Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the $4b investment in pothole prevention

Transcript

Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the $4b investment in pothole prevention · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Big bucks for potholes is what we're talking about. Four
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: billion to prevent in repair potholes across the country over
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the next three years. Just over two billion for the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: state highways, one point nine billion for the local roads.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Legat is Infrastructure New Zealand Boss, of course it and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is with us? Nick, very good morning to you. Is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: he with us or no? We hang on? Maybe I've
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: done the wrong thing there as well. On Nick, my apologies.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: How are you hi?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Mike?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: You like it? We do?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We do. Look, we've talked before and you know, people
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: listening will obviously be familiar with the fact that so
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: much of our infrastructure and the roading networks a classic case.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: You know, we build it, we set it, we forget it,
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  Speaker 2: and we don't invest in renewing and maintaining road services
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: as much as we should. And this is a long
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: term reduction in the amount spent. So over the last
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: sort of five to six years, it's cost us about
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: an extra thirty percent to maintain a kilometer of state highway.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: So not only you know, have the increases not being
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: big enough, you know, we're actually spending less and we're
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: not getting as a bigger bang for our buck. So
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: I think that this is a really good indication. And
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: it's not just the state highway network obviously, which essentially doubles,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: so you know, they call it pothole prevention. It's really
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: road surface improvements and people feel that, you know, the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: damage their cars and just the general rundown nature of that,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: but it's that those local roads as well. I'm breaking
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: it down by region. People will see that the extra
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: money that's going to go into maintaining local roads, and look,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: it's better for resilience in the face of really more
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: extreme weather, safety and those guaranteed travel times, and it's
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: going to take a while. There'll be a lot of
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: road cones, I suspect, but it's a good boost for
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  Speaker 2: an infrastructure industry that has been suffering because you know,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: we're in tighter economic times and those small and medium
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: businesses will will get the benefit of being able to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: work on roads. They're doing God's work in terms of
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the country and they're they're keeping the head above.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Water exactly just in thirty seconds or not. Do you reckon?
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  Speaker 1: We get bang for buck and does that worry you?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all very wellt thying for big but
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I mean you know how many holes.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: You're fee well, this is the thing. It's that's why
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I made that point about that. You know, everything is
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: costomers more, isn't it, So you get it bigger, you
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: get a bigger injection like this, It isn't going to
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: go as far as it would have a few years ago,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: but that's because everything's grown in price. So we do
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: have to watch that. But the more we invest and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: the more we line this work up and we program
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: it properly, the better efficiency you know we're going to get.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: And you know, you build a workforce, you get gear bought,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: you get people trained, it makes it much easier it
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: to sort of program that work and that that's what
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: we need to be looking at across the infrastructure industry.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: And it's not just obviously building positive new projects in infrastructure.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's maintaining what we have. And there was an injection
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: in this budget as well for rail maintenance, so getting
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: getting those those tracks and Wellington and Auckland that slowed
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: out commuters, Getting that sort of it's all part of
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: the same picture and it's great to see that's been
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: grasped and so we will be looking for more of course,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: but we're also looking for the you know, to look
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: back at the industry and say, well, how can we
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: get better bangs for UK, how can we get some
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: better efficiencies into them, because that's what people will be
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: looking for.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I reckon, good on you, Nick, you have a good week.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it very much. Nick Legget, who is Infrastructure
• 3:30
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• 3:33
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• 3:39
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