Source: Radio New Zealand
Highways, hospitals, schools, etc: MPs agree politics is detrimental to infrastructure decision-making and things need to change, but can’t help getting political about it. VNP / Phil Smith
Analysis – The centrepiece of Parliament’s week was a two-hour-long special debate on the recently released National Infrastructure Plan.
The Plan is a worthy and fascinating read. The debate had a different tone to many, with general agreement that New Zealand needs to do better on infrastructure.
“They have made a compelling case for change,” Chris Bishop said, introducing the Infrastructure Commission’s work. “We face significant challenges as a country: ageing stock, a backlog of maintenance and renewals, an ageing population, and increased exposure to natural hazard events.”
MPs all agreed that infrastructure planning is too important to be tinged with politics. MPs attempted to reflect this sentiment in the amiable debate, lauding others’ observations, even across the most bitterly fractious party divides.
Credit and blame
From the start, despite genuine effort, the debate failed to avoid politics. Minister for Infrastructure Chris Bishop lauded his own government for commissioning the Infrastructure Plan. Labour speakers focused on their former colleague Grant Robertson’s role in forming the Infrastructure Commission and commissioning a strategy.
The jealous guarding of credit is likely more automatic than deliberately political. It demonstrates one of the political bidi-bidis in the sock of bipartisan endeavour – other obvious contenders are blame and parochialism.
It would be an odd politician who highlighted his opponent’s success and his own failings. Each party came up with different examples of bad political decisions. For example National’s Katie Nimon pointed to the stop-start work on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway, while Labour’s Tangi Utikere pointed to the Interislander ferry (iRex) project.
But the sniping was comparatively minimal and MPs were even buoyed by the general positivity. National’s Nancy Lu said she was impressed by the opposition’s “willingness to work together for the long term betterment of our country”. Out of context that may sound absurd, but it illustrates that MPs tend to presume the automatic rejection of any proposition by those across the political divide.
All parties agreed that politics is detrimental to infrastructure decision-making, and that things need to change. Labour’s spokesperson on Infrastructure and Public Investment is Kieran McAnulty, who called for the Infrastructure Commission to have a stronger role.
“If all Crown infrastructure went through the independent assurance process that the Infrastructure Commission has set up, then we will go a long way to avoiding the cancellation of projects that we have seen in the past.
“It is about confidence and about certainty. And one way to assure that is if we get the settings right, then it doesn’t actually matter what is going to happen at an election, because they know that infrastructure projects have been properly assessed, and nothing has been promised without an ability to pay for it.”
Chris Bishop lauded his own government for commissioning the Infrastructure Plan. RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Pork barrels and parochialism
Megan Woods, who has opted to be a list candidate in the next election, also observed a political tendency that, ironically, she will soon be freed from.
“Even in this debate, where I think we’ve had some very thoughtful contributions, we can’t have missed some of the … pork barrel politics that has underwritten infrastructure for too long in this country – that thinking being a good politician is talking about the ‘wins’ in your local patch.”
Typically, National has more electorate MPs, and in this debate they frequently lauded infrastructure projects underway on their own patches. Among them, Grant McCallum (MP for Northland) defended the imminent Northland Expressway, which had attracted strong criticism during the debate: “Is that investment a wise investment? Well, for the people of Northland, it is. And it’s because we’re making up for generations of a lack of investment.”
Green MP Julie Anne Genter had earlier noted the difficult cost-benefit choices involved, arguing that the possible cost of the Northland project was equivalent to seven new Dunedin Hospitals. McCallum wasn’t alone though. ACT’s Simon Court had earlier decried the state of the highway in Northland, while New Zealand First’s Andy Foster touted the project’s economic benefits.
The only MP who loudly decried a new road on their own patch was Green Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, who said of Wellington’s new double tunnel project: “if you want to save money for the people of New Zealand, don’t do that project”.
Glum projections
Despite the calls for a bipartisan approach, Labour’s MP Ayesha Verrall sounded pretty glum about the projected health needs in the report, as well as the impact of politics on their delivery. (The plan notes we are likely to need 4900 additional hospital beds by 2043, to add to the current 12,000.)
“New Zealanders want roads, they want hospitals, they want schools, they want an electricity grid that works, and yet, it’s too tempting for us to lean into the politics around infrastructure that is detrimental to us achieving those outcomes.
“I am so grateful for the thoughtful contributions that I’ve heard today that suggest something else might be possible. I don’t underestimate the challenge of maintaining this posture from here, though. How easy is it going to be, in the next seven months, to promise a road, to oppose a road, to try and make political hay out of cancelling or promoting an infrastructure project?”
Ayesha Verrall sounded glum about the projected health needs. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Some MPs appeared to doubt they can be collectively trusted to sufficiently eschew politics to plan infrastructure effectively, but none were suggesting that infrastructure should be entirely removed from their oversight and control.
The Infrastructure Plan is an attempt to instil strategic thinking in government planning. It is not the project ‘to do’ list that its title might imply.
- New Zealand’s first national infrastructure plan unveiled
It is a fascinating read though, full of revealing details of the sorts of things that should guide investment decisions. For example, in education, projections suggest an increase in school-aged Māori, while Pākehā school-aged populations decline (possibly meaning an increased demand for Māori immersion schools); while a shifting population distribution has led to 11 percent of schools (224 schools) being less than 50 percent utilised.
The Infrastructure Plan looks forward 30 years. A few MPs referred to climate change and referenced ‘resilience’, but no one raised the potentially politically unpalatable impacts of three decades of accelerating weather events and coastal inundation. No one raised whether, for example, some of our significant coastal infrastructure will become physically or financially impossible to retain, and the implications of that on local populations.
The Infrastructure Plan can be found here.
The Hansard record of the debate can be found here.
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