RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop during the post-Cabinet press conference at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Chris Bishop isn’t under any illusions that there’s a silver bullet to fix New Zealand’s infrastructure woes.
“If it could be solved in one quarter, that’d be a great thing. But, it’s not going to happen,” the Infrastructure Minister told The Front Page.
Infrastructure is top of the agenda for the last months of 2024 - with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this week revealing his Government’s Q4 action plan. Its focus: getting things built.
Among the 43 objectives is the highly controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill, which it’s hoped will speed up the delivery of regional and national projects of significance.
Bishop is “very confident” the country won’t see a repeat of the “leaky homes saga” that plagued New Zealand for decades and one that we’re still feeling the ramifications of.
“This is not about sacrificing environmental protections or quality. It’s about cutting through the red tape to make it easy to do things.
“It’s not about the Building Act and it’s been well canvassed what happened there in the early 90s and then later on,” he said.
Opposition to the bill has cited the ability of corporations to bypass environmental protections. Advocacy groups have called it a “one-stop shop for undermining democracy.”
Bishop concedes that they can’t appease everybody. “But, we’ve made some sensible changes to the bill to try and mitigate some of the concerns that have been expressed.”
With the country’s road network straining under the weight of rapid population growth, the idea of toll roads has never been far out of any government’s reach.
“We’re looking at using tolls as an additional mechanism to help pay for the roads,” Bishop said, mirroring past ministers tasked with finding billions for major roading projects.
“They provide the revenue stream to help the financing of these roads, so we’ve made a commitment to do that as a coalition Government.
“Many New Zealanders will be familiar with toll roads overseas. Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and a bit further afield in Europe, for example.
“I think some people would probably argue when you pay $2.80 or whatever - it’s slightly frustrating and annoying to have to do that. There’s that basic administration that people don’t like. But, it’s pretty easy to do these days.”
Bishop’s open to building more bipartisan consensus on big infrastructure projects - as long as the work’s done up front and all the ducks are in a row.
“Let’s get a 30-year plan in place. Let’s get an infrastructure commission and a plan that the country can get behind.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more from the Infrastructure Minister about:
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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