Billie Moore: Airports Association CEO on the launch of the new freight plan

The Government's launched an NZTA-backed freight action plan, which will link big airport projects with road and rail. 

It'll look at national demand and set up a freight advisory council after calls from the industry to make exports more competitive, and imports more affordable. 

Airports Association Chief Executive Billie Moore told Mike Hosking that although the plan focuses on roading, it needs to bring all modes of transport together. 

She says there's only so much that can be achieved through airports investing in cargo, if the road connections aren't good enough. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New plan to boost our freight industry and listen to this.
It's so exciting. We've got an MZTA backed action plan
which focuses on maximizing economic value and infrastructure. You freight
Advisory Council. Who doesn't want an advisory council that'll coordinate road, rail,
air and sea. Airports are into it. Billy Moore's the
chief executive New Zealand Airports Association, is back with there's

(00:20):
Billy morning, good morning, Just mean anything? Should I be excited? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Another action plan right and another council. Look, I normally
be first to agree with you that this seems to
be another go round, but I think this is Chris Bishop.
He gets stuff done and it's capturing lancy and air.
So we're really keen to see what we can get
done with it.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Why haven't we done this before?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look, it's a good question. We had a pretty good
process over COVID to really understand the importance of freight
links to New Zealand. We had slight supported make sure
all their stuff kept flowing. But one of the big
questions for people like myself is how do you bank
that knowledge the public service long term? So that's not
just lost and that we don't just think about freight

(01:06):
during a crisis. So there's a good question why we
haven't done it before. But good to see it's carrying
through now into something hopefully a bit more permanent.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Is there intersector rivalry? Do you know CEV road everyc
that sort of stuff or not you'll cooperate.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think there is.
I think the challenge is that all of these things
are managed in a separate way within government. Obviously, their
focus is on roading because that's where most of the
money has to go. And again this will be run
out of MVTA, so that's the roading focus. But so
we have to kind of have these overarching things to

(01:42):
bring all those modes together. There's only so much you
can achieve through the huge investments going on all clind
and christ Your airports for instance, on cargo right now
if the road and connections to those airports aren't good enough.
So that's the kind of stuff that we're going to
be looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
I like it. You sold me well. I'm Billy Billy Moore,
who's the chief executive New Zealand Airport's Association. See that's
another example, as explaining it earlier in the week, you
look at someone like Bishop is getting stuff done. Now
do you swing a vote because of that?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Nah?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
But there's just a lot of good, common sense stuff
being done at the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
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