Chris Bishop: Transport Minister confirms some Roads of National Significance and other transport projects will be put on the back burner

The Transport Minister says it's hard to know what a road will cost until construction begins.

Chris Bishop has released a new phased timeline for the 17 transport projects on the Government's to do list - putting five on the back burner. 

The whole 17 roads are expected to come in at roughly $56 billion. 

Bishop says these projects will be completed in phases, and there's no market capacity to get all of these built at the same time. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. Surprise, surprise, some of the roads of national
significance will not be built anytime soon. In fact, only
six of the fifteen promised roads are now locked in
for construction. The Transport Minister finally admitted the obvious today
all of it can't get underway immediately and he's with us,
Hi bish, good day, tough day for you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh look what we've announced a pipeline today of a
lot of projects that will get underway in the coming years,
which is really exciting for the construction sector and exactly
what the infrastructure sect has been asking for, which is
a strong pipeline, and it's essentially being done in phases.
There's a bunch of stuff being built right now, and
there's a couple more about to start, including the first

(00:38):
stage of North London Cambridge toupidity. There's some projects that
are progressing into construction readiness in the next few years,
and then there's some things that are on a bit
more of a slower track, so sort of broken it
up into chunks. And I think it's a realization and
a recognition that you know, you can't start everything all
at the same time. You literally couldn't build all of
these projects. Well, at the same time, the market capacity
is not there, let alone the feasibility. So it's just

(01:00):
putting a bit of meat on the bones of the
existing plan.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I mean, you're giving it a very good spin. But
let's take a look at what's going on with the
second mount for tunnel. When are we going to have
spades in the ground?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
So that is going through root protection right now, NCTA
is about to lodge a fast tracked consent for that.
You can't do anything on the project unless it's consented,
So they're about to lodge that and that'll you know,
look towards twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, so that's
often to the forthcoming years.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You're saying, are you saying that they're going to start
digging that tunnel in twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm not saying that, in fact, but they've done some
geotech work already.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
To be honest, when are they going to start digging
that tunnel?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, I don't, I don't. I can't give you a
date for that because we're going to get the root
protection right and we've got to get the funding.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
We've got to funding that place. It's got no funding.
But I'm asking you this because you said in twenty
twenty three, ahead of the last election, there would be
spades in the ground in the first three years.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
There are spades in the ground on it right now.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You are laughing because you know, being bloody cheeky here.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Ah, it's a little I accept it's a little bit cheeky, mate,
It's not a little bit cheeky.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I am obsessed with this project because I realized how
important this is for Wellington. When you said spades in
the ground, I thought you would start digging the bloody
hole this term.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, be fair to say we wanted well I
think I think it'd be fair to say we wanted
to make more progress on it than we have. But
it's it's been a tricky project. It's it's not project.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
You've run out of money. You ran out of money
and and they told you. I hate saying label, right
because I wanted to believe the stuff, But they told
you were going to run out of money because the
fuel excise tax has been stopped for bloody years. By
the time you won the election, you knew you were
going to run out of money.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
And no one wants to raise fuel tax and unsurprisingly
people listening to.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Okay, so your mistake to be paid for.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think it'd be fair to say we wanted to
make a bit more progress on it than we have.
But it's not conceding you never had enough money. But
it's not about the money with mount fact, it's about
the consents. It's not as not the route's not you
know the route. We've got a route, but it's not
consented and it's about to go through fast track and
there's a whole lot of work to do around it,
and that work is underway. So I want to make
I want to make that really, make that point really

(03:11):
clear to people listening that work is underway and you
can't start building a road until you've done that work.
And that work is happening.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
You don't even have that that will be happening. You
don't have the money.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
That's that's not correct, really, Yeah, no, that's not correct.
There is Well, I'm not going to give you a
date because because we don't have a date yet, but
the work is and the project is a government prioritr.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
But here's the thing, Okay, there are a whole bunch
of dis disappointed. This is this affects Wellington. Wellingtonians will
be gutted by this because they were looking forward to
this right so.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I don't know having on it. I don't think anyone
in Wellington thought the Mount Tunnel project or the Terrace
Tunnel was going to start next year. I don't think
anyone thinks that it was not going to be the case.
But we are making progress on both well. I'm sorry
you can't.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Space in the ground in the first three years. That
is literally what people thought, mate.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
That there's good work underway on that project right now
and we're making good progress on it.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Okay, But I mean, have you got money for the
harbor crossing for Auckland or is that also just two
ambitious pie in the sky nonsense.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
No, We're taking our time to get that one right.
That's that's like a molt. I mean, if you think
these roads are expensive, wait until you see her.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm resetting my expectations here at the moment. Listen, thanks
very much, a tough day for you. Appreciate you fronting
up Chris Bishop, Transport Minister. For more from hither Duplessy
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