Auckland Light Rail Limited has few employees but many contractors. Image / Supplied
Auckland Light Rail Limited has few employees but many contractors. Image / Supplied
The company started by the Government to build Auckland’s Light Rail project had zero employees a month after it was founded.
It now has at least one, a chief executive, Tommy Parker.
National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown is concerned at the proliferation of consultants at the company, officially called AucklandLight Rail Limited, which outnumber employees.
As of November 9, the company directly engaged 54 contractors and consultants. The company was established on October 6. The figures come from written parliamentary questions.
“I think this is a project which is going nowhere and the only thing which is taking place is a significant number of additional contractors being employed,” Brown said.
But Labour’s Transport Minister Michael Wood shot back at Brown, saying employment arrangements in the transport system were often project-by-project and relied upon a large number of consultants and contractors.
Wood goaded Brown to say whether he would bring these operations in-house if he were transport minister, effectively re-founding the former Ministry of Works, the Government’s in-house builder.
“If National object to the use of consultants to deliver complex technical work for important transport projects then they are either saying that they do not want those projects to proceed, or they are making an argument for the state to directly take over this portion of the market.
“The latter position may have some merit, but is a new one for the National Party,” Wood said.
“Ultimately this is an immature political attack from the National Party and shows they are not seriously engaged in the debate about New Zealand’s infrastructure needs.
“We are getting on with the job of delivering the biggest programme of transport projects that New Zealand has seen for decades,” he said.
But Brown wouldn’t be drawn into that debate, and said Waka Kotahi’s headcount was already up on when Wood took over as Transport Minister and Wood should make better use of what he has.
“This should be about getting things done - all Labour has done is hire consultants. They have yet to deliver a completed business case,” Brown said.
Wood said it was actually normal for transport projects to use large numbers of contractors.
Wood said spending on consultants included “the likes of utilities investigation, project management, transport planning, civil engineering, travel behaviour change, procurement, urban design, modelling and economics, scheduling, risk management, processes and systems.
“In the transport system many of these expertise are provided by consultants, and have been for decades under governments of all stripes,” he said.
