Latest news with #GeoffCooper
CNA
9 hours ago
- Business
- CNA
New Zealand draft infrastructure plan outlines need for more hospitals, electricity
WELLINGTON: New Zealand on Wednesday (Jun 25) released a draft 30-year national infrastructure plan, which highlighted a need for the country to invest more in hospitals and electricity production and to prepare to spend more on responding to national disasters. The plan aims to improve infrastructure preparations and introduce a less politically driven approach to infrastructure investment, which critics say has been impacted by electoral cycles with the stop-start results being costly for large projects. 'We want the National Infrastructure Plan to help build common ground about our areas of need and what is affordable for Kiwis, giving the Government of the day guidance for making decisions about infrastructure,' said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. The draft plan said the country needed to establish affordable and sustainable funding, make it easier to build new infrastructure, prioritise maintaining current infrastructure and assess the readiness of projects before they are funded. While New Zealand was in the top 10 per cent of the OECD in its infrastructure spend as a percentage of gross domestic product, it was not getting the returns it should, it added. To meet demand, annual capital investment would need to increase from around NZ$20 billion (US$12 billion) today to slightly more than NZ$30 billion by the 2050s, according to the plan. The New Zealand government has outlined plans to boost the infrastructure build in the country, and earlier this year hosted an infrastructure investment summit to promote foreign investment in the country's infrastructure. 'The Government is determined to improve New Zealand's infrastructure system and to work alongside the industry and other political parties to establish a broad consensus about what needs to change,' said Chris Bishop, Minister for Infrastructure.
The Star
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
New Zealand draft infrastructure plan outlines need for more hospitals, electricity
FILE PHOTO: The view of the entrance to the hospital in Whakatane, New Zealand, December 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/File Photo WELLINGTON (Reuters) -New Zealand on Wednesday released a draft 30-year national infrastructure plan, which highlighted a need for the country to invest more in hospitals and electricity production and to prepare to spend more on responding to national disasters. The plan aims to improve infrastructure preparations and introduce a less politically driven approach to infrastructure investment, which critics say has been impacted by electoral cycles with the stop-start results being costly for large projects. 'We want the National Infrastructure Plan to help build common ground about our areas of need and what is affordable for Kiwis, giving the Government of the day guidance for making decisions about infrastructure,' said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. The draft plan said the country needed to establish affordable and sustainable funding, make it easier to build new infrastructure, prioritise maintaining current infrastructure and assess the readiness of projects before they are funded. While New Zealand was in the top 10% of the OECD in its infrastructure spend as a percentage of gross domestic product, it was not getting the returns it should, it added. To meet demand, annual capital investment would need to increase from around NZ$20 billion ($12 billion) today to slightly more than NZ$30 billion by the 2050s, according to the plan. The New Zealand government has outlined plans to boost the infrastructure build in the country, and earlier this year hosted an infrastructure investment summit to promote foreign investment in the country's infrastructure. 'The Government is determined to improve New Zealand's infrastructure system and to work alongside the industry and other political parties to establish a broad consensus about what needs to change,' said Chris Bishop, Minister for Infrastructure. The finalised plan is expected to be released at the end of the year and will be discussed by parliament in early 2026. ($1 = 1.6565 New Zealand dollars) (Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
New Zealand draft infrastructure plan outlines need for more hospitals, electricity
WELLINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - New Zealand on Wednesday released a draft 30-year national infrastructure plan, which highlighted a need for the country to invest more in hospitals and electricity production and to prepare to spend more on responding to national disasters. The plan aims to improve infrastructure preparations and introduce a less politically driven approach to infrastructure investment, which critics say has been impacted by electoral cycles with the stop-start results being costly for large projects. 'We want the National Infrastructure Plan to help build common ground about our areas of need and what is affordable for Kiwis, giving the Government of the day guidance for making decisions about infrastructure,' said Geoff Cooper, chief executive of the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission. The draft plan said the country needed to establish affordable and sustainable funding, make it easier to build new infrastructure, prioritise maintaining current infrastructure and assess the readiness of projects before they are funded. While New Zealand was in the top 10% of the OECD in its infrastructure spend as a percentage of gross domestic product, it was not getting the returns it should, it added. To meet demand, annual capital investment would need to increase from around NZ$20 billion ($12 billion) today to slightly more than NZ$30 billion by the 2050s, according to the plan. The New Zealand government has outlined plans to boost the infrastructure build in the country, and earlier this year hosted an infrastructure investment summit to promote foreign investment in the country's infrastructure. 'The Government is determined to improve New Zealand's infrastructure system and to work alongside the industry and other political parties to establish a broad consensus about what needs to change,' said Chris Bishop, Minister for Infrastructure. The finalised plan is expected to be released at the end of the year and will be discussed by parliament in early 2026. ($1 = 1.6565 New Zealand dollars)
Scoop
15 hours ago
- Business
- Scoop
Speech At 2025 Looking Ahead Infrastructure Symposium: Building Common Ground
Minister for Infrastructure Opening Good morning. It's great to be here today for the release of the draft National Infrastructure Plan – or the NIP. I'd like to thank Raveen Jaduram, Geoff Cooper, and the entire team at the Infrastructure Commission for hosting this Symposium and for their hard work on putting the NIP together. I'd also like to welcome you all to Parliament. Improving how we plan, fund, maintain and build our infrastructure is critical to lifting productivity, boosting economic growth, and increasing peoples' living standards. The government has made infrastructure a top priority. So, I welcome today's draft report by the independent Infrastructure Commission. We need a Plan, and action As Minister for Infrastructure, I hear regularly that – 'what New Zealand needs is a long-term infrastructure plan that transcends political cycles'. I agree – a plan will give the private sector more certainty so that they can invest in people and equipment. It will also help New Zealanders build consensus on what our future infrastructure system should look like. But a plan is only as good as it's execution. So, the NIP will only be successful if it is – at least in part – accepted and adopted across successive governments over the long term. As I'm sure most of you know, this isn't our first plan; we have been here before. New Zealand had infrastructure plans in 2010, 2011, and 2015. Some recommendations in these older plans are identical to those put forward in this Plan – over a decade later. I'm thinking of things like agencies completing 10-year capital plans and making better use of pricing tools. What differentiates this Plan is that it has been developed independently by the Infrastructure Commission – separate from the Government of the day. The NIP is not this Government's Plan, it is New Zealand's Plan. That is why each political party represented in Parliament was offered a briefing on the NIP last year. And I would like to thank the opposition spokespeople for infrastructure for being here today. Building greater consensus on infrastructure is, unfortunately, not as simple as different political parties getting in a room and convincing each other of the other's view. That's not realistic. Instead, consensus will be enabled by strong system and institutions, robust investment frameworks, high-quality evidence of our infrastructure needs, and advocacy for projects and policies from a better-informed public. That's what this Plan is about – independent experts advising New Zealand on the current state of infrastructure, what we need in the future, and the projects and policy reforms that will bridge this gap in the most effective and value for money way. People often say we need a bipartisan infrastructure pipeline, as if that will solve all problems. We do have a robust infrastructure pipeline. The Commission has been running it for over five years, and it's been progressively improved over that time. The Pipeline includes over 8,000 initiatives underway and in planning from 114 contributing organisations. It represents over $200 billion in investment value – with over $110 billion of the Pipeline having a funding source confirmed. I can't claim to speak for all the parties in Parliament, but I suspect that almost all of the projects underway right now are supported by everyone. It's the high profile and high-cost disagreements that make the headlines. But it's the low profile and often low-cost projects that actually make New Zealand. A lot of people don't know we have a pipeline. It's actually really cool – you can go online and search projects by region, timeline, project status, project value, provider, procurement type, and much more. The Commission is strengthening the Pipeline by aiming to cover all infrastructure providers. There are 14 laggard councils who aren't contributing, and I'll be writing to them to get them on board. Having visibility over everything that's happening, and going to happen, is very important. But I reckon we need to move away from the rhetoric of needing a bipartisan pipeline and instead build bipartisan consensus on the idea that governments of all flavours should use best-practice to plan, select, fund and finance, deliver, and look after infrastructure. That's not the case at the moment. We need change It is quite clear that our infrastructure system needs to change. It's one of my biggest takeaways from our first 18 months in government. I've been shocked at the near systemic neglect of the underlying institutional settings and policy frameworks. Contrary to many perceptions, New Zealand spends a lot on infrastructure. We are in the top 10 per cent of the OECD for infrastructure investment over the last decade – but in the bottom 10 per cent when it comes to getting quality and 'bang for buck' from our spending. The cause of our problem is not isolated – it is spread across every stage of a project's life, across different players in the system, and is perpetuated by decades of poor practice across successive governments. Over the last few years, New Zealanders have seen and felt the consequences of poor practice including: assets that are wearing out and failing, project cost blowouts, poor value for money investments, and a growing infrastructure deficit. If we keep doing things the way we are now, we won't be able to deal with 'business as usual', let alone get a grip on the challenges we are facing like: a significant backlog of maintenance and renewal activity, population change, natural hazards, and global inflation. To put this in perspective – over the next 30 years, every year, central government's existing infrastructure assets is expected to wear out by $9.3 billion. To keep up with this and other challenges, as the Commission says, we need to 'lift our game'. Taking action Over the last 18 months I've been focused on six priorities as Infrastructure Minister: Developing a 30-year National Infrastructure Plan, Establishing National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Ltd (NIFFCo), Improving infrastructure funding and financing Improving the consenting framework Improving education and health infrastructure, and Strengthening asset management. I didn't pick these priorities randomly. They reflect findings and recommendations from the Infrastructure Commission's Infrastructure Strategy, developed in 2022, and are also based on a big programme of work we undertook in opposition engaging with experts from here and overseas. I am really pleased to see that many of the recommendations of the draft NIP reflect these priorities. This indicates that as a government we're heading in the right direction. I want to mention a few in particular as they pick up on a few themes coming through in the draft NIP. Improving infrastructure funding and financing Let's start with improving infrastructure funding and financing. Public infrastructure in New Zealand has historically been primarily funded by taxpayers or ratepayers. But our reliance on this blunt approach is not serving us well and has led to perverse outcomes including congestion, run-down assets, and the unresponsive provision of enabling infrastructure – contributing to unaffordable housing. Last year, we released a suite of new and improved frameworks and guidance including: Treasury's new Funding and Financing framework, The Government's refreshed PPP policy, Strategic Leasing Guidance, and Guideline for Market Led Proposals. The purpose of these documents is to help the Government use its balance sheet more strategically, apply good commercial disciplines to investment, and be a more sophisticated client of infrastructure. This year, I have focused on establishing new funding and financing tools. In February, I announced five specific changes to New Zealand's funding and financing toolkit to make it easier for councils and central government to provide infrastructure to support urban growth. I won't cover these in detail today, but the key takeaway is that we are moving to a system and to tools where councils can fully recover the costs of housing growth, and where infrastructure providers can recover costs of significant and city-shaping projects. I am happy to see the draft National Infrastructure Plan make recommendations that align with our Government's direction on funding and financing – such as making better use of pricing, user charging, and beneficiary pays. Improving the consenting framework Secondly, our consenting environment. As successive reports from the Commission have noted, our consenting system for infrastructure is broken. It takes too long and costs way too much. We are on track to replace the RMA with new legislation next year. Our new system will be effects based, embrace standardisation, and be far more permissive and enabling – while also protecting the environment. We also aren't willing to wait for a growth-enabling planning system, so in the meantime, last year we introduced the Fast Track Approvals Act. It's underway now. We're consulting right now on a big programme of National Direction changes under the RMA, including developing a National Policy Statement on Infrastructure. It's baffling that we haven't had one. We are also progressing our second RMA amendment Bill, which will pass into law in a matter of weeks. This Bill is a precursor to full replacement of the RMA and will make it quicker and simpler to consent renewable energy and boost housing supply. Strengthening asset management Lastly, before we move onto the draft Plan – I want to talk about my strengthening asset management. Asset management may not be the sexiest aspect of the infrastructure system – as it has to compete with new, big, and exciting projects – but everyone knows, if you don't paint the weatherboards on your house, the wood will rot. And billion-dollar infrastructure is fundamentally no different. Last year, I was shocked and quite frankly embarrassed to hear that New Zealand ranks fourth to last in the OECD for asset management, and dead last for the metric on Accountability and Professionalism. But this is not surprising when you look at the performance of our central government investment system. Over half of all capital-intensive government agencies do not have robust, comprehensive asset registers or asset management plans in place. Maintenance spending is also regularly diverted to building new infrastructure, resulting in costly catch-up spending later. Years of poor asset management has led to leaky hospitals and schools, mould in police stations and courthouses, service outages on commuter rail, and poor accommodation for Defence Force personnel and their families. This is not good enough. In May this year, Cabinet agreed to a comprehensive work programme that will improve asset management practice across central government. The aim of this work is to provide safer, longer lasting and more reliable and resilient infrastructure services; and to achieve better value for money by making the most of what we have. This work programme will take place across two phases and will be led by Treasury and the Infrastructure Commission. Phase 1 is about giving agencies better tools to help them succeed. This includes detailed guidance that agencies will need to follow on asset management; long-term planning; and related performance, assurance, and accountability indicators Phase 2 is about driving more fundamental changes to system settings and will actually be informed by the National Infrastructure Plan – particularly Chapters 4, Setting up Infrastructure for Success; and Chapter 5, Driving Excellence from the Core. Draft National Infrastructure Plan So, let's talk about the National Infrastructure Plan. I haven't had a chance to read the document in full as it was released today – but three things instantly stood out to me: The first is the Needs Analysis, or 'Forward Guidance', The second is the Infrastructure Priorities Programme, which InfraCom has put in Chapter 6, and The third is how we can change the Investment Management System to get better infrastructure outcomes. Forward guidance On the Forward Guidance, it was interesting to see how our investment mix will need to change to meet future demand. While total spend on infrastructure will increase, the relative priority between sectors will change overtime. This is due to long-term trends that boost demand for some infrastructure and reduce it for others. For example, an aging population will increase relative demand for healthcare and hospitals; and decrease relative demand for education services and schools. The Commission suggests that over the next 30 years hospitals, social housing, and electricity and gas sectors should all experience a rising share of infrastructure investment. I also found it helpful that the Commission's Forward Guidance outlines a rough indication of how much we should expect to be spending by sector. In my view, forward guidance would be significantly strengthened in future if all agencies had provided the Commission with 10-year capital investment plans and asset management plans. This way, the Commission could provide more detailed and specific guidance on what bundle of projects across all sectors governments should be prioritising. Moving on to the Infrastructure Priorities Programme, or the IPP – which is a structured independent review of unfunded infrastructure proposals. The IPP is just starting out and it will take some time to scale and provide a robust investment menu, but I am glad to see the Commission received 48 submissions for their first round of evaluations. 17 projects were positively endorsed, and three projects have been identified as being 'investment ready' – these are New Zealand Defence Forces' Accommodation, Messing, and Dining Modernisation Project; Defence Forces' Ohakea Base Project; and Hamilton City Council's Ruakura Eastern Transport Corridor. I encourage all government agencies to submit their significant projects and programmes to the IPP. A positive independent review will strengthen your case for investment. Improving the Investment Management System Lastly, there are a number of recommendations in the draft Plan that aim to improve the Government's investment system – which is made up of the rules and processes for how we plan, prioritise, fund and finance, delivered, and looked after investments – including infrastructure. For our Government to boost productivity, reduce the cost of living, and lift peoples' prosperity, we need to get better value for money from our new infrastructure and do a better job at looking after our existing assets. So, I am open to hearing about stronger rules such as legislative requirements for central government agencies and entities to prepare and publish long-term asset management plan, asset registers, and investment plans. I am also open to legislative requirements for performance reporting to keep central government infrastructure entities accountable – like we do for regulated utilities and local government, who both face much stronger regulations and information disclosures requirements compared to central government. We need to stop holding others to a higher standard than we do ourselves. Overall, I am pleased to see the draft Plan makes recommendations that align with existing Government priorities, such as: making better use of user pricing to fund investment, adopting spatial planning, relaxing land-use restrictions, transport system reform, prioritising infrastructure through the resource management system, and drastically improving asset management. The Government will continue to advance these policy priorities, and we will benefit from insights from the Plan. The final National Infrastructure Plan will be given to me by the end of 2025. As the Plan is an independent Strategy report, the Government will provide a formal response to the Plan in 2026. As part of that response, I will be engaging with other political parties in Parliament, and I intend to ask the Business Committee to hold a special Parliamentary debate on the final Plan early next year. Conclusion I'd like to finish by thanking the Infrastructure Commission for its hard work in delivering this draft National Infrastructure Plan. I encourage everyone including agencies, local government, opposition parties, the private sector, the public to have their say on the draft Plan through the consultation process – and I look forward to receiving the final Plan by the end of this year.
Scoop
15 hours ago
- Business
- Scoop
Have Your Say On 30-year Plan For NZ's Infrastructure Investment
The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has revealed its first look at how New Zealand needs to invest to get the roads, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure we will rely on to live and thrive over the next 30 years. The Commission's draft National Infrastructure Plan looks at the infrastructure New Zealand already has and how factors like an ageing population and climate change will drive future demands. It shows what we should be spending and makes recommendations for how we can get better results from this investment. Te Waihanga CE Geoff Cooper says that compared to other high-income countries, New Zealand already spends a greater percentage of GDP on infrastructure but is in the bottom 10 percent for the value we get from that spend. "To ensure New Zealanders are getting the infrastructure services they need, it's critical that we get smarter about how we invest. "A National Infrastructure Plan can help, showing where our infrastructure dollar will have the greatest impact in meeting New Zealand's future needs," says Cooper. We need to be ambitious "Some of our most essential infrastructure has already been built, but we're not always good at looking after it. Overall, we should be spending around 60 percent of our infrastructure investment on looking after what we've already got," says Cooper. The way we invest in new infrastructure will also need to change: We will need more investment in our hospitals. An ageing population means a greater need for hospitals. At the same time, we'll see a relative reduction in demand in the need for new schools and university buildings. We will need to invest more in electricity. To reach net zero by 2050 we need to increase electricity use by over 60 percent, boosting electricity-using industries and replacing fossil fuel use across the economy. We will see changes in how we invest in land transport. Investment in land transport - our roads, public transport, and railways - has increased over the past 20 years. In many parts of the sector, the pace of investment is expected to moderate as the population ages and the relative importance of income growth as a demand driver eases. The cost of responding to natural hazards will rise as we build more infrastructure to higher standards and bring forward renewals following a rising prevalence of extreme weather events. Improving our infrastructure planning "As we have heard from many in the sector, infrastructure policy and investment has experienced a lot of churn in recent electoral cycles. This perceived 'stop-start' approach can be costly for large projects and ongoing investment programmes. "The draft Plan provides recommendations on how we can get a more consistent and affordable approach and clear the way for delivering the infrastructure we need. It also makes recommendations on how we can better prioritise taking care of what we've got and optimise maintenance cycles so that we have more for new infrastructure. These changes can give the sector the certainty it needs to plan ahead, improve productivity, and create the jobs needed to maintain and deliver our infrastructure," Cooper says. Identifying projects that can make a difference The draft Plan shares the results of the first round of the Infrastructure Priorities Programme (IPP). The IPP takes proposals through an independent process to prove they offer bang for buck and meet a critical need. "While endorsed proposals aren't guaranteed funding, they give decision-makers confidence that these proposals have been independently assessed. "Proposals in the IPP were submitted to the Commission by central government, local government and the private sector. "We expect the list to grow as we receive submissions over future rounds," Cooper says. We want to hear from you "We want the National Infrastructure Plan to help build common ground about our areas of need and what is affordable for Kiwis, giving the Government of the day guidance for making decisions about infrastructure. "This is too important not to get right and too big a job to do alone. This is why we're seeking feedback now, while the Plan is still a draft. Tell us what you think and what we've missed." You can read more and have your say on our website ( this page will be updated from 10am Wednesday 25 June): Some key facts Over the last 20 years New Zealand's average spend on infrastructure is 5.8% of GDP. Crown investment as a share of GDP accounts for about 40% of this, or 2.5% of GDP. More recently, between 2010 and 2019, New Zealand spent more per capita than any other OECD country on infrastructure. The quality of our infrastructure lags, relative to what we spend on it. High-level comparisons suggest that New Zealand has among the lowest infrastructure spending 'bang for buck' in the OECD. We estimate that for most sectors, simply renewing and replacing what we have will consume the majority of our investment dollars over the next 30 years. For most sectors, this is 60% of infrastructure investment on average, but can be up to 80% in some sectors like education. After spending on renewals and replacements, we will have between 2% and 3% of GDP left over for new and improved infrastructure each year, or about $10 to $12 billion per year on average. For central government, this is between 0.5% and 1% of GDP. In dollar terms, this is about $3 to $4 billion per year on average across all types of infrastructure central government provides. The draft Plan is underpinned by a number of technical reports that have also been published on our website. The Commission has also released assessment information from round one of the Infrastructure Priorities Programme.
