Should New Zealand change public perception around PPPs?

WSP Director of Strategic Advisory, Grant Hodges gives us his take on the funding and financing of infrastructure in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Time stamp:
00:17 - What's the biggest contributor to our infrastructure deficit?
00:36 - How can we speed up the delivery of critical infrastructure?
00:56 - How can we make your recommendations happen?
01:26 - What are the benefits of using alternative funding mechanisms?
01:49 - How can we change public perception around PPPs?
02:33 - How has the PPP model changed in NZ?
02:52 - What has worked well overseas?
03:28 - What's one action that we can take today to set us up for success?

[@ooo-vc4xl]

The NZ infrastructure deficit has been caused by an unsustainable immigration rate run by successive governments over a long period without a proportionate increase in infrastructure building.
There are numerous examples of PPP failures around the world. Either the provider extracts monopoly profits or goes bust and has to be bailed out. Whilst the construction of Transmission Gully has had its problems the form of the PPP used where the private provider is paid to keep the motorway open carries the lowest risk to the government.
If NZ is going to build its way out of the infrastructure deficit (rather than perhaps slowing net inbound immigration substantially and building the infrastructure progressively at a cost the country can afford) then we are going to face additional taxes and/or user pays fees (the latter being a regressive tax).
Using private sector capital simply allows NZ to bring forward capital expenditure and keep it off the government books. The end user (taxpayer or infrastructure user) still bears the final cost and often at a higher cost (private sector credit vs central government bonds)
City deals face their own risks especially around transparency and accountability. Central government is unlikely to carry a comprehensive cost /benefit assessment across all cities and some cities will get more than they should had a comprehensive CBA been undertaken. Central government paying rates on central government land would be a far better place to start funding local government and would remove an inherent subsidy that shouldn't exist given NZ tries to have a broad based fair taxation system.