Politics gets in the way of building the infrastructure we need
Good infrastructure should be dull. Really boring, workaday stuff that’s easy to fix when it goes wrong. There should be nothing controversial about infrastructure.
And yet planning and policy for the basic facilities serving our national and community needs has become inherently, inescapably political. It has become afflicted by politicians.
Right now everything seems broken. Sagging infrastructure is now inhibiting economic growth and slowing productivity. It’s also affecting our quality of life – with gridlock and unaffordable housing.
Roads and bridges crumbled under the force of water unleashed by summer storms. Power systems and telecommunications links failed, badly.
Most of the ageing ferry fleet is tied up at the wharf, stranding people.
Isolated communities are cut off, or face massive detours. Water is contaminated or running out. Sewage spews into our waterways. Only about 35% of our waste is recycled.
Our strained health system needs an injection of at least $14 billion for critical infrastructure.
And although it doesn’t seem like it, successive governments have been spending rather a lot on infrastructure. It just wasn’t enough.
Roughly, it’s about 5.5% of GDP on things like transport, water, hospital, education and defence.
That’s relatively similar to other high-income countries with high population growth. We (and Australia, who spend more of their GDP) just don’t do it efficiently.
That inefficiency – and other factors like forecasted demographic change, adaptation to climate change and other natural disaster recovery – has left us in quite a hole.
If we want to build ourselves out of it, the cost is around $31b per year over the next three decades. Those are pre-Cyclone Gabrielle figures – and are almost double what we currently spend.
Even before the horrendous weather that started
a national conversation about infrastructure, this government had made a start in filling that gap.
Almost four years ago, it established an Infrastructure Commission which produced a strategy, made up of 63 recommendations.
In the past few years, the Government committed upwards of $60b on new projects. Likewise, the National government before spent billions on the Canterbury recovery and large-scale roading projects.
Just as Labour has its commission, National established a National Infrastructure Unit and Advisory Board in its first term, and produced a 30-year, $110b plan in 2015.
National chose to pour money into Roads of National Significance. But there was an opportunity cost for saving a few seconds of travel time – it’s money that wasn’t spent on public transport or addressing the road toll.
Labour chose public transport, walking and cycling, at the expense of road maintenance. It also cancelled Auckland Council’s light rail project, for its own metro system, shelving years of work. National will dump that, if elected.
Labour has a plan for water infrastructure. National wants to scrap it. They agree we need more social housing, but not how to provide it.
Major projects are held to ransom by the whim of whoever holds the Treasury benches. Any long-term planning is up-ended because there is no guarantee of funding (remarkably, the one thing they do agree on is keeping debt down, but since that was at the expense of actually fixing things, it doesn’t help).
Each electoral cycle brings new priorities, values, and visions. There are always winners, losers, trade-offs, and competing interests. Policies risk being reversed with each election.
There are also irrational funding expectations, built around a fantasy that money can be spent on infrastructure without imposing a burden on voters.
Politicians choose where to build based on political advantage. The location, scale and even design reflect the economic, social and political power in our society.
Benefits and access flow to already dominant groups, often as a result of pressure from industry or those with wealth and access to the Beehive. Underinvestment disproportionately affects disadvantaged or lower-income communities.
Essentially, politics gets in the way of building good infrastructure.
Yes, it would be naive – and almost impossible – to entirely depoliticise infrastructure.
It is for the public good, requires public money, and delivery is very often the yardstick of how we measure the competence of governments. And honestly, their egos couldn’t part with the shovel/ glow-vest photo ops.
But taking some of these decisions out of the electoral cycle wouldn’t hurt.
We desperately need new ways to swiftly plan, approve and fund nation-building projects. Insisting that a majority – say at least 70% – of major infrastructure decisions are taken apolitically – and with bipartisan support, would be in our best longterm interests.
Labour has a plan for water infrastructure. National wants to scrap it.