Dear John,
Well that was a wet week! I'd like to begin this Bulletin with a shout out to our emergency services and roading engineers for working tirelessly this week around the Hutt and the wider region. It just confirms the importance of the Melling/RiverLink work - a critical resilience project (as well as transport and safety) for then Hutt Valley.
It's been a massive last couple of weeks for me, particularly in my role as Minister for Infrastructure. We've announced Phase Two of our RMA Reform programme, changes to our Fast Track legislation, a new National Infrastructure Agency, and the development of our 30-Year National Infrastructure Plan. And there's more to come! You can read a bit more about these below.
Local Government: Did you see the PM's speech to Local Government New Zealand? He was pretty clear. "Ratepayers expect local government to do the basics and to do the basics brilliantly. Pick up the rubbish. Fix the pipes. Fill in potholes. And more generally, maintain local assets quickly, carefully, and cost effectively. But nothing in life is free, and ratepayers expect to pay for it in exchange. But what they don’t expect to pay for is the laundry-list of distractions and experiments that are plaguing council balance sheets across the country." I've been overwhelmed with feedback about the speech - nearly all of it positive. What did you think?
Fast-Track: On Sunday Shane Jones and I announced the breakdown of the 384 projects that have already applied for our new fast track, one-stop-shop regime. There's been massive interest. Housing and urban development projects make up 40 per cent, infrastructure projects are 24 per cent, renewable energy 18 per cent, primary industries projects, 8 per cent, quarrying 5 per cent and mining 5 per cent.
We also announced some sensible proposed changes to the law: The expert panels will now do the final consenting decisions (not Ministers), and only me as Minister for Infrastructure will refer projects to panels (not the troika of Me, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown). You can't please everyone and not everyone will like it, but I think the changes make sense. At the end of the day, the plain reality is this: we have an infrastructure deficit, a housing crisis, an energy shortage, and ambitious climate goals. We have to cut through the red and green tape to tackle these challenges. Fast track will make a big difference.
Energy: Speaking of energy, on Monday I joined the PM and Simeon Brown to announce a comprehensive package of changes to strengthen our energy security. Amongst other things, the government will act with urgency to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration and remove regulatory barriers to the construction of critically needed facilities to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a stop gap. Labour's oil and gas ban has threatened our security of supply. In our system, when the lakes are low, the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine, you need gas to keep the lights on. Right now we're importing tonnes and tonnes of coal to keep the lights on during winter - when gas has half the emissions. It's nuts.
We're also taking steps to make it much easier to get renewable generation into the system. We have abundant renewable resources but our planning regime makes it hard to take advantage of them - wind farms spend years in court and there's many projects where people just give up because it's all too hard. So amendments to the RMA and a whole lot of other changes are coming over the next year. Read more here.
Infrastructure: On Wednesday I spoke at the big Building Nations summit in Auckland and announced that work has started on a 30 Year National Infrastructure Plan for New Zealand. I am really excited about this as we need to plan for the future and try and take the politics out of infrastructure projects. The Infrastructure Commission is leading the work on the plan and it'll be published at the end of next year - it'll give us a needs analysis of what we need for the future, a list of priority projects and things we need to do to get more out of what we already have.
I also announced that we'll be establishing a new National Infrastructure Agency on 1 December this year, focused on unlocking access to more capital for infrastructure and strengthening the Government’s private finance and commercial capability. It will act as the Crown’s ‘shopfront’ to receive unsolicited proposals and to facilitate private sector investment in infrastructure, partner with agencies, and in some cases, local government on projects involving private finance, and administer government infrastructure funds. This is a big step forward. Check out my op-ed in the Herald on Wednesday for more.
Both the National Plan and the new agency were features of our infrastructure manifesto last year - and it's good to be delivering on them in government.
Paralympics: Finally this week, the Paralympics is getting underway. NZ has a team of 25 athletes across eight sports: Para athletics, Para badminton, Para canoe/va’a, Para cycling, Para equestrian, Para swimming, Shooting Para sport, and Para table tennis. They’ll be backed up by a team of about 40 support staff. I'll be there in Pairs for three days next week supporting the team and hosting a range of functions. It's the first time a NZ Sports Minister has been to the Paralympics (they only normally go to the Olympics).
Until next time, stay warm and dry.
Chris
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