Kali Mercier: Helen Clark Foundation Deputy Director on the report into New Zealand's infrastructure management

Renewing existing infrastructure rather than investing in new shiny projects is the best way to go, according to a new report co-produced by the Helen Clark Foundation and WSP New Zealand.  

The foundation claims 99% of the infrastructure New Zealand needs, has already been built.  

Foundation Deputy Director Kali Mercier says renewals and repairs are much cheaper. 

She told Mike Hosking one of their recommendations is keeping scorecards so the management and condition of major infrastructure can be tracked. 

Mercier says that currently, just one of six central government agencies keeps a full asset register, and just two have comprehensive asset management plans in place. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got a new report out this morning that I

(00:01):
suspect actually tells us what we already know. A major
infrastructure has a lack of upkeep problem. Central government has
poor asset management plans and a tendency to chase the
cheapest price.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Kelly Messier is the lead author of this particular report
and is with us this morning. Kelly, good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Now, do we have international comparisons or not? Can we
look to countries and go that's how you do it?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's quite difficult to do that in some ways because
the way we're doing it is a little bit of peake.
In some ways, it's a little bit confusing. But actually,
when I spoke to international people, often they thought New
Zealand wasn't doing too badly, which I was quite surprised
at because there's a lot of gaps in our best practice.
So that was interesting. But there are certainly some things
we can be doing better that other countries are doing.

(00:45):
And one of the things that I noticed was other
countries have scorecards which can help you track how infrastructure
is being managed and what condition it's and compare it
to different places. So that's one of the recommendations in
our report because it's very hard to get a good
sense of who's managing infrastructure well and who isn't.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
In New Zealand, only one of six central government agencies
keeps a full asset register and just too have comprehensive
asset management plans in place. Who are they and why
do the others not do it?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, we looked at I mean, there's lots of asset
infrastructure owning agencies and we just looked at the six
who have the most infrastructure, and the one that was
maintaining an asset register is coying a Order. Only two
of the six maintaining asset management plans as well, which
is like Cartahi and kyng Order. Why they don't do
it well is, I guess for some of them it's

(01:36):
not their core business, so health and education for example,
their job is to do health and education and they
might not necessarily have asset management specialists sitting at their
executive tables. And so another recommendation of ours is that
that needs to be happening because they are managing huge
amounts of assets on the behalf of the country, so
they need to be following best practice.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
So you're telling me that I'm providing an education system.
The fact that the building I own, the assets I
own are all leaky and the kids don't learn because
they're wet and cold and damp. That's not how some
somehow dubtailed into the overall operation and picture.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
This is my best guess on why they're not doing
those things. I mean, they should be doing those things,
and I think we need to be making sure that
they are. And one of our recommendations is that we
should get a watchdog agency that can just be a
central repository for all the information and for making sure
that all the agencies are doing what they have to
be doing. The moment's a bit of a hodgepodge at
the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, yeah, all right, nice to talk to you, Kelly.
Kelly Mercier, Deputy director of the Helling Clark Foundation, on
that particular report.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
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