Study to reveal priorities

By CHRIS DANIELS

Allocating money for a Government study of infrastructure needs does not signal a return to the Ministry of Works building dams, says Jim Anderton.

The Economic Development Minister has announced that the coming budget will contain $550,000 for the Ministry of Economic Development and Treasury to prepare a report on what infrastructural needs and priorities are required.

This would include energy, transport, sewerage and housing.

"Infrastructure was neglected throughout the 1980s and 90s, but we can no longer pretend the issue will go away or solve itself, so we need to get this work under way."

Information gathered in the "stocktake" would be fed into a special infrastructure group, recently set up by the Government, as part of a realisation that the "hard" infrastructure such as roading and electricity matters mean as much to investment and economic growth as the "soft" infrastructure, such as education and telecommunications.

The group is headed by Finance Minister Michael Cullen.

Anderton said that in the energy sector, Energy Minister Pete Hodgson had to ask individual energy companies what their plans were, and what new generation might be planned.

A lot of the demand could be met by the private sector, he said.

"We're not going to set up a super ministry of works to go out and build dams or power stations. But some of the state-owned enterprises that have the generating capacity or are generators will be looking to the future."

Anderton said a lot of knowledge had been lost with the rundown of Government departments. Also, economic growth was continuing at higher rates than forecast.