Peter Nunns: Infrastructure Commission Acting Strategy General Manager on the report into the long-term considerations of infrastructure

Future thinking sits at the core of our infrastructure planning. 

The Infrastructure Commission's new paper —released this morning— outlines its considerations developing the National Infrastructure Plan, which is to be released next year.  

It highlights population growth, decarbonising the economy, and natural hazard resilience as drivers of our needs.  

Acting Strategy General Manager Peter Nunns told Mike Hosking that we need to recognize the challenges that we’ve got and work on a plan to get better. 

He said that we know we have issues in terms of cost and delivery time frames getting away from us, so we need to tighten up practices a bit. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the Infrastructure Commission on what our future will cost us.
As it stands, we got assets worth about two hundred
and eighty seven billion dollars. That stacks up to around
fifty five thousand dollars per New Zealander apparently, which is
the average for the OECD. Apparently. Anyway, the issue here
to keep up a greater proportion of GDP is needed.
The Infrastructure Commission's Acting General Manager of Strategy, Peter Nuns,
is with us on all this.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Peter morning, gooday, Mike, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Not at all am I being slightly weird and suggesting
this is all a bit esoteric because it's based on
the idea that what might or might not happen, and
given we don't really know what that is, therefore we
can't plan with any definitive nature what the future is.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, we can think about what we have more and
less certainty about one thing that we've got a lot
of certainty about. If we've got infrastructure today and we
want to keep using it, we have to be maintaining
and renewing, right, yep. That's something that if we've got
if we understand what we've got well and what condition
it's in we can forecast that really well, build an
investment program around it. Then there's some other things that

(00:58):
are harder to forecast, like how fast as the population
can grow, how many people are going to migrate in
a given year. Yeah, and so we can think about
think about sort of what we've got certainty on, what
we don't have certainty on, and planning apportingly. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm glad
you raised that aspect of it. So maintenance, Yes, I
get it, We've got it. Let's keep it up to speed.
I've got all of that. Yesterday I'm reading a report.
Did you see business cases for large roading projects? Disconnected
from reality? This is the Ministry of Transport In other words,
in that particular area maintenance, we're useless. If we're useless,
do we have any hope?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I think we need to recognize that the challenges that
we've got and work on a plan to get better. Right,
Disconnected from reality is a pretty strong language, I've got
to say. But what that highlights is the challenges that
we face and planning, planning major infrastructure projects and scoping

(01:53):
them up in a way so that they don't run away.
Most in terms of cost and delivery time frames. Right,
we know we've got issues there. We can do better,
a lot of other people do.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
How do we because I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion
that we're not able to do it. I mean, the
business of announcing a project and it blowing out is
just life, and I don't know what we do to
get around there.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I mean people see this in their homes. Right, you
know what's the average kitchen renovation cost? Blow out? Right significant?
That being said, what we can do in this area
is tighten up the practices a little bit. One of
the things that we've been advocating for at the Commission
is a bit better discipline around the project planning and
announcement phases. Right, So, in other words, rather than saying

(02:39):
at the outset when you've had the bright idea, when
you've recognized you've got a problem to solve, right, we're
going to build this thing and it's going to cost
X heay, we never got a problem here. We need
to do the work. We need to do the geotechnical investigations.
We need to get some people to design this thing,
figure out what it will cost to build, and whether
it's feasible and then we'll come back and tell you

(03:00):
you about what's next.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Right, Yeah, but that was part of the story I
read yesterday. See, one of the plans I had, consultants
were paid one point one seven million bayonz zta at
more than two thousand dollars a day for the work
that included a state highway investment business case, while another
received two hundred and twenty thousand dollars a third almost
seven hundred thousand dollars. So the first thing we do
is going, oh, we'll net have a clue what it's
going to cost. Let's hire some people to do that.

(03:22):
And then they come back with a number that may
or may not be right.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, Yeah, And I think that we've got when we
look at those things, we've got to look at the
value we're getting from those investigating investigation processes. Right, some
of that money will be well spent because we're dealing
with major, major issues. Spending a few million dollars up
front on a project that might cost hundreds of millions
of dollars candy good money. Right, Just in terms of

(03:48):
understanding what you're doing before you set out to do it,
you can save yourself money if you if you run
the right investigations. But I think the question that people
sometimes ask is are we sort of looping on this right?
Are we getting into a cycle where we're sort of
iterating on these things without getting more information? And that's
maybe the question that those stories pubs well.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I wish you the base with it. Peter Nuns, who's
with the Infrastructure Commission. It is a convoluted, old business.
I can tell you for nothing. For more from the
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