{"id":220601,"date":"2026-01-07T01:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220601\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T01:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:54:14","slug":"how-to-achieve-political-bipartisanship-on-infrastructure-richard-prebble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/220601\/","title":{"rendered":"How to achieve political bipartisanship on infrastructure \u2013 Richard Prebble"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Labour government responded in two ways. One was work to replace the Resource Management Act. The coalition built on Labour\u2019s work to produce its proposed replacement.<\/p>\n

The other was the creation of the Infrastructure Commission. It may yet prove Labour\u2019s most durable legacy. Its establishment was quietly bipartisan \u2014 and it remains so today.<\/p>\n

Last year the commission released its first draft National Infrastructure Plan<\/a>. Its most important recommendation is also its least glamorous: maintain what we already own and make better use of it.<\/p>\n

New Zealand has leaky hospitals, failing pipes and deteriorating schools because assets are neglected once the ribbon-cutting is over. Every homeowner knows that if gutters are not cleaned, the eventual repair bill can be enormous. So too for central and local government.<\/p>\n

The commission estimates that around 60% of infrastructure investment needs to go to maintaining and renewing existing assets.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has adopted this emphasis on maintenance and launched an all-of-government programme to address long-standing shortcomings.<\/p>\n

While Labour has not endorsed this shift, it has not criticised it.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s draft plan proposes that roads, water, electricity and telecommunications should largely be user-pays, while social infrastructure \u2014 schools, hospitals and courthouses \u2014 should be funded by taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The biggest funding gap is roads<\/a>. Before more fuel-efficient vehicles, roads were almost entirely user-pays. Fuel taxes are now declining. As a driver of a hybrid vehicle, I pay only a fraction of the fuel tax I paid a decade ago.<\/p>\n

The Government has announced it will move to a fairer user-pays model. While seeking details, the Opposition leader has acknowledged that the move is inevitable.<\/p>\n

The legislation enabling congestion charging was supported by all parties.<\/p>\n

This is promising. But no government has been elected pledging to be a better steward. Many politicians have been elected promising new infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The commission recommends that all new projects pass three tests: alignment with national priorities, value for money \u2014 meaning benefits exceed costs over the life of the asset \u2014 and realistic deliverability.<\/p>\n

Again, while Labour has not endorsed this approach, it has not rejected it.<\/p>\n

That may be because \u201cnational priorities\u201d can mean almost anything: net-zero emissions, regional development or more liveable cities.<\/p>\n

The emerging consensus may exist because the commission\u2019s plan is not really a plan but a strategic approach. That makes agreement easier, but also avoids choosing between competing priorities.<\/p>\n

I am sceptical about how helpful the commission\u2019s tests will be in practice. A Green minister may prioritise zero emissions: a New Zealand First minister regional development. Ensuring benefits just outweigh costs stops white elephants but permits low-value projects. <\/p>\n

Cabinet rules require regulations to be justified by cost\u2013benefit analysis, so why are costly infrastructure projects not held to the same standard?<\/p>\n

Cost-benefit analysis cannot capture every social value because it depends on how benefits are priced. When I was Minister of Transport, the National Roads Board\u2019s cost-benefit analysis did not value safety highly enough to justify motorway safety barriers.<\/p>\n

Horrified by head-on motorway crashes from cars crossing into oncoming traffic, when I became Minister of Works, we mandated safety barriers. But we retained cost-benefit analysis to decide which new roads to build. It is not a perfect test, but better than any other.<\/p>\n

A national framework that does not use cost-benefit analysis to rank projects leaves infrastructure decisions to politics, not value.<\/p>\n

Frameworks do not make decisions, ministers do. Too often projects \u2013 light rail schemes or harbour bridge cycleways \u2013 are announced before there is even a business case.<\/p>\n

Here is a better test: use the National Infrastructure Framework to assess the 140 planned projects costing more than $100 million each, then rank them by value using cost\u2013benefit analysis.<\/p>\n

If the parties commit to maintaining what we have, to users funding networks, applying the commission\u2019s tests to new projects and rank projects by cost\/benefit, New Zealand will have taken a decisive step forward. <\/p>\n

But if parties promise infrastructure that meets no test, the emerging consensus will prove an illusion \u2014 and the country will go on wasting billions.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Labour government responded in two ways. One was work to replace the Resource Management Act. The coalition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43699,54058,43700,126512,25189,124,2841,12474,539,132736,59567,538,221,1702,132737,132738,111,43,139,69,90,18154,135,36200,15161,15160,11590,4525,1361,61,22187],"class_list":["post-220601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-achieve","tag-billions","tag-bipartisan","tag-bipartisanship","tag-consensus","tag-could","tag-country","tag-dollars","tag-emerging","tag-flagwaving","tag-happening","tag-hidden","tag-how","tag-infrastructure","tag-marches","tag-namecalling","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-political","tag-politics","tag-potentially","tag-prebble","tag-richard","tag-save","tag-something","tag-that","tag-to","tag-unusual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}