Collaboration and a renewed push for a bipartisan approach to infrastructure were the dominant themes on the opening day of Building Nations 2024. Infrastructure New Zealand chairwoman Tracey Ryan opened the two-day conference,
Building Nations 2024: Collaboration centre stage at infrastructure conference
By Bill Bennett
NZ Herald·
3 mins to read
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop delivers a speech at the Building Nations 2024 conference. Photo / Claudia O'Neill
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Bishop says one of the most powerful images he has seen in the last year was when the New South Wales Labor premier rode on the newly opened Sydney Metro line with two former Liberal premiers.
“He paid tribute to a great project. It was opened under Labor but was funded, consented and delivered by the Liberals. That’s the point of infrastructure. It is long-lived by definition and projects tend to finish long after the politicians who started them have moved on.”
He says that, as Infrastructure Minister, he wants New Zealand to succeed and that means having the institutions, funding frameworks and consenting pathways to get on with delivering regardless of the governing party.
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“There will always be a bit of disagreement. National and the Greens are not going to agree and everything. But we agree on more than we disagree on.”
Former Green Party leader James Shaw spoke in his new role as an operating partner at Morrison, a New Zealand-based internationally focused infrastructure manager. He said getting a bipartisan agreement requires both sides to compromise on things that are important to them.
“The National Party needs to agree that things that lock us into long-term fossil-fuel dependency are out of bounds. On the flip side, Labour will have to accept that private capital isn’t only going to be required, but that it has a leading role to play.”
Shaw’s focus is on climate change and he said infrastructure holds the key: “In every category that you can think of, climate solutions are infrastructure-related. In electricity generation and distribution, in transport, in building, construction, water and waste management. Also in data, which now underpins everything. No one thought about data as infrastructure 10 years ago. But we can’t do anything much without it.”
He gave the example of Parnell-based start-up Neocrete, which was set up in 2018.
“Most kinds of infrastructure use a lot of concrete. Neocrete is now getting 30 to 40% carbon reductions in its cement. The company reckons it will have a zero-carbon concrete by 2027″.
Shaw said the investment potential of climate change is huge: “Climate change amounts to an asset replacement programme in every infrastructure category. It’s the biggest asset replacement programme since World War II. It requires gargantuan amounts of investment.”
