Nick Leggett: Infrastructure NZ CEO on the new infrastructure plans and agency

There's optimism from the sector over the prospect of more effective infrastructure development.  

The Infrastructure Minister's launching a National Infrastructure Agency from December to manage funding and proposals and facilitate private investment.  

Infrastructure New Zealand says the current system is complex, time-consuming and expensive.  

Chief Executive Nick Leggett told Ryan Bridge that priorities change from one government to the next, but the system itself needs to be sound and pretty secure. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back home now and we're talking infrastructure. A new Infrastructure
Agency and a National Infrastructure Plan will be established on
the first of December. The agency will serve as the
shop front for PPPs, public private partnerships and any other
private investment in infrastructure. Nic leg gets the Infrastructure New
Zealand Chief Executive. He's with me this morning. Hey, Nick, Hi, right,
good to have you with us this morning. So I

(00:22):
want to know the most important thing here surely is
well two things. One is whether the politicians can agree.
But who's going to run this this new agency and
what will their priority be? Is it climate and emissions
or is it economic development?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, the agency won't be stood up until the first
of December, and it's going to be rolled from an
existing agency called Crown Infrastructure partners which has done a
lot of really good work around the country, sourcing finance
for communities, administering government infrastructure funds and actually getting stuff built.

(01:00):
It does have a good history. But the new National
Infrastructure Agency, which you know will be the name of
the new organization, will do that additional work and that
is be the shop front for private public private partnerships,
which will be back on the agenda and that's important,
not because every project that New Zealand builds will be

(01:24):
a public private partnership, but rather because we just need
that as an additional tool in our toolbox. We can
get benefits from those. I think that we probably we've
got some maturity, We've got to mature the model a
little bit improve them. But the truth is that we've
got some challenges with infrastructure in this country. I think
most krews know that we rank bottom or near the

(01:48):
bottom on the OECD for the value that we get
when we spend a dollar, and which means I think
we're fourth from the bottom. So we just we just
don't extract the value because our system takes too long things,
you know, we stop, start the pipeline and politicians come
in and change stuff and it's important.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So that's the funding. But in terms of the prioritizing
what we need to fund, you know, won't it be
critical how they set this agency up and what its
task is is it is it reducing climate carbon emissions
or is it economic development? You know what's the overriding.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well that that direction will come. I mean the government
obviously you have to give that direction. The government are
very focused on on productivity and economic development. Carbon emissions
will be part of that, the Minister made Reducing carbon
will be part of the Minister made that clear. But
the overall direction will come from the thirty year Infrastructure Plan.

(02:50):
And this is the problem. I mean, it's you know,
heaving five minutes with you talking about it is really important,
but there's there's a lot going on here. And what
we're saying about this the system that builds our infrastructure
is the thing to get right and it's the thing
that we shouldn't have the tooling and throwing over between
you know, a change of government. What we need to

(03:11):
do is you know, the priorities might change between one
government to the next, but the system needs to be
sound and pretty secure because when you change stuff, and
we know that through health and we know through vocational education,
when you when you change things, you actually stop progress.
And the government were really clear here they said, oh,
we could have pushed a few more things together, but

(03:31):
we actually wanted to keep momentum so we can deliver
infrastructure in our first term. And I think that's really
important because this stuff shouldn't be party political right that
these agencies should be able to go go ahead and
do their work and get stuff built for New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
And clearly, clearly we haven't actually been doing that very well.
As you've outlined. Neck Leget Infrastructure New Zealand Chief Executive.
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