These days we find it difficult to get consent for a solar farm. Not even build it, just to get permission to build it, says Chris Bishop. Photo / Supplied
These days we find it difficult to get consent for a solar farm. Not even build it, just to get permission to build it, says Chris Bishop. Photo / Supplied
Opinion by Chris Bishop
Chris Bishop is the Minister for Infrastructure and National MP for Hutt South.
THE FACTS
The Building Nations conference is being held on August 6 and 7 in Wellington
Infometrics analysis shows New Zealand could save between $2 billion and $4.7b each year by reducing infrastructure uncertainty
A Draft Infrastructure Plan lays out scenarios for New Zealand’s population reaching nearly eight million by 2050
We’re more than halfway into this term of government and my biggest takeaway so far, as Minister for Infrastructure, is that we make it way too hard to deliver and maintain the infrastructure New Zealand needs.
Whether it’s roads, hospitals, schools, quarries, or wind farms – all arestuck in a Gordian knot of rules, regulations, paper, and underperforming systems.
Building things used to be cheaper and easier. In fact New Zealand used to be a world leader in infrastructure. In 1965, we built the longest submarine cable of its kind – the 610km-long Cook Strait cable, which runs between Benmore and Lower Hutt.
In my view, New Zealand is at an inflection point and we have two choices.
One option is we grow slowly – or not at all. We muddle along, take years to make tough decisions, react to things as they come up, and just largely accept the status quo.
I call this managed mediocrity. At worst, it is managed decline.
The other option is that we make the tough decisions that successive governments have put in the too-hard basket — on planning, housing markets, transport pricing, and more. We take advantage of our extraordinary natural competitive advantages – like cheap, renewable energy – to accelerate growth, increase our standard of living and make us better off than we are today.
Achieving this prosperous future won’t just magically happen. As I’ve said before, we need to start saying “yes” a lot more, and “no” a lot less. This is especially true for infrastructure.
Chris Bishop. Photo / Getty Images
Throwing money at the problem won’t fix things, because our current system is too inefficient. Despite being in the top 10% of high-income countries for infrastructure spend, we are in the bottom 10% for outcomes. In reality, this looks like poor bang for our buck, funding gaps, cost overruns, delays, and – often – worn-down assets that don’t do their job.
It isn’t good enough.
The only way to fix our problems is to get the underlying system settings right, and that’s what I’ve focused on as Infrastructure Minister: developing a National Infrastructure Plan, improving funding and financing, sorting out consenting and planning, improving education and health infrastructure, and strengthening asset management and resilience.
These priorities are in response to what I’ve heard from industry and infrastructure experts, both in New Zealand and overseas.
National Infrastructure Plan (NIP)
Last month, the Infrastructure Commission released the draft NIP.
As Minister for Infrastructure, I hear regularly that what New Zealand needs is a long-term infrastructure plan that transcends political cycles.
I agree. A plan will give the private sector more certainty so that they can invest in people and equipment. But a plan is only as good as it’s execution. So, the NIP will only be successful if it is – at least in part – accepted and adopted across successive governments over the long term.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t our first plan. New Zealand had infrastructure plans in 2010, 2011, and 2015. Depressingly, some recommendations in these older plans are identical to those put forward in this plan, more than a decade later.
I’m thinking of things like agencies completing 10-year capital plans and making better use of pricing tools.
What differentiates this plan is that it has been developed independently by the Infrastructure Commission – separate from the government of the day.
The NIP is not this Government’s plan. It’s New Zealand’s plan.
Each political party in Parliament was offered a briefing on the NIP. I’m really pleased that most parties accepted the offer and have had one or more meetings with the Commission.
Building greater consensus on infrastructure is, unfortunately, not as simple as different political parties getting in a room and convincing each other of the other’s view.
That’s not realistic. Instead, consensus will be enabled by strong systems and institutions, robust investment frameworks, high-quality evidence of our infrastructure needs, and advocacy for projects and policies from a better-informed public.
That’s what this plan is about.
People also often say, we need a bipartisan infrastructure pipeline, as if that will solve all problems.
We do have a robust infrastructure pipeline. The Commission has been running it for more than five years, and it’s been progressively improved over that time.
The pipeline has more than 8000 initiatives underway and in planning, from 114 contributing organisations. It represents more than $200 billion in investment value – with over $110b of the pipeline having a funding source confirmed.
I suspect that almost all of the projects underway right now are supported by everyone in Parliament.
It’s the high-profile and high-cost disagreements that make the headlines. But it’s the low-profile and often low-cost projects that actually make New Zealand.
My own view is that we need to move away from the rhetoric of needing a bipartisan pipeline and instead build bipartisan consensus on the idea that governments of all flavours should use best-practice to plan, select, fund and finance, deliver, and look after infrastructure.
That’s not the case at the moment and it’s what I’m working so hard to fix.
Improving Infrastructure Funding and Financing
An important priority is improving infrastructure funding and financing. Currently, infrastructure is primarily paid for by taxpayers or ratepayers. This makes sense for some infrastructure like schools and hospitals, but our reliance on this blunt approach has led to challenges like congestion, run-down assets, and the unresponsive provision of enabling infrastructure – contributing to unaffordable housing.
In 2024, the Government released a suite of frameworks and guidance – like Treasury’s Funding and Financing Framework and a new market-led proposal process – to help the Crown be a smarter owner and purchaser of infrastructure services.
This year, I announced five changes to New Zealand’s funding and financing toolkit including improving the IFF Act and shifting councils from Development Contributions to a new Development Levy system. These changes will move us to a future state where councils can fully recover the costs of housing growth, and where infrastructure providers can recover costs of significant and city-shaping projects.
And today, at the Building Nations summit, I will be announcing a shift in our approach to road user charges.
Improving the consenting framework
Arguably, the biggest improvement we are making to the infrastructure system is fixing the Resource Management Act (RMA). Consenting takes too long, costs way too much, and makes delivering the infrastructure we need too difficult.
We are on track to replace the RMA with new legislation next year. Our new system will be effects-based, embrace standardised zoning and be far more permissive and enabling – while also protecting the environment.
An independent analysis by Castalia estimated the new system could reduce compliance and administrative costs by $14.8b – potentially removing about 10 Transmission Gullys-worth of red tape from the economy. It will be a game changer.
Better asset management is a key recommendation of the draft NIP. Everyone knows if you don’t paint the weatherboards on your house, the wood will rot.
Billion-dollar infrastructure is fundamentally no different.
Unfortunately, due to decades of diverted maintenance spending, lack of asset registers, and lack of asset management plans, we have schools with leaking roofs, sewage leaks in our hospitals, asbestos in police stations, service outages of commuter rail, and mouldy defence accommodation.
Strengthening asset management and resilience
In May this year we started a work programme that will improve asset management in central government.
We are considering fundamental changes such as legislatively requiring agencies to prepare and publish long-term Asset Management and Investment Plans, and to report on their performance. Regulated utilities and local government are legislatively required to do these things – I don’t see why central government thinks it should hold others to a higher standard than it does itself.
A couple of weeks ago the Minister for Economic Growth and I released an infrastructure update showing that more than $6b of government-funded construction is due to start between now and Christmas. Workers will start construction on $3.9b of roading projects – like Melling and Ōtaki to north of Levin, $800 million of school property projects, and a range of health projects and other government buildings.
Some people said that these projects were “already announced”. They missed the point. A non-trivial number of these projects were funded all the way back in 2016-2020 – but never started construction.
As Government, we are getting on with building infrastructure — not just announcing it. And we’re fixing the system, to help build and maintain better infrastructure for all Kiwis.
Chris Bishop is the Minister for Infrastructure and National MP for Hutt South.
