Michelle McCormick: Infrastructure NZ Policy Director on the infrastructure announcements still to come from the Budget

Billions in spending has already been announced, and more to come for today's budget. 

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is hours away from unveiling her second budget, and is promising no frills or excess.  

The Government's been slowly teasing figures, including a $600 million infrastructure investment into the country's rail network.  

Infrastructure New Zealand Policy Director Michelle McCormick told Mike Hosking they're trying to make some progress. 

She says it's good to see they're continuing to build on the fundamentals. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Budget day and what to expect given we've got no money,
but the expectation among some remains as high as ever.
So what are the priorities? Is it saving or borrowing all?
Both Michelle and the Comick is the policy director at
Infrastructure New Zealand and as with us Michelle, good morning,
good morning. Make the broad direction of travel, the roads,
the rail what we've heard so far, do you get
a sense the government's on top of it or not?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I think they're trying to make some progress within the
constraints and it's good to see that there's continuation and
building on the fundamentals too. We've got eight one hundred
projects sitting in our pipeline, so there's no shortage of ideas,
but only about half of that two one hundred and
seven billion dollars worth of work is actually funded. So yeah,
there's a lot of opportunity to move forward that some

(00:40):
of it's the system settings too that we want to
see progress continue to be made.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Do you want to hear something about these PPPs or
the overseas investment or the money coming from somewhere today?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, definitely, we're king that the government infrastructure is set
up to continue to leverage their private funding and that
the government departments well resourced so they can make the
policy work on the arimas, on the funding and financing
ethics that they are set up to be the welcome
mats for New Zealand for international investments.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Around the rules, around the rules and structures. Are they
moving fast enough.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
There's a lot of work there are we are seeing progress.
It was great to see public works at changes introduced
which will be a game changer for those fast trek projects.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Good stuff, Michelle, good to talk to you appreciate it.
Michelle mcormick, who's with the Infrastructure New Zealand people. For
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