Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced $6b in construction projects starting this year. Photo / Mark Mitchell
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ
The Opposition has dismissed the Government’s infrastructure announcement as a public relations stunt, while Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the projects will create thousands of jobs and improve the nation’s productivity.
On Sunday, Luxon joined Minister for Economic Growth Nicola Willis and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop at Drury near Auckland’s southern border, where the population was forecast to swell over the next few decades, to launch an infrastructure update showing $6 billion of Government-funded construction due to get under way before the end of the year.
The projects included the construction of a new acute mental health unit at Hutt Valley Hospital, seismic strengthening of the Parliamentary Library, and long-awaited upgrades to SH76 Brougham St in Christchurch.
Bishop said there were almost $4b of roading projects in the list of work getting under way, including the Ōtaki to north of Levin expressway, the Melling interchange, the Waihoehoe Rd upgrade, and the new Ōmanawa bridge on SH29.
The projects would create thousands of jobs and lift productivity by getting people and freight to their destinations quickly and safely, Bishop said.
But Green Party infrastructure spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter said spending billions of dollars on roading projects would not solve the country’s productivity crisis.
“They’re trying to distract from the fact their actions cancelling heaps of projects has led to a crisis in the construction industry here in Aotearoa, where last month almost a third of business liquidations were construction companies.
“The coalition Government has cancelled far more projects than any other government that I’m aware of. They cancelled the ferries, they’ve cancelled lots of public house builds, and other decisions they’ve made to cut public spending have led to a longer and deeper recession.
“This is really a Government trying to govern with PR stunts and slogans, and no real commitment to solving the challenges we’re facing.”
A majority of New Zealanders wanted to take action on climate change, so getting off fossil fuels and on to more sustainable transport was a win-win that would do more for productivity, she said.
Willis said the projects due to get under way included new roads, hospitals, schools, high-tech laboratories and other government buildings.
“That means spades in the ground, jobs throughout the country and a stronger economy.”
Improving New Zealand’s infrastructure was critical to growing the economy and helping with the cost of living, Willis said.
Luxon said the Government was “on the side of the Kiwis who need roads to get to their jobs at the crack of dawn, deliver essential goods like food and get their kids to school”.
He said the Government would partner with the private sector “where it made sense”.
“We’re obviously doing a huge amount of investment ourselves as Government, but it’s a combination of both of those things.”
Labour’s infrastructure spokesman Kieran McAnulty characterised the announcement as nothing more than a distraction.
“Just this morning ... the Associate Housing Minister [Tama Potaka] finally admitted the Government’s policies have contributed to an unprecedented rise in homelessness and the best distraction they can come up with is an announcement of an announcement – I think that speaks volumes,” McAnulty said.
“There’s nothing new in today’s announcement. People knew that was happening, and some of it was actually started under the previous government. What the infrastructure sector actually want is certainty ... because we’ve already lost 15,000 workers in construction, many of them have gone to Australia, and every week we’ve got civil construction firms going under because of the lack of work.
“Today’s re-announcement isn’t going to help any of those people.
“It would have been preferable for the Government to announce new work, or bring projects and maintenance work forward to give firms confidence and certainty, so they can either keep their workers or attract them back.”
References to private investment and collaboration rang hollow, McAnulty said.
“We’ve been hearing the Government talking about public-private partnerships since the day they came in – we still haven’t seen any of them signed or under way. I’d like to see the Government actually come up with something tangible.
“Announcing things and making a big deal about things that they already had been announced or under way under the previous Government is not going to give people the certainty they want.”
Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett welcomed the announcement, which he said came at a time when the industry was “bleeding capability”.
An Infrastructure New Zealand survey found 65% of firms had reduced staff over the past 12 months, and nearly half had lost workers to overseas markets.
“New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit, and we need our skilled workforce here to close it.”
He said the country has a “perennial problem” with start-stops when it comes to building infrastructure, and he wanted to see a more “bipartisan approach”.
Leggett acknowledged the projects announced were not new, but said the industry association’s focus was on the increase in projects under way by December this year, compared to last year.
“And we’re hopeful that in December of 2026, there’ll be even more work.
“We’ve got very skilled, professional people in different parts across the infrastructure industry that are keen to get their teeth into those projects announced today, some of them, of course, have been paused or cancelled previously. But the point is they’re going to be in the market quickly.”
He wanted to see more work on smoothing out the infrastructure pipeline.
“What we need to do is get agreed on what the pipeline looks like and never have the kind of stops we’ve seen in the last decade or so that pause or cancel projects.
“Our economy needs this stimulus, and it needs these projects so people can get health and education results and be able to move around on transport projects that actually get built rather than just get argued over.”
The full list of projects due to get under way this year includes:
The Government said there was also a small number of “significant projects” which could not be named for “a range of commercial reasons”, but were included in the $6b total.
– RNZ