Govt investment plan revealed

Finance Minister Bill English. Photo / Sarah Ivey.

The Government expects to undertake $70 billion of capital expenditure over the next five years, Finance Minister Bill English says.

Net of depreciation, that represents investment of $33 billion and would increase the Crown's assets to just over a quarter of a trillion dollars - or about five times the size of the sharemarket.

"So there is no doubt the Government is on a pretty aggressive investment track," he said.

But not necessarily deliberately. He had had to dig this information out of the public sector. For the first time the Government has published an investment statement, a 100-page document aimed at illuminating the Crown's $223 billion balance sheet and investment flows.

"There is an opportunity cost to this capital," English said. The only place the money to acquire these assets can come from is taxpayers - past, present or future.

Half the Crown's assets ($111 billion) consist of "social assets" like roads and schools. Another $60 billion consists of financial assets held by ACC, the Cullen Fund, the Reserve Bank, the Earthquake Commission, the Debt Management Office and the Government Super Fund. The remaining $52 billion is classified as commercial assets and includes the state owned enterprises Air New Zealand and KiwiRail.

English said "we need to ... ensure that new investment goes into areas where it can provide the largest improvements in public services".

"It's about the public sector respecting public capital and using it effectively."