Latest / Best of Business / Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ chief executive on what Auckland needs to improve in terms of infrastructure

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Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ chief executive on what Auckland needs to improve in terms of infrastructure · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B Follow
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  Speaker 2: Solving Auckland's traffic woes could make the entire country richer.
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  Speaker 2: That's the message from Infrastructure New Zealand's latest report. It says,
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  Speaker 2: instead of daydreaming about future mega projects, we need to
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  Speaker 2: get the best out of what we already have in
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  Speaker 2: our biggest city. Nic Legget is the CEO of Infrastructure
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand with Ushi.
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  Speaker 3: Nick, Hello, Heather.
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  Speaker 2: Right, you say Auckland does not need more plans, strategies,
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  Speaker 2: all debate. It needs delivery, delivery of.
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  Speaker 3: What well delivery of. Obviously there'll be some new infrastructure.
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  Speaker 3: We know that because we've got the second Auckland Harbor
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  Speaker 3: crossing being talked about. They've talked about some form of
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  Speaker 3: rail in addition to crol which will open this year
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  Speaker 3: and hopefully be fantastic. But it's actually unlocking the right tools.
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  Speaker 3: And if you think about congestion cost, well costs Auckland.
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  Speaker 3: It has cost Aukland and New Zealand billions and billions
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  Speaker 3: of dollars over the years, and things like congestion charging
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  Speaker 3: where you can put a charge on a particular road
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  Speaker 3: to manage the flow of traffic, and that use that
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  Speaker 3: money to reinvest in infrastructure and maintenance and other modes
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  Speaker 3: of transport. Those are the sort of things we talk
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  Speaker 3: a lot about them, you know, people listening and going, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we know about that. But the point is we actually
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  Speaker 3: find it very difficult to execute. New Zealand for some
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  Speaker 3: reason takes a comfort and plans and strategies and we
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  Speaker 3: don't often give. If you think about the Auckland situation,
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  Speaker 3: the mayor of Auckland has the biggest direct electoral mandate
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  Speaker 3: in the country and you know he can't even set
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  Speaker 3: parking charges half the time. And the CBD we don't
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  Speaker 3: have the right level of influence at the right level.
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  Speaker 3: And I think what we want to see for Auckland is,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's forty percent of the economy and it's
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  Speaker 3: our only international city. Do want it to have the
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  Speaker 3: right be able to move quickly alongside government and get
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  Speaker 3: things done now it can do it. I mentioned the
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  Speaker 3: City rail Link which will open this year. That was
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  Speaker 3: Len Brown driving with the key government, a really big
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  Speaker 3: piece of infrastructure that the International Events Center which is
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  Speaker 3: opening this year, and of course the other one that's
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  Speaker 3: sort of going to be fully operational is the central interceptor,
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  Speaker 3: which will keep raw waste out of the white matar,
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  Speaker 3: so it can do big things. But we are in
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a bind for some reason, not helped
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  Speaker 3: by this latest fuel crisis of course, and what we
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  Speaker 3: need to do is say, look, we want to empower
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  Speaker 3: the leadership at the right levels, get some things done.
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  Speaker 3: Think about instead of planning in the wild. You know,
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  Speaker 3: if you think about the light rail project, all the
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  Speaker 3: pla was done in public. Actually a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: big sort of key infrastructure decisions need to be made
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  Speaker 3: by the experts and then they need to be shared.
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  Speaker 3: We sent team to seem to do it. We seem
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  Speaker 3: to have a political announcement, spend a couple of one
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  Speaker 3: hundred million dollars and then end up with something that's
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  Speaker 3: already been picked off. It happened with let's get Wellington
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  Speaker 3: moving and Wellington as well. So the existing funding tools
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  Speaker 3: are too limited. We do need a broader toolkit. Road pricing,
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  Speaker 3: value capture, where you know the government call the council
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  Speaker 3: can levy growth that happens in certain areas, particularly around transport,
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  Speaker 3: and some new financing models so it's not always on
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  Speaker 3: the council's balance sheet. Now we've got some of this
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  Speaker 3: in place, but we just failed to use it, and
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  Speaker 3: we still got this culture. I think a lot of
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  Speaker 3: this is culture weather. We've got this sort of culture
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  Speaker 3: of we celebrate stopping things, we celebrate saying no. Actually,
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  Speaker 3: we want the country to grow and to prosper we
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  Speaker 3: do need to say yes to some things. And Auckland
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  Speaker 3: is a place where it makes sense to do that
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  Speaker 3: because we've already got the population, we've got the reputation,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, it is a great place. But it
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  Speaker 3: is being slowed down every day and we are literally
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's costing us billions to sit in traffic
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  Speaker 3: and all that.
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  Speaker 2: Are you worried, semi adjacent topic, are you worried about
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  Speaker 2: the noises that we're hearing out of Wellington that christ
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  Speaker 2: Bishop is going to go soft on some of the
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  Speaker 2: roads of national significance.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the roads of national significance need prioritizing anyway, don't
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  Speaker 3: they because they are so expensive and we you know,
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  Speaker 3: we just don't see the funds and to pay for them,
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  Speaker 3: so they need to be properly prioritized. What does worry
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  Speaker 3: me though, Heather, is this idea that we could see
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  Speaker 3: slow downs or rephasing of existing projects. And I would
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  Speaker 3: say not just road projects, but across infrastructure. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you had Nikola Willison before and she said we've got
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  Speaker 3: to manage well in times of need. That does not
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  Speaker 3: mean doing less because essentially, if we stop or slow
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  Speaker 3: things down that are in the pipeline and funded, we
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  Speaker 3: will slow the economy down and we will cost people's jobs.
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  Speaker 3: So what we should be doing in this period with
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  Speaker 3: diesel it, as you pointed out, four dollars sixteen, it's
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  Speaker 3: one hell of a whack for people. But what we
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  Speaker 3: need to be doing is focusing on being more productive
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  Speaker 3: and fix the structural problem that we do have with
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  Speaker 3: the delivery of infrastructure in this country. We're in the
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  Speaker 3: bottom ten percent of the OECD in terms of the
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  Speaker 3: value we get that out of every dollar we spend
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  Speaker 3: on infrastructure. Now's the time, when we've got this cost
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  Speaker 3: crisis to find the ways, and we do know the
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  Speaker 3: ways that actually allow us to do things faster. Get
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  Speaker 3: the consenting and planning issues, you know, deal with those,
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  Speaker 3: get the right procurement in place to get projects out
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  Speaker 3: the door and delivered quicker measure the cost of capital,
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  Speaker 3: which often we don't do properly, and we know New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand can do this in times of crisis. We've done
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  Speaker 3: it where roads have been washed out, where there's the
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  Speaker 3: Cluholder earthquake, and back in twenty sixteen. We can work
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  Speaker 3: together and get things done faster and cheaper. Now's the
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  Speaker 3: time to pull that out of the hat again and
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  Speaker 3: start working on ways to do it because we don't
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  Speaker 3: know how long the fuel is going to last at
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  Speaker 3: its whether it's going to go further. But what we
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  Speaker 3: can control is our other behavior that adds unnecessary cost.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, Nick, I feel like that was a yes,
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  Speaker 2: you are worried.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Nick Leggett, Infrastructure New Zealand CEO.
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