Government, Opposition Scrap Over Common Infrastructure Ground
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has committed to working directly with the Opposition, when putting together the Government's response to the 30-year infrastructure plan due out next week.
He says that co-operation comes on the proviso that infrastructure decisions are always political in nature - and it did not stop the discussion from repeatedly descending into a fingerpointing tit-for-tat over which government was to blame for what.
Labour housing, infrastructure and public investment spokesperson Kieran McAnulty kicked off the scrutiny week select committee hearing on Thursday afternoon, making an effort to "start on a positive note" on how bipartisanship could work for infrastructure policy, suggesting that would provide more certainty to the sector.
"I agree," Bishop said. "That's part of the reason why we campaigned on a 30-year national infrastructure plan being developed in government."
The plan has been developed independently by the Infrastructure Commission since late 2023 and is due to be launched at Parliament next week, with the government required to respond within six months.
Bishop said he planned a Parliamentary debate, so all the political parties' views could be included in that response, but McAnulty wanted more.
"At the moment, frankly, the attitude of some ministers of bipartisanship is, 'We'll work with you, if you agree with us', and I don't think that's good enough," he said, garnering an emphatic "yeah" from Green MP Julie Anne Genter.
Bishop said completely depoliticising infrastructure was not possible, which was to be expected in a democracy.
"You know, if we all agreed, this would be a fairly boring place," he said.
McAnulty agreed with an agreement to disagree.
"We think some of the things you've done are stupid... what I would like to see is a commitment," he said. "There's an opportunity there to work with the other side to actually identify where there is broad agreement and include that in your response."
More than just a debate, he wanted the response to include an explanation of which infrastructure projects the government and opposition parties agreed on.
Bishop: "I'm happy to commit to that now. Just making the obvious point ... we may not always agree.
"For example, you guys have got to figure out where you're at on PPPs, for example, because you've had about nine different positions.
McAnulty: "We know where we're at with that."
Bishop: "You sure?"
McAnulty: "Yes, I am actually... this is one of the things that I'm actually trying to avoid, right, is that we can't help ourselves.
"This is the game we're in. We talk about bipartisanship, but we also take every opportunity to have a crack at each other."
Bishop: "Well, you just said some of the stuff we've done was stupid."
McAnulty: "Exactly my point, we can't help ourselves."
Bishop said parties could agree on a lot, when it came to infrastructure, and "sometimes there's a bit more heat than light in this debate".
McAnulty said he did not think the public would know that.
The minister pressed on, deferring to Infrastructure Commission chief executive Geoff Cooper to explain the projects expected across the country from about 110 organisations, including all but 14 of the country's councils.
The result was a list showing investment worth $206 billion, broken down by region and sector, which Cooper said started to paint a much clearer picture of investment.
"The point is to have... almost a single source of truth for what's in the pipeline," Bishop said.
Committee chair Andy Foster - a former Wellington mayor - said the information should be included in councils' long-term plans and they should be contributing. Bishop had an easy solution.
"Well, if they don't do it, we can just mandate that they do it - but I'd rather not, because that takes time and money," he said. "I'd rather they just do it."
"Enough of those mandates for councils," interjected Labour local government spokesperson Tangi Utikere.
"We make them do all sorts of things for the right reasons and this would be the same thing," Bishop responded.
Clashes over cancellations
While the first half hour was not entirely bonhomie, unicorns and rainbows, the verbal finger pointing was surely on show in the second half of Bishop's appearance.
McAnulty asked if the minister accepted cancelling projects across successive governments had affected sector confidence.
"Depends exactly what you're talking about," Bishop said. "I accept that, after 2017, the radical change in direction of the National Land Transport Plan at the time had a significant impact."
"So you're willing to say that one government cancelled projects that had an effect, but you're not willing to concede that you guys cancelling projects has?" McAnulty responded.
Bishop said it showed the limits of bipartisanship.
"Our view was that they're the wrong projects for the country, he said. "Depends which one, but generally too expensive, not good value for money, in some cases undeliverable.
"It was the right thing to do to say, 'You know what, we're actually just not going to proceed with that'."
Genter said many council projects were also defunded under the coalition and the iReX ferry replacement could have been rescoped, rather than dumped.
Predictably, this kicked off a four-minute cancellation-measuring contest - which government cancelled more projects? Who cancelled more projects that were already contracted?
"You can have an intention to do something, it doesn't mean it will end up happening," Bishop concluded - or seemed to. "The last government lived in fiscal fantasy land."
"Only because your government made a decision to give billions of dollars to landlords," Genter fired back.
Foster was eager to move on, asking Bishop about whether Kāinga Ora had managed to bring social housing build costs down to the same level as private developers - a topic well traversed in the last scrutiny week in December.
The minister did not have the latest numbers, "because this is not the vote Housing and Urban Development estimates", but the agency was making "good progress" and would report back on that publicly.
He and Utikere then argued some more over the roughly $250 million allocated for cancellation of the ferries contract - whether that was part of Bishop's responsibilities - with Bishop saying it belonged to Rail Minister Winston Peters and Utikere saying, when they'd asked Peters, he'd referred it to Bishop.
Utikere: "And the minister doesn't even know ... that's very disappointing."
Bishop: "Yes. So's your behaviour."
Utikere:"No, it's not actually, minister, my behaviour is about scrutinising the executive - that is our responsibility.
"It is disappointing that you don't know the answer to just over a quarter of a billion dollars' worth of taxpayers money that has been set aside in your Budget."
Foster stepped in again, suggesting Bishop's answer was that it was best for his ministerial staff to provide an answer and they did. Treasury deputy secretary Leilani Frew said negotiations for the ferry contract exit were still continuing, as well as wind-down costs.
The discussion soon wound down too - after a series of patsy questions and a discussion about the causes of 15,000 fewer people being employed in construction. Bishop argued it was an expected side-effect of bringing down the official cash rate, which would - in turn - have the biggest effect on reinvigorating the sector,
McAnulty argued housing could be an avenue for stimulating growth.
In the end, the public got a commitment to bipartisanship. Whether it lasts remains to be seen, but investors watching this scrappy select committee may be hesitant to bet the house on it.
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