New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 26 August 2019.

Kia ora nō tātou. This bill establishes the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga to provide independent expert advice on infrastructure. Quality infrastructure is essential to improving New Zealand’s long-term economic performance and social well-being, but a short-term project-by-project focus by successive Governments means many of our key infrastructure networks need critical investment. For example, our transport and urban infrastructure is struggling to keep up with population growth and increased demand, and parts of our water network are over 100 years old. This infrastructure deficit is manifesting in housing unaffordability, congestion, poor-quality drinking-water, and lost productivity.

We announced the new Infrastructure Commission at the Building Nations Symposium last year in Auckland. The idea of nation-building is something that New Zealand historically did well and is a cornerstone of this Government’s narrative. I think fondly to the days of the Ministry of Works, where there were options other than leaving school, lounging on the couch, joining a gang. Consequently, in the absence of quality long-term programmes, we are seeing far too many provinces today struggling with the infrastructure deficit.

Now, this is something many of us take for granted in New Zealand—i.e., basic infrastructure—but I can assure you that one of the loudest complaints articulated to me when I visit the regions is roads, bridges, buildings, water infrastructure, and telecommunication. So what’s wrong? Quite simply, New Zealand lacks a long-term infrastructure plan. There are some small bright lights, but in terms of a comprehensive statement, it eludes us. We have an 80-page, glossy document from 2015: lots of pictures of ports and cranes, but no way of quantifying the extent of our deficit. I do not make that statement in any way wanting to cast a negative reflection on the people who have joined over the recent period of time and sat upon the infrastructure committee, but a fact is a fact.

During the development of the policy related to this bill, extensive engagement with the sector was undertaken and a number of problems were highlighted: a lack of integrated investment decisions within and across central and local government, and a lack of visibility, pipeline, and scale. Our overriding focus is on building new assets, rather than the outcomes we’re trying to achieve and our ability to deliver on them. Central government and local government procurement capability is often lacking. The industry has been saying this for a considerable period of time, and I wager a guess that virtually every MP in this House that has within his or her mission matters of economic importance will have encountered people from that sector making these points. We require a step change.

Ministers have listened, and I think I should make the point that I’m sure Ministers under the last regime heard similar entreaties. So, this bill seeks to deliver what the sector has been asking for: an entity with autonomy to provide robust impartial advice, vision, and strategy. The authority to commit public funding, to actually invest on behalf of the Crown, will continue to remain with the elected politicians enjoying the privilege of holding a warrant to be Cabinet Ministers. However, a commission is important in terms of coordination and planning, ensuring that we make the most of the infrastructure we have planned long term.

So the two main areas that require our focus: the first is strategy and planning. Good infrastructure outcomes require us to think about the full infrastructure lifecycle, from planning to delivery. There will always be political debate, and indeed I am embroiled mildly in such a debate at the moment in terms of the future of the Ports of Auckland, but I’ll be the first person to say that the creation of a reservoir of talent and expertise is overdue. Even if, from time to time, elected politicians like my good self may not thoroughly or exhaustively agree with the responses, that does not mean that that quality of advice should not be served up to us.

The second group of functions for the commission is to provide new expert transactional capability to support the delivery of projects across central and local government. I need look no further than what I colloquially call the railway loop in downtown Auckland. I’m sure there are a host of lessons for Ministers, MPs, and all stakeholders to learn from that large infrastructure project and what transactional improvements we might take on board in further urban development transport infrastructure developments. So the establishment of the commission—Te Waihanga, which, in Māori, remains “to construct, to conceive, to design”—is a concrete step that this Government and, God willing, future Governments will use and will improve the level of accountability in terms of how we plan, coordinate, and deliver.

I have briefed the Opposition spokesperson on the bill and the vision behind it to ensure that we try and find some common ground. They have had nine years also of looking at the lessons, looking at areas for improvement. To deliver this vision, I asked all of my colleagues in the House to support the bill in this regard. I commend the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The National Party will be supporting this bill to select committee, and we would like to hope that the spirit of cooperation that the Minister has shown towards us in this matter will continue so that we can, in fact, have good input into it not only in select committee but further on.

I think most people who have had any ministerial roles around infrastructure, whether it’s myself in energy and resources or whether it’s the Minister and many others, those of transport and others, will understand how infrastructure is something that this country needs, and it needs a lot of it. National’s 2017 election policy was to create a new national infrastructure commission to lead more public-private partnership projects and to utilise National’s infrastructure investment. The commission would also have ensured that New Zealanders get faster access to new schools, hospitals, and roading.

I have been astonished at the amount of infrastructure that we have in New Zealand today that was actually built in the 1960s and the 1970s. A lot of it has been referred to in a negative way as Think Big but, actually, if we look at our hydro dams that supply the vast majority, about 63 percent, of our renewable energy, or energy in our electricity supply, most of those are part of Think Big projects. I well remember as a child—obviously, merely a tot at the time; not really, but let’s just keep the fiction going!

💬 SPEAKER: The member is far too young to remember that.

Far too young. Thank so much, Mr Speaker.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Your grandmother told you about it.

Yes, well, if she had been alive, she would have. There was the “Damn the Dam” song—there was all of that—and, actually, those projects, some of them have turned out to have been the greatest thing that any Government could have done in terms of securing our renewable energy supply. There were also projects like the Marsden Point Oil Refinery. There were the gas projects of Methanex. All these projects were big infrastructure spends that a Government was required to come into to do, because we are a big country physically—greater in size than the whole United Kingdom and smaller in population than Melbourne—but we do not have enough people who can invest in some of these big projects without having to have a Government to help.

We also believe, on this side of the House, that we should look more to public-private partnerships. We certainly used that in the big infrastructure spend on the prison at Wiri, in South Auckland, and that has so far, in my opinion, been a successful project. We see that there is this need to look ahead and to plan. We think it is a good idea to have people who are independent from the Government and from Parliament to look at these issues and to give us views that we may be challenged by. I think it’s a good thing to have people to challenge us on our views and to give us views that we may not have even heard of, and I think that’s something that this commission will want to do.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has involved us quite early on in the process too, and also to discuss appointments to the commission, which I think is a smart thing to do. We believe that this is a commission that would need to have experts but also people who are good at looking to the whole of New Zealand and to what is needed rather than to individual projects that may only help a very few people. I would have thought that if we had had this sort of commission put in place by the Government, if we had got it in place ourselves, it would have, possibly, prevented some of the rather foolish campaigning on things like stopping the East-West Link, in Auckland, which is a major thoroughfare with the largest number of trucks and lorries travelling down that. That project also included cycleways—entire refurbishment, essentially, of the waterfront—and one of the things that we have seen is nothing happening on that.

These are the sorts of things that a commission that is free of interference from politics should be able to deal with. I think, also, we need to have a commission that can look without the—somewhat occasionally—slightly jaundiced view of us in politics around what is best for New Zealanders, rather than pushing a particular bandwagon. I am sure that many people would suggest that, today, if we didn’t have the motorway system, we would be a much less productive country than we are now, and I believe fully that if we had a better motorway system—more thorough—we would have a far more productive country.

When I think about some of the big infrastructure projects that we have been involved in around the Waterview Tunnel—and I know that the previous Labour Government also had input into that—these are projects that are game-changers for our cities, and, therefore, for New Zealand. I think also too of an infrastructure project that people often just take for granted now, and that is the infrastructure project of the ultra-fast broadband roll-out, very successfully—very successfully—done in New Zealand, still continuing today, but it’s all within plan and it’s within budget. That’s something that many other countries have not been able to do. So it was a very well-thought-out project, properly planned, and actually had a lot of expert advice in there, which was listened to. That’s the sort of infrastructure project that I’m sure a commission will want to look at what else is needed.

I’m heartened by the views of the Minister for Infrastructure that infrastructure also includes things like water, the fact that we have a country with a lot of water on one side of it—on the western side; not so much on the eastern side. I understand that we have so much water, but the problem is not all of it is to the standard that we would like it to be. I think it is important that we look at these issues, and that’s why we believe that this is something that we should support, and certainly to the select committee. We would like to hope that the select committee process and the bill do not end up giving any dictate to how funding is to be arranged for infrastructure projects. Although we now know a lot more about public-private partnerships, and we’ve certainly used those very successfully, there will be other forms of funding that we have not yet thought about or used.

I think it is also very important to understand that we should be available and open to looking to every other form of funding that might help New Zealand, and making sure it’s in the best interests of New Zealanders. New Zealand doesn’t have enough capital for what we need to do. As well, we do not have enough people skilled in these areas—of construction—that we need. So the best way to start getting that going is to have a plan, and the best way to end up with a plan—a national plan that can follow through from Government to Government, and is not just at the whim of a Minister or a Prime Minister—is to have this sort of commission. We hope that this commission will be exactly what the Minister has said he believes it will be. We hope it will not become so completely taken over by whoever is the Minister at any stage in the future, and that the commission will be one which can give robust advice to a Minister and, sometimes—actually, often—advice the Minister doesn’t want to hear. That is the role of a commission that really wants to add value, and to be independent from a Government, and on that basis we will support this bill to select committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand here and support this bill, and acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Shane Jones in developing this piece of work to establish a New Zealand Infrastructure Commission.

Through to 2022, New Zealand will be spending net capital of $42 billion on infrastructure, and that figure alone I think should be enough to focus our minds on the need to improve the quality of the spending, to build the right infrastructure projects at the right time and the right place, and to lift the procurement performance of central government across the board. Not to put too fine a point on it, this bill is a response to what I think has been a less than optimal performance for some time in the issue of the procurement of infrastructure. Government itself has not even been properly coordinating its procurement of major infrastructure projects across the public sector. It certainly hasn’t been operating strategically within the Australasian infrastructure market as it should be doing, and it hasn’t adequately built a multi-year pipeline of large infrastructure projects, which would allow the industry the certainty and the ability to plan its workforce and its ability to engage with those projects.

Some Government agencies are very good at large projects; others not so. It was only a few months ago that we discovered that Government agencies, by and large, were not even following the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s own procurement guidelines for construction contracts—guidelines that had been issued by the Government’s lead procurement agency. So Minister Parker put paid to that, and Government agencies and departments were directed to follow those guidelines, but the fact that it hadn’t been happening I think illustrates the lack of a cohesive policy in this area.

The commission that’s proposed under this bill will have two main roles: strategy and planning first, and, secondly, procurement and delivery support. So the first: the importance of developing a policy framework for procurement—a set of principles upon which Government agencies would undertake their procurement, designed to lift the quality and the standard of procurement, and to develop that multi-year pipeline. Second one: delivery support. When there’s an agency or a ministry that has a big project on its books but doesn’t necessarily have the capability in-house and the history of doing these large projects, the commission would be able to step up and assist it and take over that procurement role.

One of the really important opportunities here is for the central government to coordinate its procurement work with local government. If you take the construction industry, central government’s about 20 percent of all the work that happens in New Zealand in a given year, but, actually, local government, while less than 10 percent of the market, still is a very, very significant customer. Now, if central government and local government were to get together and coordinate their procurement, that could make a major positive difference to the market.

The commission is intended to be a one-stop shop for investors and the big construction companies who work in this space—a place for them to come and talk, to understand the plans and the needs of the New Zealand Government and the wider New Zealand market, and to provide expert advice in planning and strategy for all bits of the public sector.

Much of the thinking that has supported the development of this bill has drawn on work that’s been going on in Canada, right across the United Kingdom, and Australia over the last decade or so, where a number of Governments have been trying to lift their game to achieve much greater efficiency and better outcomes for big infrastructure projects. We’ve seen in a number of those countries arm’s-length commissions established that have taken the infrastructure role out of a ministry, out of Treasury, out of central government, and established an arm’s-length, independent commission with the idea of addressing two main things. The first is that—and we see this in New Zealand currently—central government’s capability on infrastructure is spread over, I think, three different units across Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. So you just don’t get the concentration of capability that would allow you to achieve that kind of centre of excellence that you would want.

The second is to make it arm’s length from Government, and to take some of the politics out of it to try to build a cross-party consensus and to engage better with the private sector. Ms Collins, in her speech before me—unwittingly, I think—illustrated one of the very problems that this bill is trying to address. She articulated such a narrow, ideological, and highly partisan attitude towards infrastructure projects. That is the very thing that this commission, by lifting the general standard of procurement practice, building consensus across Government and across the political spectrum and, indeed, with the private market—those are the challenges that this bill is setting out to address.

I want to acknowledge a couple of influencers in the work that led up to this bill being drafted. One is a number of the Australian infrastructure agencies: the federal agency Infrastructure Australia, Infrastructure NSW, and a number of what they call i-bodies. These arm’s-length infrastructure commissions have been extremely helpful, and Minister Jones and I and Minister Robertson have had extensive conversations with a number of the Australian bodies. We’ve been over there, they’ve been over here, and they’ve been extremely helpful in teasing out the model and the different options that we could look to in setting up this new body.

I also want to acknowledge Infrastructure New Zealand, the industry body that represents a lot of the infrastructure companies, who have been a prolific generator of ideas and proposals right across infrastructure, including in my areas of responsibility around housing and transport and urban development. Infrastructure New Zealand has been advocating for making policy proposals for the establishment of an arm’s-length infrastructure commission, as we see here in this bill today, and they deserve, I think, significant credit for that.

I want to finish by just briefly commenting on a companion piece to this bill, and that is the work that I’ve been leading with Treasury on establishing new ways of funding and financing the infrastructure that’s needed for urban growth. That work, I think, sits alongside the work that Minister Jones has been doing on the new Infrastructure Commission. It’s designed to provide new options to fund and finance the roads, the three waters, broadband, electricity, and all infrastructure that’s needed to allow our towns and cities to grow. We will, I hope, shortly bring a bill to the House to legislate the framework for this new way of financing infrastructure that will allow private financing, bond finance, to be invested in the infrastructure for new urban growth, paid back over the lifetime of the asset up to 50 years, with an infrastructure levy on the properties in that development. It would, effectively, bypass the council balance sheets and allow us to tap into a limitless supply of investment capital to build the infrastructure that our cities need.

This kind of innovation is the kind of thing that the Infrastructure Commission wants to foster and, I think, with these two initiatives side by side, New Zealand can truly lift its game in the procurement of big infrastructure projects. We’re talking about built infrastructure, engineering projects, everything from energy, water, roads, electricity—all of the things that we need to build an efficient and prosperous New Zealand. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Temporary Speaker. Mr Temporary Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise on this occasion with you in the Chair. I’d like to pick up on a couple of things the Hon Phil Twyford, the previous speaker, said. There is absolutely a need for this initiative, so it’s a very good initiative, in my opinion. Mr Twyford talked about a number of other projects and reviews going on. He mentioned Three Waters, for example, and I imagine the thinking in that review will feed into the commission’s work, because there is a lot of work to be done in the provinces. I note that the sponsoring Minister, the self-proclaimed prince of the provinces, is leading this bill.

There is an issue in the provinces. There is a demand on local government to raise their standard, raise the bar. The bar set by the community continues to rise; the funding available in those smaller communities does not rise with it. The regional towns tend to have lower per capita incomes, and, of course, they’ve got the infrastructure that they’re obliged to maintain and keep up, or maintain the upkeep of. So I was very pleased to listen to Minister Jones.

Minister Twyford’s comments around public-private partnerships (PPP), and the idea that an investor can bring in an investment in a bond—I was interested to hear the words when he said “bypassing the local government balance sheet”. That was an interesting concept that he dropped into the conversation. That’s a very worthwhile thing to investigate. There are a lot of people who have cash who are willing and able to invest in these big projects and small projects, whether it’s local council, regional council, small-town infrastructure, or big roads infrastructure. So that was a good comment from Minister Twyford.

I wonder if the Government will extend the pro-PPP argument to things like prisons—because I know that the Government took that off the table at one point—and whether that would be considered a piece of infrastructure that could be funded by a PPP, or indeed schools or hospitals, or whatever else you want to include in the conversation. So we’ll see where that goes, because that is all going to be interesting stuff.

There are issues. Even this week, in the South Wairarapa District, there is an E. coli warning. The water has to be boiled again in the town of Martinborough. This is unacceptable in the 21st century, and I wonder whether, other than the funding and procurement that the Ministers have mentioned, the commission will look into the governance of local government or the structure of local government—not just the funding or the balance sheet but who is running the infrastructure. Who is in control and who is managing the three waters in these towns? I know Minister Mahuta’s Three Waters Review is looking into that, and I know there are some models that are being proposed, but there is an issue. There is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed, and so I commend the Government for bringing this commission, and at this point we will be supporting it for all those reasons that I have outlined. So it’s an interesting discussion.

Roading versus rail—you know, again, it’s another example of where funding really is not 21st century. We still fund the roads separately from the rail, whereas in reality, all we’re doing is getting a 20-foot container from A to B. The infrastructure of both roads and rail should be considered together, and probably shipping as well.

So I think that if the commission can bring all that thinking together—and I also commend Infrastructure New Zealand on their huge amount of ideas and contributions that they make to the discussion—and if the Government and this side can bring it all together, I think, without politicising it, and ensuring that these guys remain independent, we could have some very good results if we let those three to seven people do the job. Thank you, Mr Temporary Speaker.

“Mr Speaker”, I notice that your voice and authority are the same, but you look different—you look younger! Mr Temporary Speaker, thank you for this opportunity.

I’d like to spend a bit of time talking about what’s in the bill and why the bill is necessary, but also talking a little bit about what the future of this work is about. Before doing so, I note that Alastair Scott, the previous speaker, made reference to the Hon Shane Jones as the self-proclaimed champion of the regions. I do want to say that, yes, whenever Matua Shane makes reference to himself in that way, there are looks on the other side of the House, but I want to say that it works. I like it. I hold it up. Our communities like it because they see somebody in this House that’s specifically focused on championing the needs of the regions. Now, you’ve missed the opportunity, that side of the House, of identifying somebody on your side to be the champion of the regions.

So, now, it is a real pleasure to acknowledge that the Hon Shane Jones is, in fact, the first citizen of the region, the champion of the regions, and the founder of the Provincial Growth Fund. But I also want to acknowledge this work here that he’s introducing to this House, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. This is something that I think is a challenge to all of us here in this House to look to the future.

If you look to the words “te waihanga”, in Māori, I’m advised it means “a cornerstone, or to make, create, develop, build, construct, generate.” A cornerstone, as some of us will understand, is a key part of building solid foundations for the future. We all know that we need good roads. Roads are necessary to enable the delivery backwards and forwards of goods and services. We all know we need good water infrastructure. It’s about lifting the well-being of our community, and sometimes when you get out to the regions, you can’t help but ask yourself why it is that we have good drinking-water in some parts of New Zealand and in other parts, not, or in other parts they are relying on underground water or relying on rainwater. That’s why, sometimes, we have the kinds of issues that we’ve had to deal with in some of the regions. But—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: Oh, that’s such a Wellington comment. Rainwater’s good!

No, don’t hush me on this one, madam. I’m saying to this House that this is a critical bill if you’re sincere about laying strong foundations for this country.

We don’t have a population policy. We have never considered that, yet our population grows on a regular basis—2 percent, generally—and that’s not taking into consideration those people who come in and out of our country and end up residing in Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s not just the roads and it’s not just water; there’s a host of other infrastructures that are necessary to ensuring that at the end of the day, the laws that we pass here and the work that’s been delivered by our public sector actually delivers for the people and actually lifts the well-being of people.

So it is a visionary work, and I note that the problems in the past, and that’s largely because of our democratic system—the three-year term means that often parties in this House are short-sighted in the things that they pick up and run with. We all know that it takes nine years for one party in Government to set things up and then sometimes they get things wrong, and then it takes another term for the next Government to come along to try and fix what they’ve inherited. We might end up playing, continually, the political game in here, but at the end of the day, the people who suffer are the people that we are supposedly here representing. Again, I’m emphasising why this bill is important and the need to look long term, the need to look to the future.

Look, the advice I’ve received is that we’ve got an infrastructure deficit. It says successive Governments—I’m not necessarily pointing the finger at that lot for the last nine years; it says “successive Governments”—have failed to plan for a long-term agenda. So I suspect every MP in this House will have examples of the specific infrastructure that their communities might need. Long-term infrastructure, particularly the kind of infrastructure that benefits present and future generations, requires significant investment. It also requires us to debate issues about who pays for that and how much we end up paying for that infrastructure. Mr Jones was able to secure $42 billion out of last year’s Budget to start and begin this work over a four-year period. Now, I would say that that’s a small amount of money because in actual fact, when you set up the commission—when you set up the commission—

💬 Hon Member: I thought it was only $3 billion.

💬 Hon Alfred Ngaro: $42 billion!

Maybe I got it wrong.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: No, no, he’s right: $42 billion over 10 years.

Over 10 years—$42 billion over 10 years.

The reality is we’re talking about infrastructure that at the end of the day delivers services that will ensure the people that we represent are served appropriately and receive the kinds of services that modern economies should be able to receive. Now, I’ve only talked about roading and water, but there are other infrastructures that require significant investment. For example, some in this House believe that everybody has access to the internet, but I know there are a number of communities, including out in the regions, that still do not have easy access to the internet. In this day and age, you would think everybody in New Zealand has access to internet. So this is an important work. That’s all I’m emphasising.

It’s an important work that does require a united position by this House, because if it isn’t united, then once we’re out of office in 18 years, that lot will come in and try to change it in 18 years.

💬 Hon Member: Don’t be so modest.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: OK, 21.

OK, 21, then.

I note that this commission needs to be independent. Yes, it needs to be independent because it needs to have a long-term focus, and our democratic system only allows us to look at three years ahead. But this is visionary stuff, and I would have to say with modesty that this is again a demonstration of the leadership, the vision of this Government because—

💬 Jonathan Young: Come on!

Absolutely, absolutely. It requires vision to come up with these kinds of ideas, OK? So I have no hesitation to commend this bill to the House and invite the general public to make sure they have an opportunity to submit to this bill at the select committee stage.

Thank you, Mr Temporary Speaker. Can I just acknowledge the previous speaker, the Hon Aupito William Sio, and I think it’s a matter of history, of which I think the Minister is fully aware, that this idea around an infrastructure commission has stretched over not just the thinking of this Government but also the thinking of the prior Government. In fact, you know, Policy 2017 talks about this infrastructure commission being needed because of the long-term significant investment that probably not one region can ever afford, not one particular sector can afford, but it needs to be a “New Zealand Inc.” concept and work programme, and we certainly need to have the people who understand the issues, the challenges, the supply chains, the procurement very much involved in bringing recommendations and advice to the Government of the day.

Can I just encourage the previous speaker not to be so harsh on the former Labour Government for nine years. When he referred to nine years of mismanagement and the next Government coming in to have to fix it up, he should not have been so harsh on Helen Clark. In fact, he did refer to the Minister securing $42 billion worth of infrastructure funding, and the Minister said, “Yes, over 10 years.”, whereas the previous policy of Bill English, the infrastructure Minister at that point in time, was $32 billion over four years. So there was not, in a sense, a deficit in his term, his framework, because there was significant investment planned by the previous National Government—in fact, a 40 percent increase on the prior four years.

So, look, we understand that in a modern society, a modern economy, infrastructure is the backbone of how everything works, whether that’s ports, roads, airports—the big, big items—or whether it’s hospitals or all the things that people who live in a successful country and economy can rightfully expect. But it’s incredibly important when we make this long-term planning that we do it in order to streamline processes and procurement; that we ensure that we have the human capital, the skilled people, the construction entities that can continue to support infrastructure replenishment and rebuild, and new projects for the betterment of New Zealand’s community and our society.

You know, some of these projects are literally billions of dollars—certainly hundreds of millions of dollars and many of them tens of millions of dollars—but what we need to ensure is that we don’t have a workforce that’s here today and gone tomorrow. We need to connect them sequentially so we can not only do it sequentially in order to manage workforce but also the economics around this. You know, our spokesperson for infrastructure, the Hon Judith Collins, referred to projects in the past which were termed Think Big. Back in the day, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm and people probably thought that it would drive the country broke, but they have been very important projects, very important projects in time—decadal projects that have had life and input and economic value for decades and decades to come and certainly cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is the complexity that this commission will address. And, you know, we don’t need novices. We need people who are well-experienced, who are connected also in the Australasian, even global, context as well, so that we get the best value for taxpayer money when the money comes from taxpayers. We certainly believe that there is an opportunity for public-private partnerships around some of these infrastructure projects, and let’s hope the commission get an opportunity to look at that as well.

I’m very pleased to support this bill, as we are, at the first reading, and we trust that the select committee will do a thorough job on this, because this is for the benefit and the growth and the development of New Zealand and all that we need. Thank you very much.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. That was an incredibly curious contribution from the last member, Jonathan Young, because, essentially, if I understood it correctly, he was sort of saying, “Well, we had the idea in our previous nine years of Government.” If that’s the case, why on earth wasn’t it actually implemented or actioned during the nine years of the previous Government? Look, I think the voters are going to give the Opposition very short shrift to say, “We had the idea. Give us some support as well.”

Look, what Kiwis are going to be questioning and evaluating the contribution of various Governments on is the actual action and difference they bring to New Zealand. That’s why I’m proud to be supporting this bill—because infrastructure is such a critical component of delivering a richer New Zealand for New Zealanders. What I mean by that is “richer” in an economic sense and a household finance sense but also in a cultural and environmental sense, because I believe infrastructure can deliver better quality of life outcomes, nicer communities, healthier cities. So we’re supporting this because we believe it’s a step towards a richer New Zealand.

As the Government’s about to spend $42 billion on infrastructure spend over the next three years—an estimated amount—it’s important that we get it right, and that’s why having an infrastructure commission created to help with planning, strategy, procurement, and delivery is critically important. An area that the Green Party was particularly focused on in the development of this legislation was making sure that when we’re talking about infrastructure, we talk about the whole gamut of it. When we talk about infrastructure, I think everyone knows we’re talking about roads and bridges and buildings, but what this legislation also contains is water infrastructure, telecommunications. Now, when you look at the previous Government, they say they had this idea of a commission but didn’t implement it in Government. I think the challenge was that if they had one idea in Government over the nine years when it came to infrastructure, it was roads, roads, roads. That was the single plan they had.

What we also need to do is make sure that when we talk about infrastructure, we’re also talking about rail, electricity and power infrastructure, but I would also add—and I think this is a unique Green contribution to this debate on infrastructure—that it’s not just hard infrastructure. It’s not just power poles or rail lines—I would put it that it’s the water infrastructure; it’s our natural infrastructure; it’s the lakes, the mountains, and the waterways. This is actually how our country and our economy operate: built on the natural environment. You couldn’t farm in New Zealand without the natural infrastructure. You couldn’t have such a vibrant and valuable tourism industry if we didn’t have such spectacular natural infrastructure that people literally fly from around the world to come visit, because it’s so special.

When you look at the idea of—often in this House, I’ve heard it portrayed as a trade-off between the environment and the economy. We somehow have to sacrifice our environment if we want to grow jobs. I absolutely reject that argument. We only have an economy because of our natural world. Kate Raworth, a UK-based academic, described it as the “doughnut economy”. Instead of portraying the environment and the economy as in conflict or needing to be balanced, you actually need to envision our economy and our society much like a doughnut. The outer limit of that doughnut, of the circle, is the natural world, and if we go outside of that, everything within it—which is our economy and our society—can’t actually operate. So we’re pushing very hard for a more expansive set of infrastructure definitions. I’m going to be very interested to hear the select committee submissions on this, because I think many New Zealanders who love and treasure their environment will want to see that our forests, our wetlands, and our beaches are considered as part of the conversation on infrastructure.

An area where you can see the Green Party’s influence and touch on the legislation is in clause 11, where climate change is explicitly mentioned as both a thing to be cognisant of in terms of mitigation, but also in terms of adaptation. Now, that $42 billion estimated spend over the next three years on infrastructure in New Zealand—we can choose to do that smartly, to make sure we’re saving taxpayers down the line from the risks of climate change.

We’re seeing the impacts of climate change already in New Zealand in terms of infrastructure. I think of my home region of Wellington where almost 50 percent of Greater Wellington Regional Council’s expenditure in recent years is on flood wall protections. Now, this is directly as a result of rising sea levels and the impacts we’re seeing in terms of the water space. It’s happening in other regions, such as the Kapiti Coast. It’s happening in Otago, where sea walls are being eaten into. When we’re spending literally tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on infrastructure, we need to make sure we’re spending it wisely and protecting that investment into the future as seas rise and as weather patterns change.

As we hear from the New Zealand Climate Change Adaptation Technical Working Group head, she says, “Typically, we hold the line, we build back a bit response, and that won’t pass muster anymore.” We will be forced to fund the transition, the way we make decisions, how we do business, and where to locate ourselves, so it’s critically important that these are the big issues that will be considered by the commission in their planning and strategy. We’re seeing the impacts of climate change today, and it’s only going to worsen as time progresses. So we need to spend our money wisely to make sure that if we are investing in infrastructure for a richer New Zealand, we’re doing it for future generations in this land that we treasure and love. Kia ora koutou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s much in this New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill that National does support. I think that the framework that the commission is proposing is something whose time has come. Previous members around the House have been pointing the finger at who did what and who didn’t and what damage they might have done. Well, that’s all fine, but I think that this infrastructure commission is really a reflection of the thinking of successive Governments around the provision of infrastructure for New Zealand.

I think what I can support and what we can support in this proposed shape of the infrastructure commission—and it’s not spoken of in the bill or the commentary, but I’m sure that the select committee will explore this—is the ability that this provides, potentially, to get ahead of the issues. The previous speaker, Gareth Hughes, did mention climate change mitigation, and that is very important and increasingly emerging as an issue that the Government and the Parliament need to consider in infrastructure going ahead 30, 50, 100 years and beyond.

Now is the time where this Government and Parliament appreciates and understands that we need to evaluate all of those challenges, whether it’s climate change, whether it is methods of investment. We favoured, in our proposal, public-private partnerships. That is not a philosophy that is necessarily shared by this particular Government, but I believe our input into the select committee process on that will be interesting in exploring what that might look like in terms of getting ahead of that challenge—getting ahead of the wave—so that we are not always building and contemplating infrastructure in a reactive sense, because when it is reactive, which it is now, with that comes priorities and funding challenges.

We have got an opportunity—and we, the biggest Opposition party and the biggest party in this Parliament, will proactively work with the Government on this bill. We won’t agree on everything, and those issues will be teased out in select committee. But in this reading we do support this bill.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to rise in support of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. Can I say from the outset that this is a bill after my own heart. It’s a bill that’s not only strategic but smart. It’s got a way of unifying the political divide, from what I’ve heard in the House today, because no one’s going to argue that long-term investment into infrastructural development in the infrastructural market of New Zealand that expands out to 30 years to help guide Government to where we put the $42 billion in the next three or four years—I believe is the right thing to do.

So we’ve had this bill presented by the honourable Minister Shane Jones—the prince, the champion of the provinces—and I can attest that in places like the Tai Rāwhiti, like Wairoa, like Hawke’s Bay, he walks on water. He walks on water. Of all of the things that could bring productivity in places like Tai Rāwhiti, it is the work of the honourable Minister that local government and iwi and other service providers talk about.

But back to the bill, because it’s important that we talk about the attempt or the aims of the bill. It’s been traversed by previous speakers, but clearly, having an arm’s-length commission that advises the Government both in the areas of strategy and planning functions but also in the support functions as well is something that needs to be commended.

Like other previous speakers, I come from small communities and towns on the East Coast where water, roading, housing—but also, on the positive side, they are trying to grow the local economy, trying to maximise getting our produce to markets through roads that don’t close down every winter because they get washed out; to explore other transport systems because once the roads close down, we can’t get our produce to market. So a commission like that that can influence and help provide advice to the Government is something that we need to support and commend, and, like I say, I’m excited about that.

The Minister, in his press release, talked about the infrastructural commission obviously working with the second-largest asset holder, which is local government. I want to put a plug in there for the Māori economy. I want to put a plug in there that as the Māori economy grows to about $50 billion, as we morph into post-settlement entities—and this isn’t just about settled iwis; these are land incorporations, large whānau trusts that are operating as we speak, small businesses, for example. As they develop and evolve over a certain time, what you will start seeing, in my analysis, is a purchase into local utilities—whether it’s ports or whether it’s the provision of electricity power, for example. So if there was a potential area that we could expand who this commission will be working alongside, I’d just like to put a holding pattern in there for our iwi authorities around the motu. I mean, it would be silly that if we are working down in the South Island, we aren’t, obviously, considering Ngāi Tahu, similarly with Tainui in the middle of the North Island, but also factoring in other iwi organisations like Ngāti Whātua, etc.

It is a commitment that we want to invest in our local communities. We see the benefits that it derives not just from an iwi perspective but for everybody that comes from those particular communities—that we do have safe roads, that we are exploring wider transport systems that can allow both the transport of people and goods to market, but also ensuring that we’ve got the housing infrastructure to meet the growing demands and the growing population in those communities. It’s also ensuring that we’ve got good, safe drinking-water.

It is a really good bill. I’m excited that it’s been brought to the House. I want to commend the Minister for bringing it to the House, and the work of Cabinet and other Ministers that have had a hand in bringing this bill to the House. It’s important that people get the opportunity to submit on it when it goes to the select committee. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill, the National Party does support in terms of setting up an independent infrastructure committee. One of the key issues around the provision of infrastructure, everybody in New Zealand recognises, is that as a growing country and economy, we need to continue to invest in all sorts of basic infrastructure in order to maintain a growing economy. One of the issues that we have is that it costs a lot in New Zealand, per kilometre, to build tunnels or roads or any element of the infrastructure. It’s very expensive in New Zealand.

So one of the useful things that any Government can do is to try and develop a pipeline of work going out 20, 30 years so that international deliverers of this kind of infrastructure work—contractors—can come to New Zealand and compete, so that we can have a wide range of world-class producers of good quality infrastructure here in New Zealand, competing over an extended period. Otherwise, if we sort of go one and then turn off for five years and do another and turn off for five years, we struggle to attract that real international competition, and things are much more expensive.

So that was the thinking behind the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, which the previous Government put together for the first time, getting agreement between the Auckland Council and the Government about what the priority projects were in transport so that you had a pipeline and so that international contractors could come in. The problem was, of course, that no sooner had we got that all together than there was a change of Government. Phil Twyford comes along and changes all the priorities—throws out the East-West Link, turns off a whole bunch of things, and turns on a light rail. So that makes us a little bit nervous about this, because they haven’t demonstrated goodwill in terms of maintaining that integrity of a pipeline of work over an extended period of time which people can have comfort about.

Our hope is that this independent commission can bring a little bit more sensibleness to the discussion so that we can look far out into the future and have general agreement about a number of things that need to be done over an extended period, so that we have that pipeline, and so that we can get more efficiency into the provision of infrastructure in New Zealand. We can only spend each dollar once, and if we can get much more out of every dollar that we spend by having a good competitive environment, that would make a difference.

So we’re very much up for the discussion. We support the proposal. We’re looking forward to having a robust debate through the course of the select committee so that we can come up with a system that works well, but, ultimately, its success depends on the discipline of future Governments. If decisions around infrastructure are made on a highly ideological basis, then it becomes difficult to have that unity across the House. So that’s where my plea would be to this Government: to be focused on robust economic analysis of the outcomes of the investment that we’re seeing in infrastructure. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to talk on the first reading of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. It’s exciting. When I first saw this, I thought “about time.” So I want to congratulate Minister Shane Jones, the first citizen of the provinces, for finally getting it on the road, literally. This is a really important bill in terms of getting an entity under way to provide independent and expert advice on infrastructure.

In his speech, he talked about what was wrong, and it was quite simple: there is no long-term plan. There are lots and lots of ideas and lots and lots of little plans, but no one cohesive plan for Aotearoa New Zealand in terms of the infrastructure that a whole range of entities are building. That’s short-sighted, that’s costing millions, but more importantly that’s costing lives. I believe this bill will address that.

He also mentioned four problem areas, and some of those I just want to talk about further in a tad of detail, and that is the fact that we’ll see some integrated investment decisions—that’s really important. Every speaker has talked about a pipeline. My colleague Meka Whaitiri talked about integrating that local and central government procurement capability. I think that’s important. That word “capability” is important because I know many in local government, whilst big on ideas, lack the capability to deliver.

This bill sets out the functions of the commission in two main areas, the first being strategy and planning—that’s important. What I foresee is that they will bring together all those entities who are beavering away with their plans, looking at individual plans for different types of infrastructure, bring it together, and get an agreed vision for the future. It will form a road map, then we get the pipeline, and things will get under way pretty quick.

The second thing, which hasn’t really been talked about, is sort of a one-stop shop of experts. That’s really important, and I mention those in local government, those smaller government entities that don’t have the capability. They will now have the independent expert advice there in this commission to be able to deliver those projects, and that’s really important because the ideas are big but the delivery is left wanting. This is the commission that’s going to bring those bits together.

I want to talk about a case study, because one of the things that excited me was when Minister Jones talked about the Ministry of Works. For those of you who know—and I know our chief whip Ruth Dyson knows this—when you go to the Chatham Islands, there’s Highet Place there. I’m not going to talk about Allan Highet, who was responsible for pushing the button on Think Big. The one thing that that road sign tells me is that there are a whole lot of former houses there, built by the ministry, for Government workers. It’s a symbol, to me, of, really, what went wrong when the Ministry of Works leased somewhere like the Chatham Islands.

If you’ll bear with me, we were proud to open the $56 million wharf down there. I was recently reading a contractors’ magazine and it sort of summed up why we need this commission. It said, for example, we had to establish the quarry, which required excavating up to six metres of over-burden, build a road from the quarry to the port, set up a concrete batching plant, and construct a yard to produce 3,000 concrete blocks for the breakwater. Ladies and gentlemen, can I tell you that that’s a huge, huge project, but because of the way that we currently do our procurement, that’s all gone. There’s no quarry, there’s no more road, and there’s no more concrete batching plant, because they’re doing it project by project.

Meanwhile on the island, there’s a huge list of infrastructure projects that need doing. Let’s start: the airport extension. That too needs concrete—that’ll need a quarry. Let’s continue: communication. There’s no cellular network. Where in New Zealand, apart from some of those small rural outposts, is there now no cellular network? The broadband is a bit shonky at that, too. Basic infrastructure for telecom is left wanting, costing the economy millions and billions of dollars. For those of you who do get down there, you will see two windmills on their sides, literally. I mean, it’s a sight unseen unless you’ve been there. Again, it’s energy infrastructure that could run that island purely by wind, but instead there’s not been the foresight or the funding put there to get those windmills back up.

I don’t even need to mention housing. I don’t even need to mention schools, let alone a small wee wharf up there in Kāingaroa for the fisher people—those who catch fish. How about that? But what there is is a case study right here, just off the mainland—800 kilometres out there in the water, between Wellington and Christchurch—that is an example of why this commission is needed. What you have is a community suffering because we do everything project by project, entity by entity—there’s no vision, there’s no road map, and there’s no pipeline. That’s why I bring it back to Highet Place, because that was named after the then Minister of Works. Those houses were built for Government workers to deliver Government infrastructure.

In 2019, we face a frightening reality of a whole bunch of projects that need to go through individual assessments, conflicts of interest, probity—you name it. It’s just more unnecessary work. I believe that if you have one commission, a one-stop shop—and I like using that term—that gives, I guess, a refuge for those seeking not only a listening ear, a sympathetic one at that, but also the capability, because that council on the Chatham Islands is small. It’s tiny. It has an enterprise trust, but it doesn’t have capability. So having this commission, I believe, would get the 600-plus people into mainland reality, but not only that; it would leverage that economic benefit, which is in the billions. I know that the Minister is keen to get down there and keen to assess those Provincial Growth Fund applications. My concern is that that process will happen, they will get the nod—my nervousness remains in the capability of service delivery, and that’s why this commission will be up and running and providing them with that capability that they desperately seek.

I’m glad the Opposition is on board. The first citizen of Epsom is very keen to be part of this.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Prince of the provinces.

Oh, sorry. I was referring to the first citizen of Epsom, who wants to be the first citizen of the provinces.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think there is a basic rule that members are supposed to refer to other members by their names and not epithets such as that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Yes, the member is absolutely correct. Actually, a general encouragement to all members: there has been, over the last few days, quite a bit of nicknames and not full names. The member should use the correct name and with the honorific.

Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker. I withdraw and apologise to the member for Epsom. How about that? There we are. Oh, sorry, the list—look, I forget. The good member from somewhere in Auckland! Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Does that work? We’re getting there.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Haere tonu.

I don’t want to say anything more, because we’re coming up to dinner time, and I know that that’s important for some of the members in this House, particularly on my right-hand side. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Look, it’s an absolute privilege to make a contribution after that fantastic performance from Mr Eagle. Now, look, just on this establishment of an infrastructure commission, broadly I think this is a great concept. We’ve seen a lot of change over the last couple of years in terms of the direction of some of the infrastructure projects with the change of Government. What we need more broadly is greater consistency and greater certainty to allow and facilitate that investment in our infrastructure projects. Ones of particular importance and priority for me are around roads, around broadband, and around schools.

In the Waikato, we’ve been very fortunate recipients of investment in infrastructure over a period of time now, through the last Government—in particular, roads of national significance and the Waikato Expressway, a very important project linking Auckland down into the greater Waikato region. That in part came about because of the foresight of local MPs along with local territorial authorities some years ago, getting in behind and having a bit of a strategy, a talk-through of development, and some vision around what progress in infrastructure might look like in that region.

Now, that’s the sort of longer-term view we need to be taking with a number of these particular projects, because the risk is, obviously, with a change in Government you can see fantastic projects such as roads of national significance turfed out for some other projects. Whilst those priorities can be debated, of course, the reality is that it creates uncertainty, and what we really need to be delivering in infrastructure is longer-term certainty in those areas. Again, in the Waikato, we have significant growth happening at the northern end, near the Bombays, and that’s an area where we really need to see some concerted effort around crystallising a longer-term plan for investment in infrastructure.

Broadband is another key one that we’ve benefited from in the Waikato, but also we’ve seen some massive progress around the country in that space for a number of years now. It has really benefited our potential, our capacity, and our economic growth as well when businesses can be located in a fantastic region like the Waikato, and not necessarily in Auckland, but still have the ability to connect into their customer networks through good roading access but also good internet connectivity. These are really important aspects that need to be considered at a longer-term view.

With that in mind, those are just a few of the aspects of pertinence in my area. We’ve already heard a number of other considerations canvassed around attracting overseas investment, or the potential to do that through this commission. So I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill. It strikes me what a good, common-sense bill this is to bring together so many aspects that are so important to New Zealanders’ well-being under one area, and that’s been needed for quite some time in this country.

This bill really looks at the ability to look at what good infrastructure is and how that’s connected to each other, but before I go on any further, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Shane Jones and the excellent work that he has done for the regions of New Zealand in not only being able to deliver to areas that have been long neglected in their own economic development but also having the foresight to consider how these areas are interconnected. It is a holistic approach that ensures that we have all of these elements of infrastructure working effectively at the same time. That will really empower those people out in the regions. So I would like to just acknowledge the good work that has gone on in that space.

I would also like to acknowledge those on the other side of the House for the fact that they have the foresight and vision to support such an excellent piece of legislation. I think it goes to show that this is indeed a visionary piece of legislation that will do New Zealanders good stead in the many years to come.

I think it’s important to look at what the problem has been in terms of infrastructure development. To talk about what good infrastructure is, we almost need to have a think about what bad infrastructure is. My mind reverts straight away to examples of parts of the Pacific, or even in Africa, where you have colonisation that builds a road straight from the resource to the port, without considering the ongoing development and the communities and the people that reside in between those two points. So what we’re wanting to see is an ability for communities to be connected and supported and to be able to flourish and have the best possible well-being that they can, to not just do the basics of getting resources from A to B but take into account all the other aspects of health and well-being. Having this ability to connect and have oversight over those things is really what the commission that this bill sets up to establish will be able to do for New Zealand.

The commission will ensure that future Governments are supported to deliver quality infrastructure to New Zealanders and that they are held to account for how infrastructure is planned, coordinated, and delivered. Let me just pause to say how important that “coordinated” is, because in many areas—and I’m sure there are MPs in the House today who, in their own areas, have seen one project that has been kicked off without consideration to how it interlinks with another project that may be on a different time frame or that may be under the management of another agency or local government, and there’s an inability for those voices to be united around the table. So having a commission that can have oversight in these areas provides a very real way to look at how we can deal with those ongoing issues.

Some of the key problems that have been experienced in the past have included a lack of integrated investment decisions with and across central government and local government, and we have seen that time and time again. There’s also been a lack of ability to see the visibility, the pipeline, and the scale to make sure the timing of such big projects are interlinked well together. Our overriding focus has just been on building new assets, rather than on the outcomes we’re trying to achieve and our ability to deliver on them. Central government and local government procurement has often been lacking and has not been coordinated enough, so this bill enables that by dealing with these issues, we put in our capability to ensure the well-being of New Zealanders is not at risk.

So I’m incredibly proud to see this work coming together. It’s an ability to have a holistic oversight of how development can empower communities, and to make sure we’re maximizing the benefits of what investment Government is putting into key infrastructure projects. It’s important to note too that this commission is not going to be overpowering. It still enables Ministers or departments that invest in and maintain infrastructure will see no change to their existing decision-making powers or accountability. This new commission will be enabled to just be a strong coordinator and facilitator to make sure that there is an oversight of different projects that will be happening simultaneously, potentially, and even in different areas. So its focus is adding an overarching strategic perspective that does not currently exist, and its impact will derive from its ability to gain credibility across all infrastructure owners—whether that be the market—and also to have influence with those decision makers that are so important.

In saying that, there are so many stakeholders in some of these large-scale infrastructure development projects, and it can be incredibly difficult to ensure that the range of stakeholders and their interests and their competing views are all taken into account. These are, quite simply, some of the reasons why those large-scale projects can go over time or over budget, because there is not an oversight in that area.

So, just to summarise, the commission’s main functions will be to coordinate, to develop, and to promote an approach to infrastructure that encourages infrastructure and the services that result. That will, in the long term, really enable the well-being of New Zealanders to be maximised, and that is a good thing.

The establishment of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga is quite, quite clearly a concrete step to hold this Government and future Governments to account for how we plan, how we coordinate, and how we deliver infrastructure. I’m proud to see such foresight, such vision, and I’m pleased to see strong support from both sides of the House. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

on behalf of the Minister for Infrastructure: I move, That the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga Bill be reported to the House by 26 August 2019.

Motion agreed to.