A Future Fund would secure New Zealand’s infrastructure pipeline, a positive step towards long-term, non partisan infrastructure planning, says a member association which promotes best practice for transport, energy, water, telecommunications and social infrastructure.
“Labour’s proposed New Zealand Future Fund could also depoliticise key aspects of the funding process – a long overdue move,” says Infrastructure New Zealand chief Nick Leggett. The Future Fund should complement, not replace, other investment tools.
Leggett says that Public/Private Partnerships (PPP), asset recycling and overseas private capital also have a big role to play in our future infrastructure story
A well-designed Future Fund should sit alongside these and possibly integrate some of them. There is potential for this fund to be a magnet that attracts additional private investment into blended capital situations – resulting in best value infrastructure, built earlier.”
“New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit is well-known and understood. However, solving it will take political courage, bold long-term thinking and the willingness to seek additional investment.
A Future Fund as Labour has proposed has the potential to bring scale, certainty and domestic capital into the system to fund much needed infrastructure,” he says.
Leggett says Infrastructure New Zealand has long pushed for new ways to pay for infrastructure beyond relying on government funding.
“We welcome the focus on building an investment vehicle that can unlock large-scale, intergenerational infrastructure projects. Details matter.
“We need clear criteria for how the fund will prioritise infrastructure investment as well as how it can work alongside other forms of funding and financing. It is positive this fund is independent of day-to-day politics – and individual politicians.”
“At its most effective, a Future Fund could support long-term national strategies like the Infrastructure Priorities Programme. No matter the flavour of the government of the day, we must build public and investor confidence and begin to methodically deliver projects that lift New Zealand’s economic productivity and address our communities’ needs and resilience,” says Leggett.
Infrastructure New Zealand says its membership is made up by more than 150 organisations, including central and local government agencies, consultants, contractors, financiers, utilities and academics –- collectively employing around 150,000 people in infrastructure-related roles.
