Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.
OPINION
Our elected politicians, those whom we task with overseeing the resources and the system upholding our infrastructure – and therefore our way of life – have for too longbeen down in the engine room trying to direct operations, rather than being on the bridge steering the ship.
So often with failures or disasters, it isn’t one decision or one person responsible for a catastrophe. It’s the process, decisions, culture and investment over time. And it’s so often a failure to take action.
We know the ferries are stuffed. The last Government decided to go for an expensive, purpose-built ferry that prioritised moving freight by rail. The related port-side infrastructure required specifically for the new boats was eye-wateringly expensive. And this Government has totally underestimated our inter-island transport needs.
Surely we need a total transport solution that must include rail and coastal shipping.
The new Government arrived last year, it didn’t like the choices made and it cancelled the contract to stem the flow of money on the projects.
I don’t have the time or patience to get into the argument about which decision was right. What I can tell you is the investment choice should have been done once and done right, and the process should not have allowed politicians to contaminate it at any level other than around assurances about supply chain security and spending the money.
We’ve allowed our politicians to involve themselves in choosing the colour of the curtains and what material they are made of, rather than taking a long-term view about whether the curtains fitted the plan for the house and how much should be spent on them.
Bipartisan is a term Kiwis used to love. We enjoyed seeing our politicians work together and reach out across the aisle to make sensible decisions happen faster – and guarantee their stickability in the event of a change of government. Remember Helen Clark and John Key getting it together on anti-smacking legislation? Then there was Labour and National on housing density two years ago; oh wait, that didn’t stick because National pulled the plug.
Labour came into office in 2017 and cancelled funded and approved roading projects. National has cancelled school rebuild projects this year and wound back investment on meeting our carbon reduction plan.
There are many other examples of the back-and-forth decisions by respective governments. All of this chopping and changing holds back progress when we desperately need to be competitive with the rest of the globe.
Competitiveness will also rely on a bipartisan approach to building workforce capacity.
We need highly specialised, skilled employees who are safe in the knowledge that their employment has a long tenure. Deregulating the labour market will not be helpful.
The Government cancelled Auckland’s light rail project.
This political back and forth costs us billions of dollars sunk into designing and planning projects that never happen – Auckland Light Rail and Let’s Get Wellington Moving anyone? Not to mention even greater costs in lost economic benefit when the projects don’t happen.
Three Waters is a classic example, too. We know we have weeping pipes pouring raw sewage into our environment in every part of the country. If the two sides had got it together and not politicised and divided the nation in the process, we would have been at the solution much faster and saved billions. Ratepayers are now looking down the barrel of double-digit rate rises and council infrastructure will continue to be woefully inadequate unless we have an agreed work and funding plan beyond political cycles.
We are not a large country and we don’t enjoy the depth in our supply chain or infrastructure system to endure these wild swings. With thousands of talented and skilled Kiwis heading off every week to countries with more opportunity, it is infrastructure that will build the foundation of a nation that has any hope of retaining them or enticing them back.
Both sides of our politics are guilty of this back-and-forth mentality that has allowed infrastructure to be politicised. The winner-takes-all nature of our political system encourages such behaviour. While pundits like me can ask politicians to change and keep their fingers out of decisions and their minds focused on a long-term vision and plan for Aotearoa, I know I’d be wasting my breath. Politicians generally only respond to one thing and that is public opinion. So yes, folks, that means all of us have to demand better – from all sides of politics.
I do think Barbara Edmonds and Chris Bishop probably have a lot more in common in terms of their vision for a long-term bipartisan approach to infrastructure. I have some hope, folks.
The Helen Clark Foundation is about to release a major paper on this subject. We should all take time to read and understand this document.
Clark’s view is that Aotearoa New Zealand needs a mature conversation on its infrastructure needs and how to finance them. Countless tens of millions of dollars have been wasted as governments change their minds on what the needs are. This points to a need for more dialogue, including with councils, on a forward programme. That programme needs to be based on the best evidence of what is value for money, disaster and climate resilient, and low-carbon. The latter is important as the country is struggling to meet its Paris Agreement commitments.
It is time to demand a big-picture plan and vision for our nation. We must insist the Infrastructure Commission gets moving on building its strategy and list of approved projects that can give us confidence the experts have considered and approved a roadmap, which politicians can then enable. Citizens must demand their elected members to be involved at the level we need them. Set the direction, approve the money and then cut the ribbon.
It’s time for us to stand up collectively and take a long-term view for our children’s children’s children. What kind of country do we want for them? What is the future we are building infrastructure to deliver for us? That answer is for another day, but it would be nice if our politicians were thinking at that level and working together a bit more to deliver on it.
