Rob Campbell: I’m all for infrastructure but what about nation building?

The new Karanga-a-Hape rail station under construction last year. Photo / Michael Craig

OPINION

It seems that these days one of the few things politicians can agree on is “infrastructure”. We, it seems, need more of it.

Where they debate is around who pays for it, what type it might be etc. What you might call the tactics of infrastructure.

It is all about what and where and how we should build. Not whether we should build.

The real infrastructure of our lives is the planet. Papatuanuku or Earth or however you see it. We are from and part of that. What we choose to build on that and with that is really about bending that to our own species’ interests.

We have shown an ability to create from and with the planet, and of course to damage it.

This is not to say that we can or should cease to act as humans.

Building and using is what we do. But we seem to have so distanced ourselves from the reality of this fact that we no longer even see it as central to our big decisions. People talk about wasting energy in politics as being like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic – this seems to me more like debating the menu for the first class lounge dinner on the vessel.

The real issue is the threat of sinking - and on the lower decks the issue is whether we will make it to dinner, because it is already more than damp.

Rob Campbell. Photo / Michael Craig

These thoughts struck me when reading material from the “Building Nations” conference recently held in Otautahi.

Various speakers from the political parties and other interests described their views on infrastructure as if building physical infrastructure actually is the same thing as building a nation. Roads, rail, stopbanks, bridges, power schemes abounded in the proposals. They all shared a common vision of more, bigger, more “resilient” facilities to serve a larger population making more things.

This does us all, and the planet, a disservice.

If we are really about building nations, which I think is an excellent idea, then we should start with our physical environment.

We should understand and respect that. Recognise where we have damaged it, and how we can best care for it in the future. There is also some repair work.

I think that is captured in the concept kaitiakitanga. Any idea of building a nation which is not started from this base is fatally flawed. It’s like building houses on flood plains or with shonky materials (yes, I know we already do that).

It makes sense to do this using all of the resources for understanding that we have, and indigenous knowledge is logically central to that. By definition, it has been here longer and is more embedded with the physical world than other knowledge but the best of global knowledge is also available to us.

We have the best of both worlds if we choose to use them.

Then we must look to the people.

Nation building is about people in their location now and in the future. It is not about the physical infrastructure built in the past. It should not be driven by those who own and fund and direct the building of more.

We should consider the people we have and future generations, their needs, and make that our guide.

It is hard to escape the idea, if we do that, of having a firm foundation in the indigenous population as it emerges from the damage of colonisation. If we work with that because it is the right thing to do, it will also open the door to proper involvement and recognition of the interests of other groups, which we know are and will be central to our population in subsequent decades – Pacific peoples and those from the many migrant groups.

Without clear views on how we will live together, how can we know what we should build in our physical world? It would be like building houses that do not match many family needs (yes, I know we already do that). Or schools and hospitals which are the same (yes, I know).

So before we rush around building new infrastructure on the old models, let’s really think about our people and our place and start from there.

Rob Campbell is a professional director and investor. He is Chancellor at AUT, Chair of Ara Ake, Chair of NZ Rural Land, adviser to BBM Charity and former chair of Te Whatu Ora.