Chris Bishop: Transport Minister discusses which Roads of National Significance will be built first

A balancing act is underway to decide which Roads of National Significance will begin construction next. 

The Government's funnelling $1.2billion into the programme's 17 projects - which includes highway sections in Northland, Nelson, Hamilton, and Wellington.
 
Transport Minister Chris Bishop told Mike Hosking they're now going through a prioritisation exercise as a Government. 

He says they have all the investment cases, and they're working out a rough order of sequence. 

Bishop says they can't build them all at once, noting they want to ensure a regional spread. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got next steps in our roads National Significance program,

(00:02):
everything from the Northern Spressway to the second amount VIC
and terrorist tunnels. We've got one point two billion set aside,
six hundred and seventy five million for consenting and design.
We've got a bit of a half a billion to
buy up the property. Chris Bishop is the Transport Minister
back with this morning. Those budgets. How locked in are they?
I mean how open to creep are they?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
So the Transport Agency has taken a very conservative approach
to the budgets. They're what's called the P ninety five
rather than P fifty, which technically means they're a lot
more confident in the confidence around the numbers than they
are with a P fifty. So they've done quite a
bit of work and it's they're conservative, but there's no
doubt that their expensive projects.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Mike, Okay about that. How long's this stage?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So what's happening now as we're going through a prioritization
exercise as a government. We've now got all of the
investment cases and we're going to go through a bit
of a process of the government of working out you
know what the sort of rough order of sequences. You
can't build everything all at once, and we've always said that,
you know, the seventeen around the Cunt. We've got public
transport projects too, like the Northwestern Busway in Auckland. We've

(01:04):
got to think about airport to Botany busway we've got
to think about as well. So we can't build them
all at once. We want to make sure there's a
regional spread. Some are readier than others, to be honest,
Like if you think about Cambridge to Puranity for example,
that's the extension of the way Kado Expressway that just
got its consent. That project's been worked on for you know,
either better part of a decade to be honest, that
project's you know, coming ready for construction. Others are a

(01:26):
few years away.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
To be found, That Northern Expressway has got to be
ready to go. You cannot have a donkey track into
Northland as a region, can you.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, the Northern Expressways in procurement right now. So so
stage one Walkworth to Welsford, that's in procurement right now.
We're expecting to turn aside on that next year, so
that will start construction next year.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So there are significance within significance is what I'm finding
out here, because you can't do Why can't we do
it all at once? Is there a labor pipeline issue here?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, you can't do it all at once because there's
a couple of reasons. One is just the market capacity,
and then secondly is just the funding and financing of
these things. So you break them up into stages. So
we've broken Northland into three stages, and even within one
of them there's sort of two bits. You think about
the kind of expressway that took twenty years, right, we
didn't do all that, or didn't do that all at once.
We started at one end and we kept going and
now we're likely to do the next section. So we'll

(02:14):
finish up in Pearity. And you know, think about the
Catholic express Away in Wellington. You know that started back
in twenty ten, twenty eleven. From memory, we're still doing
the next bit of it. It just takes time to
build these things. I am impatient as you are, Mike.
It does talk as you are.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Guy who does my coffee machine was round at my
house yesterday. He goes to Russia, right, He says, what
they do in Russia is they close the place down
over the weekend, literally close it down, and they flood
the place with people and they put a new road
and then by Monday there's a new road. That's what
they do in Russia.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, they might have some labour, little difficulties in Russia.
We don't have in New Zealand. But I get your point.
And look, I'm as impatient as you are, and I
keep saying to the Transport agency that we've got to
try and speed these things up. You know, we don't
need bells and whistles, we don't need gold plating. We
just need to build some roads. They just need to
be simple, simply designed, you know, low cost as much
as possible, and just get on with it. And that's
what we're doing. And that to be fair, these business

(03:06):
cases that they've done, some of these business cases used
to take three four years. They've done them in eighteen.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
That was my next question. So you can point to,
because you'll need to an election year next year, you
can point to a process that is materially faster and
more efficient than it used to be.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, these things used to take three four five years.
I mean remember light rail. I mean we never got
out of the business case.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
There was, though no one took that seriously. I mean,
you're aper government, you're serious people. I'm expecting some progress here.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah. Well, we've got Oteching and Levin started, We've got
maling started, We've we've got the Takatimu North Link is
in construction right now and they've got a whole range
of projects that are being built right now. I've got
a whole range coming to market in the next year
or two which will start start construction on. It's great
news for the country.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Christ Biship Transportment.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
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