More than half of the Government’s ongoing projects under the $8.7 billion transport package of the NZ Upgrade Programme have been flagged for timeframe and budget blowouts.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi has marked 10 of the 18 projects as “code red” as of the end of April to signal the current constraints in timeframe and budget.
At the beginning of the year, only four of the 15 announced were measured as being in a red state of health.
That’s based on Waka Kotahi’s monthly reports to transport minister Michael Wood which were obtained by the Act Party under the Official Information Act.
“Labour is failing to deliver anything other than inflated budgets and project delays, with only two of its 15 highest cost infrastructure projects delivered on time and on budget,” ACT transport spokesperson Simon Court says.
“Labour’s inability to deliver a project on time and under budget is a disaster for taxpayers. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. When the Government throws around cash like this, it drives up the cost of everything,” he says.
In June last year, the Government scaled-back the NZ Upgrade Programme with the axing of major roading projects which was met with strong criticism from a number of groups.
At the time, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson and minister Wood announced a further $1.9 billion to the original $6.8b allocated in early 2020 for roads, rail and public transport. However, increased costs due to COVID and climate commitments meant a number of key projects had to be “re-scoped”, they said.
This included the canning of the 21.5km Mill Rd four-lane corridor project and the 22km four-lane SH1 Whangarei to Port Marsden corridor project.
Overall, the New Zealand Upgrade Programme was a $12b package which also included schools and hospitals.
A Government spokesperson says they are “managing” the projects to ensure they would be delivered.
“Globally there is significant pressure on large-scale infrastructure projects such as these, due to rising costs and supply chain challenges. New Zealand is not immune from these issues,” they said.
“The Government is confident that there is currently sufficient contingency built into the budgets of the projects, and there is no need or intention to change these.
“Appropriate processes are built into these projects to deal with cost escalations as they arise,” they said.
Meanwhile, Court says the ACT Party would repeal and replace the Resource Management Act to allow for faster infrastructure development.
He says the party would “take the politics out of transport and infrastructure and get central and local government working together through 30-year infrastructure partnerships”.
“We need investment in high-quality infrastructure to boost jobs, wages and growth. But the current arrangements for delivering infrastructure are inadequate and politicised.
“Infrastructure, with its very long time horizons, is unsuited to decision-making by politicians beset by three-year tunnel vision. By setting plans decades in advance, we can avoid the on-again, off-again uncertainty created by the political cycle which deters councils and private infrastructure investors from undertaking ambitious projects,” Court says.
