Dr Oliver Hartwich: NZ’s answer to infrastructure crisis hiding in plain sight

“We have no money, so we shall have to think.” That line is ascribed to New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford before he cracked the atom.

The country’s current Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon and his Finance Minister Nicola Willis face a rather different conundrum, albeit under the same constraint: How do you deliver modern infrastructure when Treasury’s 2025 long-term fiscal statement projects government debt reaching 200 per cent of GDP by 2065?

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Does the "Gross" in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) explain why NZ's sliding toward a State of Emergency?

Technical Economics Note: Does the "Gross" in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) explain why NZ's sliding toward a State of Emergency?

It's gradually dawning on Kiwis that the cost of fixing NZ's depleted infrastructure is fast becoming unmanageable. Whangarei hospital needs $1 billion spent and Dunedin hospital $3 billion to make them fit for purpose. The interisland ferry needs $3 billion if it is to be rail-enabled. Meanwhile Wellington, with its tunnel plans and broken water supply, is wanting billions to sort out those problems. Meanwhile Auckland has no second harbour crossing. The proposed highway from Auckland to Whangarei, promised in the coalition agreement and so exempt from cost-benefit, will gobble up much of the money that instead should have been spent on these other projects.

John MacDonald: You can't do infrastructure on the smell of an oily rag

Remember the days when we used to build things in New Zealand like harbour bridges and hydro schemes and tunnels through to places like Lyttelton?

These days we talk about building these kinds of things. But not a hell of a lot seems to actually get done.