Starting The Huge Task Of Filling The Infrastructure Gap
February 12th, 2009
In fast-tracking $500m of projects spanning the housing, transport, and education sectors, the Govt says it will create work for businesses in the regions, and will help keep suppliers and sub-contractors afloat. More than $100m worth of projects are to start before June 30. Education is to be allocated $216m for new schools, maintenance and ICT. Another $142m is earmarked for transport projects, spanning five large state highway projects, as well as smaller regional jobs, and $124m will help Housing NZ to upgrade 10,000 houses, and build 69 new houses over the next six months.
John Key says they are quality projects, they will ease the sharpest impact of the recession in the regions, and they are ready to go. He underlined some of the problems the Govt has had in shaping this programme when he said the previous Govt had planned to reduce state highway construction over the next three years by at least 9%. At the time of the election the NZ Transport Agency was planning for this scaling down: now it is having to gear up planning and design work. The PM says it is the first of a number of announcements to be made about state highways over coming months. The NZ Council for Infrastructure estimates over the next decade $25bn will have to be spent on land transport.
The Govt says it is committed to increasing state highway construction to more accurately reflect transport realities. One of the next steps will be to set up an Infrastructure Unit in the public service, with an Infrastructure Advisory Board. A task it will have to undertake is to determine whether infrastructure bonds can be introduced. Finance Minister Bill English believes the issue is whether long-term gains can be achieved by going to long-term financing of infrastructure projects.
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Duncan Cotterill