Fraser May: Civil Contractors NZ Communications and Advocacy Manager on the impact of the Govt's infrastructure goals on the sector

25,000 more people need to be hired if the Government wants to achieve its infrastructure goals. 

Officials have warned Minister Chris Bishop he'll need to significantly boost the civil engineering and construction workforce by more than 50%. 

It's also warning the Government hasn't funded $200 billion worth of its transport promises. 

Fraser May of Civil Contractors New Zealand told Mike Hosking a lot will need to be done to get the sector ready for the projects. 

He says it follows a tough time in the sector, where many have down-scaling when they should've been up-scaling. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I've got a bit of a red flag as
well around the government's big infrastructure plans. To build a
lot of stuff, you need a lot of people. Officials
are suggesting about twenty five thousand extra workers. That's the
population of Ashburton, for goodness sake, and they're needed as
of twenty twenty six and other civil contractors in New Zealand.
Phraser May is with us. Fraser, good morning to you,
mar Mike.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Are you going?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I'm very well. Indeed, how fast can you tool up?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah? Well that depends. Look, I mean, I think we've
just been through quite a bad patch. It's been quite
lean out there and actually a lot of businesses have
been gun scaling at the very time that we really
should have been up in training capacity to try and
build that workforce for the work that's coming up. So yeah,
I mean we're looking forward to the opportunity and I think,
you know, it's good to see some indications about where
the work's coming into.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
The market because it's all about pipelines, isn't it. That's
what you need.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Absolutely, So the longer we've got prepare for that work ahead,
the easier it is to train people up and the
more skilled to be when the time comes, and it's
having those education and emigration pathways to be able to give.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Us the next question, So, how does this work? How
many locals you're grabbing and training? How many people are
coming off a pipeline anyway or a job anyways? How
many you going to have to get into the country.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, well, I'd say that one thing is around the
education pathways and the immgration pathway. So actually, you know
the need to support So we've just been through some
vocational education reform, and you know what we'd like to
see is some more support for work based training because
that's how a lot of the people gain the skills
to be able to build the roads and put the
water pipes under the ground. So some support from IFSUS

(01:32):
and be able to scale up and do that would
be great. Companies do that day to day. And yeah,
we're looking forward to scale up. I mean, I guess
you know, obviously we're going to need to get a
lot of people on board if we're going to deliver
on some of the ambitious projects government's gone in the pipeline.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Do you see them as real? I mean, you know,
let's not get you in trouble. But I mean, hand
on heart when you look at all the announcements and
all this stuff, and you know how long it takes
to build anything in this country, do you see this
as real?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, it depends when it's going to have the market.
I mean, there's some pretty clear indications of what we need.
I mean, we know that we need to replace a
whole bunch of pints. We know that we need to
go and build a whole bunch of roads. So yeah,
I mean I think the question is when that work's
going to come to market. You know, we're starting to
syst and tenders come through and it has been pretty
lean out there, so you know that's the first thing.
If there's work in the market, then then enables us

(02:18):
to build the workforce to get the job done.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Good stuff, phrasergo, well, appreciate it very much, Fraser May,
who's the super contractors in New Zealand Men. For more
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