We can have better infrastructure

The National Infrastructure Plan is ambitious about the future of New Zealand’s infrastructure. The challenges we face may seem daunting, but for every problem, there is a solution. Our needs sometimes seem like they will outstrip the money that’s available. But to paraphrase the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, when we don’t have money, we have to think.

It's time to come together and get on with it. It’s time to start fixing up our essential infrastructure assets, rather than seeing them breaking under our feet because we didn't set aside money for maintenance. It’s time to invest in infrastructure that will lift our productivity and cut our carbon emissions. It’s time to do new projects right, rather than dreaming big and seeing them constantly delayed, rescoped, or cancelled because they're too big for us to afford. It’s time to set out a path that will keep our skilled workers employed here in New Zealand. And it’s time to move forward together, so we can all have better infrastructure in the decades to come.

Change will not be easy. It will require courage, collaboration and a shared determination to think and act differently. The alternative – sticking with the status quo – is to accept a future where we fail to deliver the infrastructure services New Zealanders need and expect.

Recommendations

Planning what we can afford

1. Needs-based capital allowances: Ensure fiscal strategy and capital allowances are informed by the Commission’s independent assessment of long-term needs and agencies' infrastructure asset management and investment plans.

2. Land transport funding and oversight: Reform the land transport funding and investment oversight system to ensure financial sustainability and enhance economic and social outcomes by aligning investment expectations with available revenue and strengthening efficiency and accountability in delivery.

Looking after what we’ve got

3. Long-term investment planning: Introduce legislative requirements for capital-intensive central government agencies to prepare and publish long-term investment and asset management plans aligned with the Government’s fiscal strategy.

4. Predictable Government funding signals: Extend the horizon over which Governments plan their infrastructure funding intentions and communicate these intentions to agencies and the public.

5. Multi-year budgeting: Adopt multi-year budgeting arrangements that leverage and reinforce high-quality infrastructure planning, delivery and asset management practices.

6. Asset management performance reporting: Require, through legislation, capital-intensive central government agencies to report on asset information and asset management performance, including progress against their investment and asset management plans.

Prioritising the right projects

7. System-wide assurance: Establish a consolidated assurance function that provides Ministers with a system-wide view of infrastructure planning, delivery, and asset management performance and risk.

8. Asset management assurance: Establish an assurance function for capital-intensive central government agencies covering asset management and investment planning activities.

9. Investment readiness assurance: Strengthen investment assurance by applying a transparent, independent readiness assessment to major government-funded investment proposals.

10. Project information coordination: Require all infrastructure providers to maintain up-to-date data in the National Infrastructure Pipeline and strengthen arrangements for improving data quality over time.

Making it easier to build better

11. Stable resource management framework: Commit to maintaining a stable legislative framework for resource management that enables infrastructure development while managing environmental impacts.

12. Integrated spatial planning: Ensure spatial planning within the resource management system aligns infrastructure investment with land-use planning and regulation.

13. Optimised infrastructure use: Set land-use policies to enable maximum efficient use of existing and new infrastructure.

14. Accelerated electricity investment: Establish clear, consistent, and coordinated Government policies to accelerate electricity infrastructure investment that supports economic growth and emissions reduction.

15. Coordinated workforce development: Align workforce development planning and policy with infrastructure investment and asset management plans and the Commission’s independent view of long-term needs.

16. Public sector project leadership: Strengthen public sector project leadership through a consistent, system-wide approach to appointing, developing, and supporting infrastructure leaders.