Kerre Woodham: Infrastructure needs to be beyond party politics

The Government hopes to give a much-needed boost to the building and construction industry with the announcement of $413 million worth of accelerated school infrastructure projects. This follows a raft of school property announcements and the establishment of a new school property agency in July to oversee the planning, building, and maintenance of new school buildings.  

Hopefully, there will be some opposition input into this new agency, some opposition oversight. Because back in 2019, Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins, surrounded by adoring children, announced funding of $1.2 billion over four years for school property – a new primary school, 200 new classrooms in Auckland amongst them. The new buildings would be needed for the estimated 100,000 extra students who will enter the school system over the next 10 years. So far, so good.  

At the time, Ms Ardern said there were too many kids getting taught in cold school halls and prefabs, and our plan, she said, will turn that around. It's important we plan ahead for growth, so parents can be confident they can send their child to their local school, and their local school will have enough warm, dry and modern classrooms to learn in, something the previous government failed to do.  

Then they were voted out in 2023 and in came National, and the next year the Education Ministry put hundreds of projects on hold. Now, why would they do that? Obviously, there are more young people who are going to need classrooms, schools are already overcrowded. There are children being taught in halls and prefabs that are less than ideal.  

Well, they did that because Labour had absolutely no concept of fiscal control. Their idea of building new classrooms was to go to a groovy young architect and say, "Come up with something fabulous," and they did. Groovy young architects have got amazing ideas and visions, and they can help children reach their full potential and development with the kind of environment that they can create with an unlimited chequebook.  

So, in came boring, grumpy old National. Hundreds of projects went on hold and $2 billion was saved, they say. The value for money review considered 352 projects at 305 schools with a combined estimated cost of $4.6 billion. It decided 110 projects would go ahead with changes such as removing non-essential aspects of the build or using off-the-shelf rather than bespoke design.  

If you are going to have an agency that's going to look ahead and plan and build and maintain school buildings, you've all got to be on the same page. Otherwise, what is the point? It makes sense to plan ahead for the future. It makes sense to build new schools where they're needed and to build new classrooms. But not if they're going to be, oh, I don't know, a vision came to me and I just drew something on paper and then it's like, you know, my ancestors are speaking to me and all of a sudden I've got this amazing creation for the cost of a billion dollars.  

If you could have three schools built for the same amount of money, then that's the way you go. We go for bespoke award-winning design buildings when we are an oil-rich nation who just doesn't know what to do with its money. What will we do? Oh, I know. We'll give gorgeous young architects, brilliant young things, the opportunity to use their talents and create amazing public buildings. This is a good thing if you can afford it, and we cannot.  

Do school buildings really need to be architecturally designed and award-winning buildings? I would argue right now they don't. They're beautiful and they're clever, but that level of expense is not necessary.  

It's the same with social housing. We all know Kāinga Ora was given a mandate under the last government to build houses at whatever cost, and away they went. Architecturally designed, beautifully appointed housing communities, which again is all very well and good if you can afford it. But the triumph of ideology over pragmatism saw Kāinga Ora completely blow its budget, leading to debt for generations of taxpayers to pay back. And again, housing projects were stalled while evaluations were made by those with fiscal discipline, who did the sums to see whether Kāinga Ora was giving value for the money spent.  

And again, this was necessary, but in the meantime, the construction industry who'd been working overtime, all of a sudden were told everything that they were working on or intended to be working on was on hold, while boring, sensible people did the sums. They had to down tools, and what do you do if there's no work? You go where the work is. They can't wait. It's a nightmare. Yes, we do need infrastructure built, but surely not award-winning designer infrastructure built at any cost.  

And what was the Infrastructure Commission doing while all this, ‘I have a vision’ stuff was going on? The Infrastructure

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Mornings podcast from news
Talk SETB SO.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
The government hopes to give a much needed boost to
the building and construction industry with the announcement yesterday of
four hundred and thirteen million dollars worth of accelerated school
infrastructure projects. This follows a raft of school property announcements
and the establishment of a new School Property Agency in
July to oversee the planning, building and maintenance of new

(00:35):
school buildings. Hopefully there will be some opposition input into
this new agency, some opposition oversight, because back in twenty nineteen,
Jacindra Adourn and Chris Hipkins, surrounded by adoring children, announced
funding of one point two billion dollars over four years

(00:59):
for school property and new primary school two hundred new
classrooms in Auckland amongst them. The new buildings would be
needed for the estimated one hundred thousand extra students who
will enter the school system over the next ten years.
So far, so good. At the time, Mizadoun said there
were too many kids getting taught in cold school halls
and prefabs, and our plan, she said, will turn that around.

(01:23):
It's important we plan ahead for growth, absolutely, so parents
can be confident they can send their child to their
local school and their local school will have enough warm,
dry and modern classrooms to learn in, something the previous
government failed to do. Then they were voted out in
twenty twenty three and came national and the next year

(01:44):
the Education Ministry put hundreds of projects on hold. Now
why would they do that? Obviously there are more young
people who are going to need classrooms. Schools are already overcrowded.
There are children being taught in halls and prefabs that
are less than ideal. Well, they did that because labor

(02:07):
had absolutely no concept of for school control. Their idea
of building new classrooms was to go to a groovy
young architect and say, come up with something fabulous, and
they did. Groovy young architects have got amazing ideas and
visions and they can they can help children reach their

(02:29):
full potential and development with the kind of environment that
they can create with an unlimited checkbook. So in came boring,
grumpy old National, hundreds of projects went on hold and
two billion dollars was saved. They say the value for

(02:49):
money review considered three hundred and fifty two projects at
three hundred and five schools with a combined estimated cost
of four point six billion dollars. It decided one hundred
and ten projects would go ahead with changes such as
removing nonacy essential aspects of the build or using off

(03:10):
the shelf rather than bespoke design. If you are going
to have an agency that's going to look ahead and
plan and build and maintain school buildings, you've all got
to be on the same page you Otherwise, what is
the point It makes sense to plan ahead for the future.

(03:33):
It makes sense to build new schools where they're needed,
and to build new classrooms, but not if they're going
to be Oh, I don't know. A vision came to
me and I just drew something on paper and then
it's like, you know, my ancestors are speaking to me,
and all of a sudden, I've got this amazing creation
for the cost of a billion dollars. If you could
have three schools built for the same amount of money,

(03:56):
then that's the way you go. We go for bespoke
award winning design buildings when we are an oil rich
nation who just doesn't know what to do with its money.
What will we do? Oh? I know, will give gorgeous
young architects brilliant young things the opportunity to use their
talents and create amazing public buildings. This is a good

(04:20):
thing if you can afford it, and we cannot do.
School buildings really need to be architecturally designed and award
winning buildings, I would argue right now they don't. They're
beautiful and they're clever, but that level of expense is
not necessary. It's the same with social housing. We all
know Caring Order was given a mandate under the last

(04:42):
government to build houses at whatever cost. In a way
they went architecturally designed, beautifully appointed housing communities, which again
is all very well and good if you can afford it.
But the triumph of ideology of a pragmatism saw Caying
Order completely blow its budget, leading to debt for generations
of taxpayers to pay back. And again housing projects stalled

(05:06):
while evaluations were made by those with fiscal discipline who
did the sums to see whether King Order was giving
value for the money spent. And again this was necessary.
But in the meantime, the construction industry had been working
over time, all of a sudden were told everything that
they were working on or intended to be working on,

(05:28):
was on hold. While boring sensible people did the sums.
They had to downtalls. And what do you do if
there's no work? You go where the work is. They
can't wait. It's a nightmare. Yes we do need infrastructure built,

(05:49):
but surely not award winning design or infrastructure built at
any cost. And what was the Infrastructure Commission doing while
all the soul I don't know, I have a vision,
stuff was going on. The Infrastructure Commission Tewahanga was created
in twenty eighteen, so presumably they saw this vision for

(06:14):
caring order. They saw the vision for the schools. I mean,
why weren't they saying, hang on a minute, for that
amount of money, we could get three times the value.
Put the brakes on ty hoe. Let's look ahead for
twenty years down the track and see what we can
get for that money. This is us. It's our money

(06:37):
that's being wasted and wasted and wasted, and it's not
being spent wisely. We need schools, we need hospitals, we
need roads. These are beyond party politics. The leaders of
the parties need to knock their heads together and come
up with a plan to give to us, to say
this is how we'll be spending your money wisely, prudently

(07:03):
and looking ahead to the years to come. The leaders
of the parties need to get together and say to
the construction industry, we can guarantee there will be this
work for the next twenty years because this is what
we need. It's not that hard. This is what we
need for the planned population growth. Here is where we'll

(07:24):
be building it. These are the designs and we've all
got certainty for the next twenty years. How bloody hard
can it be?

Speaker 1 (07:34):
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