Tracey Ryan: All solutions must be on the table to tackle infrastructure woes

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Aurecon CEO Tracey Ryan says New Zealand has a track record of thinking differently about how we deliver infrastructure .
THREE KEY FACTS:

Tracey Ryan is chief executive of Aurecon New Zealand, chairwoman of Infrastructure New Zealand and of BusinessNZ’s CEO Advisory Group, and chairwoman of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Sustainable Development
Committee.

OPINION
I recently experienced the troubled state of New Zealand’s infrastructure when the Defence Force plane I was travelling on as part of the Prime Minister’s delegation to Japan broke down in Papua New Guinea.
It certainly added to the adventure and camaraderie of the trip, but for a First World country to encounter this on an international delegation doesn’t bode well.
And this, in the same week as multiple other infrastructure woes: the ferry grounding, the transmission tower, and severe flooding in Wairoa. Our public entities do a stellar job keeping Kiwis moving, safe and connected, so this is not about finding fault or failure, it’s about a deeper systemic problem: New Zealand’s chronic underinvestment in infrastructure.
With a $1 trillion deficit by present estimates, “the burning platform” is here right now, so we need all the resources, good ideas, and funding tools we can get to respond. We no longer have time to reinvent the wheel and are certainly past the point of perfect solutions.
It might mean developing infrastructure that is faster and lower cost, that may not necessarily have a 100-year life span. It means thinking wider and deeper than we have about how to solve the challenge, and fast.
I spent time in Brisbane recently with infrastructure professionals who came from both sides of the Tasman.
We were one of the first groups to experience the soon-to-be-opened Brisbane Metro, a piece of strategic transport infrastructure developed for the 2032 Olympics. While the Games are eight years off, it’s been planned to deliver immediate benefits to communities.
What struck me about the Metro was its simplicity — a light tram, essentially a high-tech trolley bus, to serve commuters in a city larger than Auckland. With Olympic assets to fund, as well as ageing city assets, population growth and climate change, the Brisbane authorities decided to invest in something that works well now and can be implemented quickly with manageable costs. In a rapidly changing world, this kind of scalable, fast, cheaper infrastructure may be the way to go.
We have no shortage of ideas in New Zealand; when we embark on infrastructure projects, they’re thoroughly assessed and usually present robust business cases. We think deeply, apply overseas learning, and the projects stack up.
However, our political parties, government and community agencies need to work in a more bipartisan manner to build a mandate for what our cities need to build and fund the infrastructure that’s chronically overdue. Otherwise, we risk losing momentum, wasting good IP and failing to deliver.
Failing fast means taking what has been learned and repurposing assets and collateral to continue to accelerate.
Consider Auckland Light Rail — where extensive money was invested exploring funding and financing options as well as urban development potential. Effectively, the bones of a city deal have been left on the shelf. Even if the political levers change, we must capture the thinking and industry learning and put it to future use.
Equally, we know that more extreme weather events are ahead, so we need to learn from previous major recovery alliances in Kaikōura, the East Coast, and Christchurch so we have a toolkit ready to pick up and adopt. Then, we can spend time working with communities and iwi — delivering work rather than going back to basics to organise ourselves as a sector.
Funding is one of our largest challenges. Though it’s positive to see lots of conversation around alternative funding mechanisms, we need to remember that attracting private and international finance takes considerable time, preparation and management, and without this, brand New Zealand will be behind the eight-ball internationally.
Back to Japan. The interest in the New Zealand delegation showed me that Japanese companies are actively interested in investing in New Zealand or expanding their activities here, especially in renewables.
However, uncertainty and slowness in response threaten our image as an attractive place to invest. We want to be a country that is forward thinking, progressive and ready for business. Projects need to be well developed and articulate a clear investment case so investors can see a sustained and long-term pipeline of opportunity.
Building such a pipeline will be much easier if we start to develop a consistent and bipartisan view of how we want our cities to be.
This strategy will ensure we avoid the lost potential of projects that don’t go ahead. It will also enable communities, businesses and the education sector to buy into and advocate for the development of our cities.
A recent Infrastructure New Zealand delegation to Europe and the UK highlighted what is possible when the public, private and academic sectors work together to shape, drive and support the funding of the future growth of cities and regions.
Driven by a long-term bipartisan vision — Project Ireland 2040 — my home country has delivered strategic moves that have had Ireland surpass New Zealand in GDP figures and tripled real income for Irish people in 30 years.
Significant investment in transport infrastructure, encouragement of foreign direct investment, and a focus on tertiary education are bringing that vision to life.
In London, we saw how the business community advocated for the Elizabeth Line. Because they saw a direct benefit, they were prepared to support legislation that saw a small levy applied to a wide range of businesses in the vicinity of the line — a simple funding tool that delivered exceptional results.
In Brisbane, Ireland, and London, it was clear that three factors contributed:
Collaborative partnering and articulating vision are functions of leadership. We need strong leaders in our public sector to champion major projects and build community buy-in and understanding.
This is difficult in the present climate in New Zealand where we are seeing leaders leaving the highest levels of the public sector.
This creates a genuine threat to our ability to deliver good public services and infrastructure. Much of this talent will move to offshore roles and not be likely to return, leaving a huge gap in our access to experienced and trusted leaders.
In the private sector, we invest significant time in succession planning and talent progression for these senior roles; it is important for us to take the same approach in the public sector. Equally, we need to ensure that public sector leaders are well supported to make their roles attractive and conducive to long-term tenure.
Finally, of course, the most important aspect is execution. Vision and collaboration create the licence, but there is no progress without action.
“Done beats perfect” every time, so we mustn’t get stuck waiting for a perfect solution when “a good-enough” one will deliver tangible community and productivity benefits now.
New Zealand has a track record of thinking differently about how we deliver infrastructure with and for communities, iwi, and the environment, and it’s easy to forget that we often lead the world in the way we do this.
So, let’s build on what makes us unique, leverage international thinking and investment, and see what we can achieve.

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