The previous government committed to building light rail to Mt Roskill within four years of being elected. After six years and over $228 million spent on the project, not a single metre of track has been delivered and congestion has only worsened in the city.
Transport Minister, Simeon Brown
14 January 2024
In a similar vein, the previous Government's 3Waters legislation has been repealed, returning ownership and control to local authorities, and the massive second harbour crossing for Auckland is unlikely to proceed. Meanwhile, local authorities appear to lack the expertise, funding and will to invest in meeting their obligations for fresh drinking water, wastewater and stormwater and Auckland's transport woes continue to escalate.
The pressing question is, exactly what is the plan to deal with the country's infrastructure deficit?
It would be unhelpful to blame one particular Government holding the Treasury Benches. This is a problem which has been growing at least since the economic reforms of the 1980s. Each of the 6 Governments since those reforms have had a hand in where we now find ourselves. It's not just the glory projects, reminiscent of Muldoon's Think Big dreams of the 1980s, or the short term thinking of our three year election cycle; it's also building less than we need for the future, and not planning for long term replacement.
Take, for example, Auckland's harbour bridge. The original plan in 1946 was for five or six lanes (with tidal flow) and pedestrian walkways on both sides of the bridge. The first National Government of Sidney Holland, reduced the bridge to 4 lanes and deleted the walkways, for "austerity measures". The "Nippon Clip-ons" were added in 1969, increasing the bridge to 8 lanes, and in 2017 the Labour Party promised funding for the "SkyPath" walk and cycleway to be added to the clip-ons. That plan was abandoned when it was found that the clip-ons were unable to take the load of the new walkway.
The end result is that the population of the North Shore went from 50,000 before the bridge was opened in 1959 to over 250,000 today, with the bridge providing commuter access to Auckland city and the main link of State Highway 1 between Auckland and the North. There are over 56 million traffic movements across the bridge annually, yet there appears to have been no budgeting or planning for a replacement crossing in the 65 years since the bridge opened. Each plan, each option that has been floated has been the victim of each election cycle, leaving the cost and responsibility for dealing with the issue to future generations.
Looking at the other end of the North Island, the recent decision not to fund KiwiRail's already contracted new Cook Strait ferries also suggests more sunk funding. Will the Government disclose the penalties and wasted cost of canceling the existing contracts in their funding for the new ferries; and will the cost of providing suitable berthing facilities in Wellington and Picton simply be passed on to future generations?
To be fair, the problem is more systemic, than the fault of any particular Government. Where is the long term infrastructure planning and the commitment to implement such panning, regardless of the politics of the party in power? Since Walter Nash when the Auckland Harbour Bridge opened in 1959, there have been 17 Prime Ministers and 11 Governments, of which 10 were coalition governments; each with their own ideas of what was essential spending.
In Build or maintain? New Zealand's infrastructure asset value, investment and depreciation. 1990-2022, Te Waihanga / New Zealand Infrastructure Commission issued its first comprehensive review of the value of the country's infrastructure assets on Friday last week. In it's opening paragraph, the report observes:
The benefits that we experience from infrastructure today depend upon past decisions about
how to plan, build, and maintain infrastructure assets. Similarly, our current decisions
will affect the quality and quantity of infrastructure services for future generations.
It's time to consider what we really need in a clear-eyed and honest way, and to be realistic about what we can afford.
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