Tamaki Drive, Auckland. Downer's Murray Robertson says extreme weather events continue to bring the best out in the infrastructure services industry.
Downer NZ managing director Murray Robertson says proactive maintenance of the infrastructure we already have is “often the poor cousin because there’s no exciting ribbon-cutting” but it alleviates big spending, delivers greater value to ratepayers and goes a long way to improving how infrastructure stands up to challenges.
Downer designs, builds and maintains assets, infrastructure and facilities, providing integrated infrastructure services in Australia and New Zealand.
In New Zealand it serves many infrastructure sectors, including transport, energy and utilities, social infrastructure and citizen services and rail and transit systems.
Listed on the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges, the company was founded in Wellington in 1933 and is one of this country’s biggest employers, with 8000 staff working across 190 country-wide locations. Subsidiary Hawkins delivers vertical construction projects.
Robertson says a new infrastructure resilience index report produced by Downer NZ and NZIER shows the stronger the focus on proactive maintenance, the less shock effect on infrastructure.
With infrastructure underpinning every part of Kiwi daily life from keeping the lights on and roads open, to ensuring clean water and reliable connectivity, and with climate events intensifying, the company was prompted to commission NZIER to produce the New Zealand Infrastructure Resilience Index, which provides a national baseline for how well our systems can absorb shocks and recover from stresses and where investment will make the biggest difference.
Index scores showed Auckland and Northland as the most vulnerable regions for infrastructure resilience, meaning a high likelihood of severe disruptions in the event of a shock. Electricity was Auckland’s weakest link with limited local generation and frequent connection faults, with road condition only “moderate”.
Robertson says many people toil behind the scenes to maintain networks and ensure they stand up.
“It’s often, as I said, the poor cousin in that it doesn’t necessarily get the recognition. But it’s so important for the betterment of an urban environment particularly, but also rural.”
He believes New Zealand’s delivery of infrastructure maintenance is “world class”.
“We have a huge amount of depth and capability and good programmes. There’s always areas for improvement – and I think that’s a collective responsibility.
“Obviously there are different models that get put in place and we move between different contractual models to deliver that.
With Auckland rated as one of the country’s weakest regions for infrastructure resilience and weather shocks highlighting network frailties, proactive maintenance - the ‘poor cousin’ of good infrastructure - is more critical than ever, says sector heavyweight Downer New Zealand.
“There’s always going to be a level of competition between how work is funded either from capital or an operational perspective, capex versus opex. The way we deliver maintenance services is seen as a key part of the business.
“We have people who’ve dedicated their entire careers to delivering maintenance.”
Robertson says more regular and significant weather impacts in the past five years “are starting to shine a light on some of our networks. That’s started to bring that to the attention of the public. When things are going well, no one is looking at it.
“As a contractor to provide emergency response in that space we are seeing there’s real concern for communities that are cut off through these events.
“We saw that in Auckland with the flood events. I believe it’s a real concern and something that collectively needs to be addressed. On a positive note, it is being focused on with central government taking a proactive role ... there is a recognition for the need for proactive maintenance.”
Also close to Robertson’s heart is the importance of local infrastructure service delivery, which fuels Downer NZ’s strong focus and investment in staff training, apprenticeships and upskilling.
“Continuity of work is really important,” he says.
“It’s great that the scale of work now coming out of New Zealand is attracting interest from overseas contractors. That’s positive but it has to be balanced with the recognition that local companies are going to be absolutely critical to deliver that work, to deliver that continuity and then of course to continue to deliver that whole-of-life service in terms of maintenance.”
This delivery requires continuous training and development of staff across the business through offering apprenticeships and cadet and graduate programmes to ensure continuity of the human resource.
“It’s an ongoing responsibility for companies like ourselves and Fulton Hogan, who are really proactive in that space,” Robertson says.
“If we were not doing that and thinking we’re going to rely on the sort of fly-in, fly-out model then New Zealand would be exposed. It’s a role that can’t be underestimated.”
Robertson has high hopes that New Zealand is now setting “the pipeline” of infrastructure projects the sector has long called for to create more planning certainty.
“There’ve been a lot of really positive conversations in the last 18 months around setting the pipeline and also the focus around a bipartisan approach to key projects.
“There are always going to be movements around that with potential changes in government, but I think there’s a general sense in the market that a mature view needs to be taken to make sure projects are well-planned and funded.
“The importance of that from a delivery perspective is it allows large employers like ourselves to set those plans, set those training pathways and bring people in. A lot of the time you’re actually moving people around within the country, they’re being set up, they’re forming connections within their communities.”
Robertson says New Zealand is often criticised for having low productivity across the construction sector.
“A lot of that has to do with the start-stop nature of the work. If we can see more continuity, whether that’s in vertical construction or infrastructure, the more continuity we have, the greater productivity.”
On another New Zealand bugbear, the often-cited yawning infrastructure funding deficit, Robertson believes the country needs to accept the Crown has only so much funding to go around.
“There has to come a time, particularly in centres like Auckland, where we actually need to start paying for that infrastructure on a user-pays basis in some shape or form.
“How that is determined will be up to central government. But I think New Zealanders have always struggled with that approach.
“But I think it’s about recognising that infrastructure has to be funded, that it is progressive. It will drive economic return.
“We need to have a fair and equitable way of paying for that. It’s going to be a combination of what the Crown’s able to front up with versus how the users can contribute in some shape or form.”
Meanwhile, Robertson says extreme weather events continue to bring the best out in the infrastructure services industry.
“I think I can speak for other contractors when I say we find in heavy weather events the industry responds incredibly well. I think the level of collaboration across clients and contractors in emergency responses is fantastic.
“When people go into that work they recognise it’s going to be hard but they really enjoy it because it puts everyone’s focus on essentially connecting communities and getting people moving safely.”
Climate risk is definitely going to change the thinking in town and urban planning, Robertson says.
“It’s really calling into question where buildings and infrastructure are being located if we are seeing that weather events are increasing the likelihood of flooding for example will further expose communities. It’s definitely shining a light on key issues that are harder and harder to manage.
“That could be around coastline-related infrastructure. What was deemed ok 10 years ago may not be the case anymore.
“It’s about having those tough conversations around where we should be locating communities and critical assets and key road arterial networks to make sure we are not replicating some of the challenges of the past. And learning from what these weather events are teaching us in terms of what we can realistically manage or deciding we have to actually accept that there needs to be a change of location and planning.”
While climate risk is getting plenty of discussion, something that’s not being talked about enough for Robertson is the loss of people from the infrastructure service sector.
“New Zealand always produces quality engineers and contractors but we do lose a huge amount overseas. There’s a particularly fairly high draw of people going to Queensland right now because of what’s been signalled as a large amount of work ahead of the next Olympics.
“I think there’s a lot of loyalty and focus from people in New Zealand but retaining key talent remains a real challenge for our industry.”
It’s not a matter of better pay across the Tasman, he says, it’s about starting a conversation about having robust pipelines of work, being able to give assurance the work is there, that there is training and a career pathway.
“So there is confidence to remain in New Zealand, have careers and families and be part of communities and not be concerned that you relocate and then all of a sudden, the work disappears and you’ve got to find other options. “It’s giving people that - it is a growth sector.”
Downer New Zealand is a sponsor of the Herald’s Project Auckland report.