Government passing infrastructure funding woes to councils

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Labour’s local government spokesperson, Kieran McAnulty
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The government wants councils to sort out their own problems without help, Labour’s local government spokesperson, Kieran McAnulty, says.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop told Morning Report on Friday there is a large infrastructure deficit.

He is eying congestion fees, and greater use of road tolls, water metres and public-private partnerships (PPPs).

McAnulty said Bishop’s speech was a sign of the government’s intentions.

“I think it’s a clear signal that this government has no intention of providing funding to the local government sector, McAnulty said.

“They are wanting to set it up so that its absolving themselves of that responsibility.”

He said the level of support councils have been asking for won’t come from the current government.

Meanwhile, Local Government New Zealand President Sam Broughton said councils need a range of tools to deal with their infrastructure funding shortfalls.

Nick Leggett said New Zealanders needed to get their heads around the fact that meters were necessary.
Photo: Watercare

“We think that there needs to be more than a [one] tool because councils are all in different spaces and one tool’s not necessarily going to work for everyone.”

He said these include the government paying rates on its land and infrastructure, tourism levies, congestion charging and the return of GST on rates that are paid.

Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett said the speech was a significant shift, and a generational change was needed in how the country built large projects.

He said New Zealand’s spending per capita on infrastructure was high compared to other OECD nations, but the value we got from that investment was in the bottom 10 percent, and that had to be turned around.

He said getting the private sector involved early in projects got better outcomes, as the people who are building the asset would also be tasked with maintaining it over its life.

Choose better projects – Green councillor

But a Wellington Regional Councillor said the debate about user-pays and PPPs missed the point.

Thomas Nash
Photo: Thomas Nash

Green Party member Thomas Nash said the question about who pays was not the most important one – better decisions needed to be made about which projects get built at all.

“Do we basically splurge on new motorways that encourage low value for money urban development that future generations are going to be paying for?

“And are going to be saying, ‘Why did you build all that stuff when your water networks were crumbling and you didn’t have the public transport to support the kind of living in cities that we need?'”

Nash said PPPs could be more expensive in the long-run, and the money still had to be paid back, and questioned what projects limited resources should be used on.