Infrastructure for a Better Future

In this episode of our ongoing podcast series, Infrastructure for a Better Future, Te Waihanga Chief Executive Geoff Cooper speaks with Dr. Kerry Bobbins, Head of the Enabling Better Infrastructure Programme, convened by the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK). Kerry speaks about the challenges and best practice approaches to infrastructure planning as shown by different governments around the world.

In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, Peter Nunns, Acting General Manager – Strategy at Te Waihanga, speaks to Professor Jim Hall, who is the incoming President of the Institute of Civil Engineers in the United Kingdom. They discuss the Commission’s work on a National Infrastructure Plan for New Zealand. Hall emphasises the importance of strategic infrastructure planning, sharing best practices, and addressing political short-termism. He also discusses the challenges of forecasting long-term infrastructure needs, the impact of climate change on infrastructure, and the necessity of prioritising resilience and adaptation.

We use a number of funding mechanisms to raise most of the money we need to pay for our network infrastructure services. Good infrastructure pricing is needed for efficient and sustainable infrastructure investment.

Sometimes funding approaches are obvious and connected to how much we use, like monthly electricity bills and mobile phone bills. Other times they are far less visible, like fuel excise that’s included in retail petrol prices or rates and taxes, which pay for many of the infrastructure services that we depend on.

In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, Te Waihanga Director of Economics Peter Nunns speaks to PwC Executive Director Lynne Taylor about our recent research that looks at how pricing works in New Zealand’s four main network infrastructure sectors: land transport, water, telecommunications, and energy.

How does local government debt finance infrastructure? What are the options and what situations should they be used? In this podcast episode, Te Waihanga Senior Communications Advisor Shelly Biswell speaks to Principal Economist Graham Campbell about our recent research that looks into if local government is debt constrained. We unpack this research and look at how local government debt options have been used in the past. We also look at constraints to these options and what they could mean for future infrastructure projects.

In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, we look at the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, which aims to accelerate emissions reduction in the public sector. In particularly, we look at the work being undertaken by the Ministry of Education. As part of this programme, the Ministry has baselined its emissions across two and a half thousand schools and kura - no easy task. The work is just beginning, but it's already made a difference, through projects like the boiler replacement programme - which has a target to remove all coal boilers by the end of June 2025.

Rebecca Robertshawe, Director or Projects and Programmes - Infrastructure Delivery at Te Waihanga, spoke to Tracy Finlayson, Programme Director - Emission Reductions: Schools and Kura at Ministry of Education, about the challenges of conducting this work, the successes, and what the next steps are for the programme.

Population growth is one of the biggest drivers of infrastructure services. More people, means more transport connections, more housing and more jobs. Last year, Infrastructure Victoria published research titled Choosing Victoria’s future that sketches out five urban form scenarios and makes the case that when it comes to an urban footprint, we have a certain set of choices that we can make. These choices lead to different social, environmental and economic outcomes – from the dollars in your bank account, to the resting heart rate on your watch, to the amount that we collectively choose to spend on infrastructure services.

In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, Geoff Cooper, General Manager – Strategy at Te Waihanga speaks to Dr Jonathan Spear, Chief Executive at Infrastructure Victoria, about Infrastructure Victoria’s research.

We know that teams that reflect our communities can listen better, understand better and better engage with our communities, and together can build better more resilient

How are researchers currently seeking to understand the role that indigenous communities play in infrastructure development including post-disaster recovery? How has engineering teaching changed to consider these issues?

As part of our research into Māori engagement in infrastructure, Clare Sinnott, Writer and Researcher at Te Waihanga spoke to Dr Matthew Hughes, Senior Lecturer - Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at University of Canterbury about shared resilience and Māori communities.

Is our critical infrastructure vulnerable? What does New Zealand need to do to ensure that it has the planning capabilities to effectively deal with natural disasters and other events when they occur?

In this episode, Te Waihanga Senior Communications Advisor Simon Thomas speaks to Chair of the New Zealand Lifelines Council Roger Fairclough about the Council's recent Critical Infrastructure National Vulnerability Assessment. Roger spoke about how communities and the infrastructure sector can do more to prepare for events that impact on the delivery of infrastructure and how the interdependence of infrastructure supply means that planning is more crucial than ever.

Read the Critical Infrastructure National Vulnerability Assessment on the New Zealand Lifelines Council website: https://www.nzlifelines.org.nz/

Much of the infrastructure we build today will still be in use a century from now. Would we make better infrastructure decisions if we thought more about the long term?