It's also years away and, given all that has unfolded in this country of late, half of us don’t believe it will ever happen anyway.
Nevertheless, it's important. When you get a few reports into the sector, they never get the noise they really deserve.
There has been a report into the CRL, the City Rail Link that is a fortune over budget and a mile behind in terms of delivery. That report found we don’t have, and have never had, enough specialist workers to tackle such a project properly.
There was a report into the civil construction industry. They have little, if any, faith in our infrastructure to hold up in future weather events.
This all comes at a time when the Government are still considering what they call pumped hydro at Lake Onslow.
This has been going on for years. It was a Jacinda Ardern thought bubble and part of the Government's ongoing obsession with 100 percent renewable energy, even though we have reports telling us 100 percent isn't worth it because it's too expensive.
Can we do 97 percent? Yes. Can we do 100 percent? No.
Let us learn from Australia, where we find that their pumped hydro project, the so-called Snowy 2.0, has struck trouble. It was announced by Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 and due to be finished two years ago.
Of course, that hasn’t happened.
What has happened is the cost has doubled in the past six months. Malcolm said it would cost $2 billion. By May this year that had blown out to $6billion.
As of yesterday it's now $12 billion.
With Lake Onslow the Government, before spending $30million they didn’t need to into a report given they already had reports, told us theirs would cost $4 billion, which seemed absurd. But not as absurd as the $16 billion they now reckon it will cost.
And given the figures I have just given you, you know full well that $16 billion will not be the reality, or anywhere close to it.
Our trouble, and clearly Australia's as well, is the idea is one thing but the execution is another.
If the industry doesn’t have faith and we don’t have the workers, we might like to sort that before we go bumbling forward into the next gargantuan hole we don’t now how to dig, or finish.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings. - Where this article was sourced.
There was a report into the civil construction industry. They have little, if any, faith in our infrastructure to hold up in future weather events.
This all comes at a time when the Government are still considering what they call pumped hydro at Lake Onslow.
This has been going on for years. It was a Jacinda Ardern thought bubble and part of the Government's ongoing obsession with 100 percent renewable energy, even though we have reports telling us 100 percent isn't worth it because it's too expensive.
Can we do 97 percent? Yes. Can we do 100 percent? No.
Let us learn from Australia, where we find that their pumped hydro project, the so-called Snowy 2.0, has struck trouble. It was announced by Malcolm Turnbull in 2017 and due to be finished two years ago.
Of course, that hasn’t happened.
What has happened is the cost has doubled in the past six months. Malcolm said it would cost $2 billion. By May this year that had blown out to $6billion.
As of yesterday it's now $12 billion.
With Lake Onslow the Government, before spending $30million they didn’t need to into a report given they already had reports, told us theirs would cost $4 billion, which seemed absurd. But not as absurd as the $16 billion they now reckon it will cost.
And given the figures I have just given you, you know full well that $16 billion will not be the reality, or anywhere close to it.
Our trouble, and clearly Australia's as well, is the idea is one thing but the execution is another.
If the industry doesn’t have faith and we don’t have the workers, we might like to sort that before we go bumbling forward into the next gargantuan hole we don’t now how to dig, or finish.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings. - Where this article was sourced.
1 comment:
Ah Michael, what you are talking about here is planning.
We used to be good at this, just look at what NZ built in the 1950’s and 1960’s, quite a lot. We are still living of this well planned infrastructure. Now look at what we get. Half arsed govt driven decisions that make no sense. Money and time wasted on dunderhead ideas, promoted by dunderheads masquerading as politicians.
Come up with a plan, cost it, approve it, build it. Keep going until all the bits join up and work.
The other day I was in London and caught the Tube from Stratford (east London) to Heathrow. Trip all done in 50mins, clean, very efficient, cheap and fast.
How much did it cost? No idea, but I bet it was a lot less than our little toy train going around Auckland.
NZ needs a kick up the arse
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