 2: the private sector and having is much understood upfront about
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  Speaker 2: the project and if you think about you know that
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  Speaker 2: the underlying land the New Zealand's got some rocky parts
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: of the country, but also getting in and buying land early,
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  Speaker 2: establishing as much as you can know, so risks can
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  Speaker 2: be properly allocated. The thing is that the private sector's
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  Speaker 2: prepared to take risk. Of course, it just will be
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  Speaker 2: priced into the job. But this is you know, we're
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  Speaker 2: very immature where it comes to public private partnerships. We've
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  Speaker 2: only built eight the last labor government paused them, so
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  Speaker 2: we haven't sort of evolved them properly. So this frameworks
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  Speaker 2: really important and it means the government doesn't have to borrow.
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  Speaker 2: And the other point about a public private partnership and
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  Speaker 2: there'll be people driving on roads now that aren't in
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  Speaker 2: good conditional taking their kids to schools, to school buildings
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  Speaker 2: that should have been replaced and renewed. We need to
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  Speaker 2: do better where it comes to our infrastructure assets. And
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  Speaker 2: it's the thing about a PPP. It's not just about
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  Speaker 2: building the road or the school. It's about taking a
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  Speaker 2: whole of life approach to that particular asset. And the
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  Speaker 2: private sect not only owns and builds it, but they
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  Speaker 2: maintain it. And Ryan, I think Kiwis know the government
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: has been pretty poor over many decades at maintaining our
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  Speaker 2: public assets and so.
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  Speaker 1: Them is just one tole my car our testament to that.
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  Speaker 1: Just on that because it's related to your point. So
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  Speaker 1: the part of this framework is that any PPP must
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  Speaker 1: stack up against other potential models of delivery, which seems
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  Speaker 1: entirely reasonable. Are there types of projects that actually wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be suitable for PPPs and if so, what types of projects?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's a good point. I mean I think
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  Speaker 2: you know, there'll be many, many projects that aren't suitable.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you have to have scale so our road
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  Speaker 2: would be suitable. But frankly, Ryan, it's another conversation we've
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  Speaker 2: got to have because it's better to have an income
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  Speaker 2: stream from these assets that are public private partnerships. So
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  Speaker 2: a road with a toll on it is going to
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  Speaker 2: be much more appropriate than a road without a toll.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And you know people will also go to Australia and
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: other parts of the world. We're road tolling for good,
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  Speaker 2: decent pieces of road standard and people don't mind paying
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  Speaker 2: more if they get places quicker and more safely. And
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  Speaker 2: as you know, you say, the rooms of their car
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  Speaker 2: are not damaged. And so it would be those large
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  Speaker 2: projects or a whole lot of individual, smaller projects bundled together.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, we have we've had school PPPs and
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  Speaker 2: you know what, the schools love them because it means
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  Speaker 2: that teachers and principals get to educate kids. They're not
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: focused on being property managers every time the light fails.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Or yea, and they're in a room that's not covered
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  Speaker 1: in mold. Nick, thank you very much for that this morning.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Great to have you on the show as always. Nick
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Leggative executive at Infrastructure New Zealand. They've put the PPP
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  Speaker 1: framework up online for those who might be interested. Extually,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I was having a look at the report by Stephen Joyce.
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  Speaker 1: They looked into the new agency they're setting up to
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  Speaker 1: as their funding vehicle for PPPs this morning.
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• 4:01
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• 4:04
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