Infrastructure NZ urges parties to leave individual projects out of coalition deals
Infrastructure New Zealand has warned political parties not to put individual infrastructure projects into coalition agreements.
Chief executive Nick Leggett said parties should not announce new infrastructure projects. He said the Roads of National Significance plans were far enough advanced not to be a concern, according to RNZ.
Instead, the industry group proposed that projects be prioritised through standardised cost-benefit analyses, with advice from the Infrastructure Commission and Parliament setting the overall funding envelope. Leggett proposed the commission prioritise projects and Parliament sign them off with majority cross-party support, described as a "market of the Parliament".
The call follows an election manifesto published by Infrastructure New Zealand in July. It called for a fully funded 12-year programme of infrastructure investments based on the approach used in Nordic countries.
Infrastructure New Zealand said New Zealand ranked 37th out of 38 OECD countries on infrastructure value for money, with an estimated $11.8 billion lost from pausing or cancelling projects. It put the infrastructure pipeline at $290 billion across 12,000 projects, most of them without confirmed funding, according to RNZ.
National leader Christopher Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins agreed in the NZ Herald Leaders' Debate to hold bipartisan talks within the first 100 days of a new government on infrastructure, superannuation, AI regulation and medicine.
Infrastructure New Zealand has previously said New Zealand spends enough money on building infrastructure. It attributed poor value for money to over-politicisation of project decisions and poor planning, prioritisation and delivery.
