Richard Templer: Engineering New Zealand boss on the large number of skilled workers leaving the country

Hundreds of skilled workers are packing up and leaving the country due to delays in infrastructure projects.

Engineering New Zealand boss Richard Templer said the numbers aren't an exaggeration. 

"In addition to the engineers, there's also the construction workforce. These are the people who, you know, build the roads, the hospitals, the schools, everything like that," he said. 

What's the plan to solve the problem? 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Last week it was vegis and land use. This week
it's engineers. Delays to infrastructure projects are apparently seeing hundreds
of skilled workers packing up and leaving the country. It's
the pipeline that's dried up, apparently. Engineering New Zealand boss
Richard Templar is with us on this. Richard, very good
morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
In a world of clickbait and dramatic headlines, I'm always
worried about hyperbole. Is the hyperbole in this or can
you actually quantify hundreds of engineers leaving the country.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
So we don't have the total number of engineers, but
in talking with our large, small and medium firms, we
know that well into the hundreds of engineers have lost
their job jobs and the vast maturity of them are
either working on offshore projects or have moved overseas to

(00:47):
find work. And in addition to the engineers, there's also
the construction workforce. These are the people who build the roads,
the hospitals, the schools, everything like that. They can't work virtually,
they have to relocate in order to do their jobs.
And we know significant numbers of construction firms have been

(01:08):
going under and their workers are having to move overseas.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
This is the artworking of the previous government because pipelines
are slow to turn around, given what you've heard from
the current government, and they're looking at private partnerships and
foreign investment and lots of roads and all of that
is their hope.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
There's certainly is hope, and we really do acknowledge the
work of people like Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop and
their desire to form a bipartisan long term pipeline. You've
also got the fast Track Consenting underway and various other initiatives.
The problem is is there's been a seventeen month hiatus

(01:45):
in which large contracts have been stopped and not relet
and that seventeen months has been too long, and that's
what's caused engineering firms to make the tough decisions to
have to shed their staff. And when there's no work
or will head overseas and when.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
You flick the ghost, which suddenly you can't guess start Monday,
gear up by tuesday, can.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
You Absolutely we'll hit the problem which we've hit in
the past when we've tried to build a way out
of a recession that will have all these projects come
on stream and there'll be no one to do it,
and that leads to project delays and cost escalation.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Do you hold out any hope? See the problem with
bipartisan In theory it's fantastic. In reality it doesn't because
one's all about buses and cycle lanes, one's about roads,
and never the twain shall meet.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I think it's really worthwhile having a look at the
Australian model. In Australia, the states get together and degree
an infrastructure plan and they lock it in and then
when a new government comes in, they say to the
new government, you can add whatever you like, but you
can't take away from this infrastructure plan. So I think

(02:56):
we need to look at the baseline infrastructure the country needs.
That's three waters, that's roading, that's power, that's telecommunications. We
need to line those projects up. Agree because everyone understands
we've got to do something about stormwater and auckland. Everyone
understands we've got to boost the power grid so we
can deal with the renewable energy projects coming on track.

(03:20):
Line those up, and then if a new government comes
in and they want lots of cycle ways, that's an
on top of not an instead of.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well said Richard appreciate it very much. Richard Templar, Engineering
New Zealand Boss.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
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