The politics are on the route and scope. He can't even deliver the first 3.5km link in over 10 long years, the final route are pretty much irrelevant at this stage. If he were to build a hydro dam in the middle of no where, did he expect to find hydro engineers from the local villages?! Engineers relocate and travel for one-off project all the time, flying from Aus to NZ is short distance than interstate travel in larger countries. Interview full of excuses and blame blame blame.
@@alee065No. He should be the head of whatever non-political state entity is managing and exercising that 30yr infrastructure plan. This guy is way too good to be forced to play politics and deal with whatever weird games the roading lobby likes to pay.
He hit the nail on the head if there is no pipe line of works ahead of these private sector companies how can these companies retain the telent? They can not.
THe skill set these people have is in high demand globally… every country has an infrastructure deficit of one type or another…. Is just a fact that these skills are highly mobile and valuable…. The challenge is the pipeline…. And as ever that becomes a political squabble all too quickly….
There was going to be a light rail project for them to move on to starting as soon as CRL was finished; but then that had a bunch of scope creep until it became unworkable & didn't adress the initial reasons for it being built, so then that got scrapped.
@@paulmeersa7162lots of contracting companies tender for projects if they win they then advertise to get the skills required to complete the project. Ministry employment can work as Min of Energy did with dams. Do we have long term projects. Poer industry did work well. Max Bradford splitting the generation ,& retail was supposed to deliver price reduction...it hasn't has it..
The social contract is completely gone. Even in Europe they accept that you pay tax, put up with some noise and disruption, then get a rail line, a tunnel, a bridge, a park, some affordable housing, and society benefits collectively. Here we're on a 3 year election cycle where politicians appeal to a voter base who don't want public spending and whose idea of public goods has been killed completely. If we do commit to something, it's usually a motorway, and as Sean said, we've lost the domestic capacity to deliver anything on time and on budget. It's all been privatised or pushed overseas. Bring back the Ministry of Works.
One problem is they agree on sensible, necessary projects like for example Auckland Light Rail where the intial consensus and vision of the project becomes the victim of scope creep and political meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
Is there any evidence that the majority of NZ doesn't want public spending, or are you just making an anecdotal generalisation/over simplification? There are many factors at play here. Underinvestment of national infrastructure in the 80-00s, booming population growth, short-sighted government planning, rising costs via supply chain issues, lockdowns, inflation, fuel surcharges, and more.
@@BigBlueMan118 A couple times in last 12 months I’ve taken the AK train to Puhinui Station and then the bus out to domestic airport, works a treat. Why couldn’t we just put a light rail loop from Puhinui to the domestic and International terminals?
@@timhayward6833 Totally agree. Or a link from Manukau station to the airport. It has the least amount of disruption re buildings being bowled over to put tracks down and there is the room for heavy trains so can use freight if needed in the future.
@@timhayward6833 No I think you have it completely around the wrong way, the whole point of Auckland Light Rail was that the busiest bus corridors (Dominion Road to Queen Street; north over the Harbour; and westwards over to Westgate) are running out of capacity and would be more reliable and able to support much more growth with a light rail system. Dominion Road-Queen Street is the busiest and most attractive corridor so they prioritised that with a view to addressing the other corridors in future stages. Then the Airport link got attached onto the southern end of the Dominion Road line but it was still planned as surface light rail to address the capacity issues. But at that point they worked out the estimated travel time for Airport passengers from lower Queen Street would be very long, so they moved to a hybrid Metro model which made the project so expensive it became unworkable. You said yourself the bus link to the Airport works well, why spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a fairly small pool of people and a niche line that doesn't address the wider issues of bus capacity and wouldn't offer much to the transport network overall?
Fantastic interview thanks Katie. The non partisan Irish approach is very interesting. Telling comments that PPP’s in Australia have ended up loading costs back on Government anyway. Infrastructure is a decision as a society to have a shared investment in the future but 40 years of neo-liberalism has destroyed our ability to even have the debate let alone come to an agreement.
They also do things like Auckland Light Rail where the initial, sensible, agreed-upon vision of the project become the victim of scope creep and meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
yeah but who wouldn't already know PPP's are a very bad idea?? We have them here in NZ and only serve to line the pockets of private companies. Transmission Gully will be being paid for by NZ taxpayers for 25yrs. We have the money in this country no matter what people tell you. We spend over $20b a year on non means tested super. So 3 or 4 billion over 5 years for new ferries, or light rail, or whatever... isn't huge in the scheme of things
The construction of Britomart/Waitematā station and Aucklands eletrification went through similar politicisation and ridicule/NIMBYism to the CRL, but there's basically 0 discussion today over it being a waste of money, its pretty much a success story. The CRL will be a repeat but with a dramatically greater success story, but everyone is focusing on the cost, disruption, and scale instead. The 50k people/hr is always mentioned, but it's never put into perspective; spaghetti junction carries just over 200k people a DAY, the CRL meets that capacity in just 4-5 bloody hours without needing to tear up entire suburbs, while ALSO providing development opportunities around or even on the stations (like the Symphony Centre going directly ontop of Te Waihorotiu station). I can only hope that the transformation the CRL brings provides more proof of how beneficial game-changing projects like this will be, not just for what the projects themselves provide but how it allows for even more projects to bring changes NZ desperately needs.
@@stewatparkpark2933That old chestnut. The poor can’t afford it (so I won’t pay either). It’s the go to in the NIMBY playbook. Let’s build nothing so my rates don’t go up or I’m ok financially now so let’s pull the ladder up behind us.
@@stewatparkpark2933 If we weren't so bound to cars I'd be confident in saying that less people would be below, or near that line. A quick google search says cost of car ownership in NZ is up to $10k a year, not including the cost of the car!!!
@@stewatparkpark2933 The wealthiest, who have been allowed to accumulate vast wealth for so long due to a massively regressive and inequitable tax system (among other things). Are you even serious?
@@Zakary50 We are only bound to cars because the alternatives have been progressively removed (trams, inter-regional rail, etc.). We are all poorer for it, as you suggest.
Imagine Spending Billions of dollars on an Express Busway to and from the City and not having buses running on it during the night so lowest paid night workers don't have access to public transport to get home when they finish at 2am in the morning
I think the reason why is because unfortunately all buses don’t run during the late night, because the express bus routes don’t take most people directly home.
@@davidman001 an uber home from hibiscus coast station as an example is $50-100 cheaper than an uber home from the city at 4am after a 12 hour bar shift. even paying one person to drive backward and forward on the thing for a few hours isn't a big ask. The wages would be less than what AT suits spend for lunch at the viaduct on their champagne
@@davidman001 Ubering home from the stations would save some of us up to $400 a week... paying someone to drive the expressway for a few hours would be less than what the AT corporates spend on champagne at the viaduct for lunch. When i was on the coast when i would finish at 3am-4am my whole paycheck was going to ubering home, some of those ubers would cost $200 to get to the coast during peak 4am and after a 12 hour shift no one wants to sit in the cold for 3 hours waiting for a bus risking getting attacked by the drunks.
I remember back in like 2015 when the announced the plans to build a motorway into east Auckland they even showed the plans in the plaza etc. then in like 2021 they built a bridge demolished 100s of homes made new roads then bam it was all for buses. Auckland is backwards as hell most Aucklanders would sooner use their car to get around then a bus because a buss can’t take you exactly where you need.. if they had just added those multiple buss lanes as car lanes traffic issues would be less of an issue but they just keep adding more bus lanes. Totally useless imo
It's a good point about how you can't just suddenly scale up and down a workforce from one project to the next. To retain workers in NZ, especially the more experienced workers, they will need reliable sources of income to pay their mortgages and support their families... Which is very difficult to do with one-off projects. Instead, they will go to the places that can give assurance of work; and as soon as someone leaves NZ, bringing them back or training a new worker from scratch becomes much more difficult. You can end up losing entire sectors of industry. I've seen it happen in areas outside of construction.
Engineering project happen in random/remote places all the time. I mean if he were to build a hydro dam in the middle of no where, did he expect the find hydro engineers from the local villages? Travel and relocation is literally part of the job for most engineers in the field. Flying Aus to NZ is a shorter flight than the route between most US cities by comparison.
And these people are often well educated, skilled and well paid. They're not finishing this kind of project and going on the dole wondering when the next job might come along. No, they're off overseas to earn the salaries they are used to. Think Cook Strait ferries, harbour crossing even The Americas Cup. NZers just don't get how much money these things cost, especially as Sean pointed out unequivocally, we're doing infrastructure very piece-meal! Those in government should not be playing populist politics by delaying upgrading New Zealands seriously dilapidated infrastructure...think Wellington's water works.
@Xalta_Sailor are you stupid it costs us so much more to hire private profit driven company's to build infrastructure than a government department dedicated to building at cost
probably since the government dept. built infrastructure was absolutely trash and was below the standards. happens a lot with communistic background countries.
As soon as the government outsourced infrastructure projects to outside private corporations the wheels fell of the wagon. The same thing has happened in Australia. Costs escalated dramatically, training programs ceased with apprentices becoming an endangered species and delays seemed to be written into every new contract for the inevitable price adjustments. The Australian inland rail network and Snowy 2.0 are shining examples of how not to do infrastructure.
Australia has a ton of successful projects delivered recently however. Snowy 2.0 was a real brain fart by Malcom Turnbull and he was barely in govt for a term in between the other two useless LNP leaders
NZ has a massive infrastructure defecit caused by the neoliberal obsession with low taxes & small government. This means we have some of the lowest taxes in the OECD but have a disintegrating water & sewage system, non existent public transport, terrible electricity grid, collapsing health system and crumbling education system. Is this who we want to be?
We did have these problems when the Ministry of Works was achieving projects like this on time and on budget. The MoW was a really good thing and because it was a good thing to have, we sold it off to overseas companies who now charge us for the work that they do. The Benmore dam was built in 7 years and the MoW had to build a village for the workers, construct a coffer dam to divert the river, and then construct the Benmore dam, and then dismantle the coffer dam, and then deconstruct the village. It was a sad and tragic day that the Ministry of Works was destroyed.
NZ is an insignificant South Pacific island nation with a tiny population and very few natural resources . NZ has no way to generate the wealth to pay for high standard infrastructure .
@@stewatparkpark2933 Rubbish. How much profit do the four major banks make each year out of us? Why do we need foreign owned banks, why can't we all bank with Govt owned banks?
Bring back Ministry of Works and have bipartisan agreement on certain projects. That would create ongoing work, a regular infrastructure investment and better quality facilities for the public.
So true. The MOW had the knowledge, staff and collective thrust to motivate support from the Government to get 'jobs' done. It was a sad day when they disappeared.
You haven't listened to what Sean was saying. MOW was incredibly inefficient and cost us a fortune, government departments need to work with private enterprise.
@@robertfullarton3020 They call it privatisation, its about profit first for themselves and their shareholders. and how much they can squeeze out of the government, work is secondary
@@takirid the idea behind privatisation is that it incentivises competition and reduces the administrative load and publicly funded resource that a body like the ministry of works would require. This bloke spelled out about 10 times in this video that the issue is that there is no pipeline of work, and therefore no industry and so every job comes with a premium. NZ's politicised, inefficient, and ineffective approach to long term infrastructure planning is the root cause here, not privatisation...
Hopefully NZ politician were listening to this and find a way to agree across the board things they won’t make political football with….. dreams are free I guess
Check out Sydneys M8 motorway all underground As well as a second Tunnel crossing under the harbour for cars The new Metro driver less trains and good percentage of that is tunnels Auckland is at least 40 years behind Sydney
Yea that won't happen. 20 years ago no one cares about infrastructure 20 years later here we are nothing has changed. I don't see changes anytime soon.
the govt should have a plan ahead for 100 years. not 50 years. especially among the leaders of the world. this would set a pathway to future political and economical projects within the global leaders.
If Auckland wants to be one of the top cities in the world then it must have reliable and sufficient public transport. I just came back from Europe, and it’s a relief knowing that you can land in a place and navigate it without having to get an expensive hired car.
Do people remember The Ministry of Works which did all the major infrastructure for decades and did it well and took no profit but trained countless trades and professionals?
The training received at the MOW was second to none across the board of all skillsets. See how modern projects do not train at all, but just want to pick up the phone and dial-up a workforce. And then everybody wonders what is going wrong, even Mr. "I'm so important I have to abandon this project and go on to my next project urgently" has no inclination to train anybody for anything in the future. FFS give me a break! There is your problem, and the folded arms. He is not a project anything. I worked on the largest project NZL has ever seen in terms of dollars, and one of the very first statements at interview time was [not a question but a statement] was there are twenty four hours in a day and there are seven days in a week. Then Mr. Bill Fleming sat back in his chair and took a good long hard look at the expression on your face. Thank you Bill for all you did for us, a great New Zealander and a Maori too!!!
I worked in the MOW building dams and surveying in the early '80s. It was a very stable environment each year. Perhaps we should look for a new solution like that now.
a nz ministry of works is no longer possible because of government department hierarchy where no one can ever make a mistake without notching down the gravy-train ladder, so no one can ever actually do anything for fear of making a mistake, so nothing gets done. So infrastructure must be built by private contractors who make the same number of mistakes but hide them as cost overruns.
the recent canceling of the Cook Straight ferry projects a good example of what hes talking about , this constant Lab vs Nat road vs rail lunacy has to end, NZ needs both
@@glengrant3884 under his leadership the project has looked more stable and made more significant progress than what has been made in the previous 10 years before he came in.
The interview everyone needs to hear. Especially journalist and government critics talking about construction without ever sitting in a work site before.
So good to hear from someone who understands what he’s talking about. If only the nation and its leaders would listen. We need to invest heavily in long term infrastructure development 50 years ago. Failing that we need to do it now
Sean Sweeney is 100% correct. I have work in both the construction and public service and what really causes waste and inefficiencies is the political invovlement and our electoral cycle. successive governments are short term thinkers. only wanting to do whats barely achievable by the next election so they can't be called failures. Compared to China where they have 50 year infrastructure plans.....and they achieve them. Even Australia has 30 year plans....she'll be right attitude doesn't work in modern industries and is what holds us back.
I got back from China on Friday night. Staying in a northern city that doesn't rate in the top 20 in the country for population, and the region has been described as China's rust belt. But nonetheless they have built light rail, an entire metro system, extended to the airport since I was there pre-covid, high speed rail links, multi lane inner city freeways with attendant "scooterways", dramatic high rise architecture, some of it much more interesting than most Kiwi efforts, new shopping, office and entertainment developments in an area the size of South Auckland, and a lot of substantial tree planting to create green arcades, on top of which you'll see more street cleaning, gutter clearing and general rubbish uplifting in a day than you would see in Auckland in five years or more. Makes Auckland look like Palmerston North.
Changing routes and directions can hamper progress yes. But when he can't deliver just 3.5km of rail line at the start of the route in over 10 years of work - this if failure on another level altogether. Dude is full of excused in his mismanagement of the project, that interview C level exec charm and persuasion for ya, don't fall for it.
Luxon could really learn a thing or two from this guy about how to actually answer a question instead of deflecting - really great interview from both parties involved
Very good interview, what he was saying really made sense. I wonder how much cheaper Transmission Gully & Waterview Tunnel & CRL would have been if the same crew had just moved on to the next project.
Not entirely the same project requirements though. Bulk cut fill earthworks, road tunnel and rail tunnel. But it's a valid point and reinforces what Sean is saying...
To be fair, this happens in many other western countries too. London's Elizabeth line (Crossrail) was years late and billions over budget, but they did eventually deliver a good railway. The UK's HS2 rail line is running so far over budget that the second phase been cancelled/indefinitely delayed before construction really even got started and it's now just a line between London and Birmingham. California's High Speed rail line is reported to already be US$100 billion(!!) over budget.
One problem is they agree on sensible, necessary projects like for example Auckland Light Rail where the intial consensus and vision of the project become the victim of scope creep and political meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
Try get these clowns to think long term. Got ferries coming then we haven’t got ferries coming. Got road works happening 10 million cones 40 ppl checking on the cones 3 guys in suits talking and two guys one leaning on a shovel and the other on a broom.
Scope creep and direction change may be a factor, but they are just on where the route should go and end. He can't even deliver the first 3.5km of the initial line in over a decade of work is another level of failure on this dude.
The current Government and its obsession with cutting taxes, cutting Public Servants and cutting public spending epitomise the short-termist, small-minded thinking that blights our country. This a particular problem given that not only do we need to be bringing up the standard of our infrastructure so it is on a par with the rest of the world, but building resilience into our system of infrastructure so it can withstand the adverse weather climate change and natural disasters will throw at us.
@paulmeersa7162 Given how wide ranging the job cuts were probably indirectly quite a few. MBIE and Ministry of Transport staff would have been working in identifying areas where infrastructure needs improvement, and preparing policy papers and proposals to lobby politicians for their improvement. Plus tax cuts that take money out of the Government's coffers, providing less money for infrastructure projects. Staff at MHUD and LINZ also play important roles in infrastructure,
The great public work projects in New Zealand were all built by the government's construction arm, the ministry of works. The MoW was one of Roger Douglas's first targets.
One project that did not take forever is the rail electrification of the auckland railways EVEN through kiwirail only existing since 2010 and they started it way before this. It only took a decade from 2003-ish to 2013 to rebuild and double track railway lines, electrify it, and build electric trains. It is incredible how fast they built it as most of it was finished in 2012/13, the waiting on the 31st of July 2015 was due to the trains taking forever to get built.
Hold on a minute. The rebuilding of the suburban rail network is an ongoing exercise causing significant disruption and expense as the newly replaced rails are having to be ripped up again because nobody bothered to investigate the condition of the earthworks beneath them. What a botch. A flawed success story at best. At least they don't have 10,000 orange road cones along the tracks.That's something to be thankful for I suppose.
I thoroughly get what this man is saying. It is reasonable and rational. The question was repeated at him several times over, in one form or other, even after he had answered it. I ditched my TV when NZ went Digital, and if this treatment of issues is representative of TV today, I certainly made the choice back then. What big project in NZ has gone on budget? gone on timetable? Transmission Gully? Manapouri power station? Clyde Dam? etc etc - his answer is right and validated by so many precedents. Oh, if only we had intelligent treatment of issues and news . . .
These companies lowball deliberately to win the contract. Only do fixed price contracts that are legally binding and have penalties for time delays that are not act of God
Good interview - Sean Sweeney sets out why major infrastructure projects are difficult to cost and go over budget, with the lack of a programme of projects to keep a skilled workforce in being one key factor. This applies in Great Britain equally. He said the target handover date to the client is November 2025, so he has seen most of the work completed, all the difficult stages probably. He is leaving for Ireland now to manage the Dublin Metro North construction because they need an experienced CEO in post before the start of major work. (Incidentally debate and argument in Ireland about the nature and form of the Dublin Metro project was running 10-15 years ago - so it has taken a long time to get to decisions and construction too.)
This has really opened my eyes to what our country needs... like the Engineer suggested.. we need a bipartisan agreement happening like Ireland - I hope our politicians can stand up for what the country needs.
Imagine the post war generation who built the dams, steel mill ,oil refinery, aluminium smelter,harbour bridge,power stations ,and countless manufacturing businesses for the future generations to prosper from .Well here we are the future generation !! Half the country cannot afford a first home, half have less than a 1000nzd in savings, another half were not even born here!! We have little manufacturing,everytime a project is proposed greenies iwi and others get upset!! What a let down to our elders!!
Excellent interview. Very clear points to take. Away. Agree with the comments suggesting a ministry of works. Not just good for large infrastructure but a great training ground.
This is a very honest take from someone who has among the best visibilty on why his project was so expensive and who (because he's leaving) has no political incentive to scapegoat things like covid and inflation (although those obviously also play a role).
The western motorway link with a massive tunnel was built on time and is excellent. The fibre internet broadband rollout was built on time and is excellent. We can build infrastructure. Where we run into problems is with things like trains and trams, because of the politics involved.
Her first question after having why contracts increase in cost being "When can people commute?" Speaks to the problem. It's just about either cost or time with no understanding of logistics. The next question being "Why has it taken so long?" demonstrates the publics lack of realisation of how long infrastructure projects through governments can take. A more honest pricing model of how much these projects will cost instead of going to whoever can produce the lowest numbers than week before exploding the costs out over the project and some patience for affordable public transport is what is needed. PT is the solution to removing conjection on the roads long term and finding a sustainable way for people to commute but this will be a multi year project.
My father was in a shed in the bush drawing up plans ( beside a dam) as one of the think big dams was being built. MINISTRY OF WORKS architect section 1960's. They where in the bush so the press could not see that the plans where not completed. My dad was just out of university.
I would regard the Government's attitude to funding of major infrastructure projects is irresponsible. They're always quibbling over cost and then backing out of agreed support or butchering the project to save money and then the project is not quite fit for purpose, e.g Kiwi Rail Cook Strait ferry and terminal upgrade, costal shipping and the Dunedin Hospital. NZ is not progressive, infrastructure is lagging and replacement or maintenance to existing infrastructure not undertaken. Politicians ony plan for 3 year election cycles.
As an Australian that was bewildering. Cancelling such an important project over such a small amount of money. You've decided that the country is not worth uniting
@@Secretlyanothername Yes, totally irresponsible, the decisions made now will still be a problem for NZ into the next decade. Very short sighted governance and quite sad really.
I had Dubai metro experience for 23 overground stations before moving to NZ in 2011, CRL did not offer me a position after submitting my application for twice and found me again for interview in 2022 and then did not offer me a position again. Really nothing for me. 😅 we completed 23 overground and 6 underground stations in 2 years.🎉
There's actually very good analysis on YT on what makes digging such tunnels under an inhabited city and through volcanic rock so challenging, and why it is actually a masterpiece.
This has been a problem that goes back years. In 1995 a tunnel was built down Queen street to house a few electrical cables. A few metres extra in diameter could have been a rail tunnel what a waste.
We need to put a lot more of our highways underground, we continue to go up and over or around terrain when we should just go through it. As a kiwi living in Norway the amount of tunnelling done here is mind boggling.
Check out Sydneys M8 motorway all underground As well as a second Tunnel crossing under the harbour for cars The new Metro driver less trains and good percentage of that is tunnels Auckland is at least 40 years behind Sydney
@@paulmeersa7162 even before they started making large amount of money from oil and gas, which didn’t really kick in until the mid 90’s tunnelling was standard practise. Almost all new roaring infrastructure is tolled. The tolls normally last about 10 years, if the road is more popular they are paid off quicker.
10:34 - I'm having trouble finding stats on the size of the Irish infrastructure deficit, esp. as a % of GDP. I suspect that Ireland is responding to different issues and is in a deeper infrastructure hole than NZ but I can't confirm.
Feels like so much has gone into this and it’s not really going to move the needle in terms of liveability in AKL. Wish NZ could figure out a way to make a 2nd ‘big’ city so the population gets spread out more.
I think our biggest issue is politicians and their egos. They all come in with big “new” ideas, and they want to shelve everything else, to make their own mark on the country’s history. But at what cost?
Next project. Redo our entire rail network to the international standard gauge. Britomart with three platforms is a joke. How many does Wellington have? Eight? Greatly increase the rail in Auckland. Trains are still the best way to rapidly more lots of people. That there is no passenger rail to Auckland's North Shore or an old suburb like Howick is absurd.
@@timtowers7997 None of them a city underground rail tunnel though, competing in an environment where Sydney+Melbourne+Brisbane+Perth are also building large rail tunnel projects at the same time competing for resources in a high-inflation backdrop.
Politician wants a legacy project, like light rail or underground railway. Pressures bureaucrats to submit insanely low budget as the actual cost would never be approved on a cost benefit basis. Project starts and then progresses to the point of no return, then the leadership team leaves for another job, new team arrives and submits actual budget to public. Unless of course we are talking about the light rail which was canned once its budget blew out by about 9000% and there was a change of government (no that number is not made up)
In the case of the light rail though, they intially agree on sensible options and vision of the project, but then the project becomes the victim of scope creep and political meddling by bureaucrats, (in this case turning it into a half-assed Metro) to the point that it is unconstructable.
Incisive interview. It’s important that senior Govt ministers - and more importantly CEO’s and Senior Managers of Councils have infrastructure engineering awareness, knowledge and abilities. Too many don’t, one wonders how they got those jobs.
Basic problem: Big business likes things to be expensive . NZ needs a MoW to run infrastructure planning to suit the country. So much was thrown away in the 80s. Difficult to get it back. PPPs are a way to give to the private sector.
We need a vision for our country that’s longer than three years. This short term start-stop, like te pukenga - what a waste of money! Our politicians are failing us because there’s no vision for NZ in 50 or 100 years. And just trying to eradicate public debt in a fractional reserve banking system is just lowering our quality of life as New Zealanders to no real end goal. We’re being failed as a population and we just keep trudging along going : “she’ll be right, mate…” 🙄
The complexities & logistics incorporated to undertake such a project is & can be daunting. If you can get the small things right, the big parts will or should fall into place. But Good Leadership, Co Ordination, Safety & Skill. Will achieve a satisfactory result at best. It's not easy, anyone that say's it is, hasn't done it.
He should be employing people to fo the job, and what they will pay to get the job done, not just contract out to contractors so you do not have to soak up all their problems. Contractors costs spiral out of control.
if you think this is in trouble the Subway system in Taipei Taiwan filled up with water after a typhoon stopped over the city for 3 days ( I am not joking )
Back in the day we had the Ministry of Works for this kind of thing. In a small nation like ours, we need something like this. Going to the market for competitive quotes doesn't work when we can't even staff one heavy tunnelling project team.
I'm leaving NZ to live in Osaka, Japan. Here we have had underground subways for 100 years. Things happen. Decisions are made. Not every single person has to be asked about what they think about it. NZ is a poor country, with very little expertise in anything. But everyone thinks they know best. In terms of subways stations, in Osaka they are mostly just modest entrances, not the grand and expensive buildings Auckland has planned. I honestly wish the best for Auckland and New Zealand, but I want to live in a country of people who contribute to the collective, not half the population claiming benefits. By the way, my first job was at the Ministry of Works as a drafting cadet. There were jokes about glide time and government workers, but it was a hell of a lot more organised and less greedy than what is happening now.
The budget changed because that is how councils get things built. They lie about the costs to get a project going and then 'discover' along the way it will cost much more. Had they told anyone the actual cost and true level of disruption then nobody would have started this wasteful exercise.
My dad and myself are both bricklayers My father built homes as a byproduct to big government enterprises such as wairaki geothermal and glenbrook steel mill etc. Today I build homes for low wage generally unproductive migrants to make New Zealand appear to be booming when in fact our productivity has tanked.Our best go getter enterprising years have been now stifled by greens iwi and other self interested parties. Relying on building houses as an indicator of our economy is silly and unsustainable
The productivity of this country especially in the public sector has dropped so much in recent years even before COVID it has become a joke. These days it's all about "work life balance", "wellbeing", "mental health", "flexible working". No one talks about accountability and productivity anymore. Some of the people I work with, when they work from home, you can never get hold of them.
This is the guy who manages the most expensive subway project in the world - a few times more in per km! There are contingencies and uncertainties but that’s a part of any large project.
Overall maybe a congress is required to have a NZ 30 year plan of investment for infrastructure and grants/growth that parliament parties shouldn’t be able to change it but work with it like in Asia
Someone please listen to this guy
The interviewer on the other hand - absolutely insufferable.
The politics are on the route and scope. He can't even deliver the first 3.5km link in over 10 long years, the final route are pretty much irrelevant at this stage. If he were to build a hydro dam in the middle of no where, did he expect to find hydro engineers from the local villages?! Engineers relocate and travel for one-off project all the time, flying from Aus to NZ is short distance than interstate travel in larger countries. Interview full of excuses and blame blame blame.
this guys knows his sh*T........he should be the transport minister
@@alee065 I could defiantly get behind that
@@alee065No. He should be the head of whatever non-political state entity is managing and exercising that 30yr infrastructure plan. This guy is way too good to be forced to play politics and deal with whatever weird games the roading lobby likes to pay.
He hit the nail on the head if there is no pipe line of works ahead of these private sector companies how can these companies retain the telent? They can not.
All the more reason to bring back the Ministry of Works & Development, a constant stream of work.
THe skill set these people have is in high demand globally… every country has an infrastructure deficit of one type or another…. Is just a fact that these skills are highly mobile and valuable…. The challenge is the pipeline…. And as ever that becomes a political squabble all too quickly….
There was going to be a light rail project for them to move on to starting as soon as CRL was finished; but then that had a bunch of scope creep until it became unworkable & didn't adress the initial reasons for it being built, so then that got scrapped.
@@paulmeersa7162lots of contracting companies tender for projects if they win they then advertise to get the skills required to complete the project. Ministry employment can work as Min of Energy did with dams. Do we have long term projects. Poer industry did work well. Max Bradford splitting the generation ,& retail was supposed to deliver price reduction...it hasn't has it..
Yep you do know that the government have been scrapping everything.
Since there is no work available naturally workers move overseas.
The social contract is completely gone. Even in Europe they accept that you pay tax, put up with some noise and disruption, then get a rail line, a tunnel, a bridge, a park, some affordable housing, and society benefits collectively. Here we're on a 3 year election cycle where politicians appeal to a voter base who don't want public spending and whose idea of public goods has been killed completely. If we do commit to something, it's usually a motorway, and as Sean said, we've lost the domestic capacity to deliver anything on time and on budget. It's all been privatised or pushed overseas. Bring back the Ministry of Works.
One problem is they agree on sensible, necessary projects like for example Auckland Light Rail where the intial consensus and vision of the project becomes the victim of scope creep and political meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
Is there any evidence that the majority of NZ doesn't want public spending, or are you just making an anecdotal generalisation/over simplification?
There are many factors at play here. Underinvestment of national infrastructure in the 80-00s, booming population growth, short-sighted government planning, rising costs via supply chain issues, lockdowns, inflation, fuel surcharges, and more.
@@BigBlueMan118 A couple times in last 12 months I’ve taken the AK train to Puhinui Station and then the bus out to domestic airport, works a treat. Why couldn’t we just put a light rail loop from Puhinui to the domestic and International terminals?
@@timhayward6833 Totally agree. Or a link from Manukau station to the airport. It has the least amount of disruption re buildings being bowled over to put tracks down and there is the room for heavy trains so can use freight if needed in the future.
@@timhayward6833 No I think you have it completely around the wrong way, the whole point of Auckland Light Rail was that the busiest bus corridors (Dominion Road to Queen Street; north over the Harbour; and westwards over to Westgate) are running out of capacity and would be more reliable and able to support much more growth with a light rail system.
Dominion Road-Queen Street is the busiest and most attractive corridor so they prioritised that with a view to addressing the other corridors in future stages. Then the Airport link got attached onto the southern end of the Dominion Road line but it was still planned as surface light rail to address the capacity issues. But at that point they worked out the estimated travel time for Airport passengers from lower Queen Street would be very long, so they moved to a hybrid Metro model which made the project so expensive it became unworkable.
You said yourself the bus link to the Airport works well, why spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a fairly small pool of people and a niche line that doesn't address the wider issues of bus capacity and wouldn't offer much to the transport network overall?
This guy is on the money 100%. It’s refreshing to hear someone with knowledge and experience talk on these issues instead of clueless politicians
Fantastic interview thanks Katie. The non partisan Irish approach is very interesting. Telling comments that PPP’s in Australia have ended up loading costs back on Government anyway. Infrastructure is a decision as a society to have a shared investment in the future but 40 years of neo-liberalism has destroyed our ability to even have the debate let alone come to an agreement.
They also do things like Auckland Light Rail where the initial, sensible, agreed-upon vision of the project become the victim of scope creep and meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
yeah but who wouldn't already know PPP's are a very bad idea?? We have them here in NZ and only serve to line the pockets of private companies. Transmission Gully will be being paid for by NZ taxpayers for 25yrs.
We have the money in this country no matter what people tell you. We spend over $20b a year on non means tested super. So 3 or 4 billion over 5 years for new ferries, or light rail, or whatever... isn't huge in the scheme of things
NZ had half the population of today when the Auckland Harbor Bridge was made. We couldn't make that today.
Add to that the Karopiro dam .
That was built during a man power shortage .
The 1nd world war .
The Americans built the initial two lane AHB in '59. Then, the Nippon ClipOn was added.
@@keithhayman8959
Look at your post.
WW2 or WW1 ?
Woops i ment ww2 .@@traditionalfood367
The tunnel costs the same as 13 harbour bridges.
The construction of Britomart/Waitematā station and Aucklands eletrification went through similar politicisation and ridicule/NIMBYism to the CRL, but there's basically 0 discussion today over it being a waste of money, its pretty much a success story.
The CRL will be a repeat but with a dramatically greater success story, but everyone is focusing on the cost, disruption, and scale instead. The 50k people/hr is always mentioned, but it's never put into perspective; spaghetti junction carries just over 200k people a DAY, the CRL meets that capacity in just 4-5 bloody hours without needing to tear up entire suburbs, while ALSO providing development opportunities around or even on the stations (like the Symphony Centre going directly ontop of Te Waihorotiu station).
I can only hope that the transformation the CRL brings provides more proof of how beneficial game-changing projects like this will be, not just for what the projects themselves provide but how it allows for even more projects to bring changes NZ desperately needs.
Kiwis really dont loke change....
New Zealand in general is very shortsighted when it comes to infrastructure. I would rather have higher taxes and good infrastructure than not.
Most people in NZ live near or below the poverty line . Who do you think can afford to pay more tax ?
@@stewatparkpark2933That old chestnut. The poor can’t afford it (so I won’t pay either). It’s the go to in the NIMBY playbook. Let’s build nothing so my rates don’t go up or I’m ok financially now so let’s pull the ladder up behind us.
@@stewatparkpark2933 If we weren't so bound to cars I'd be confident in saying that less people would be below, or near that line. A quick google search says cost of car ownership in NZ is up to $10k a year, not including the cost of the car!!!
@@stewatparkpark2933 The wealthiest, who have been allowed to accumulate vast wealth for so long due to a massively regressive and inequitable tax system (among other things). Are you even serious?
@@Zakary50 We are only bound to cars because the alternatives have been progressively removed (trams, inter-regional rail, etc.). We are all poorer for it, as you suggest.
Imagine Spending Billions of dollars on an Express Busway to and from the City and not having buses running on it during the night so lowest paid night workers don't have access to public transport to get home when they finish at 2am in the morning
😂 fkwit after fkwit running the show
I think the reason why is because unfortunately all buses don’t run during the late night, because the express bus routes don’t take most people directly home.
@@davidman001 an uber home from hibiscus coast station as an example is $50-100 cheaper than an uber home from the city at 4am after a 12 hour bar shift. even paying one person to drive backward and forward on the thing for a few hours isn't a big ask. The wages would be less than what AT suits spend for lunch at the viaduct on their champagne
@@davidman001 Ubering home from the stations would save some of us up to $400 a week... paying someone to drive the expressway for a few hours would be less than what the AT corporates spend on champagne at the viaduct for lunch. When i was on the coast when i would finish at 3am-4am my whole paycheck was going to ubering home, some of those ubers would cost $200 to get to the coast during peak 4am and after a 12 hour shift no one wants to sit in the cold for 3 hours waiting for a bus risking getting attacked by the drunks.
I remember back in like 2015 when the announced the plans to build a motorway into east Auckland they even showed the plans in the plaza etc. then in like 2021 they built a bridge demolished 100s of homes made new roads then bam it was all for buses. Auckland is backwards as hell most Aucklanders would sooner use their car to get around then a bus because a buss can’t take you exactly where you need.. if they had just added those multiple buss lanes as car lanes traffic issues would be less of an issue but they just keep adding more bus lanes. Totally useless imo
It's a good point about how you can't just suddenly scale up and down a workforce from one project to the next. To retain workers in NZ, especially the more experienced workers, they will need reliable sources of income to pay their mortgages and support their families... Which is very difficult to do with one-off projects. Instead, they will go to the places that can give assurance of work; and as soon as someone leaves NZ, bringing them back or training a new worker from scratch becomes much more difficult. You can end up losing entire sectors of industry. I've seen it happen in areas outside of construction.
Engineering project happen in random/remote places all the time. I mean if he were to build a hydro dam in the middle of no where, did he expect the find hydro engineers from the local villages? Travel and relocation is literally part of the job for most engineers in the field. Flying Aus to NZ is a shorter flight than the route between most US cities by comparison.
And these people are often well educated, skilled and well paid. They're not finishing this kind of project and going on the dole wondering when the next job might come along. No, they're off overseas to earn the salaries they are used to. Think Cook Strait ferries, harbour crossing even The Americas Cup. NZers just don't get how much money these things cost, especially as Sean pointed out unequivocally, we're doing infrastructure very piece-meal! Those in government should not be playing populist politics by delaying upgrading New Zealands seriously dilapidated infrastructure...think Wellington's water works.
NZ used to have a public works dept to build infrastructure ; but nah ,privatise everything!! Like housing !!
Ya, more government employees is the answer. Glad I moved, mate….
@Xalta_Sailor are you stupid it costs us so much more to hire private profit driven company's to build infrastructure than a government department dedicated to building at cost
We have the same issue in Australia. These PPP just enrich the private sector.
probably since the government dept. built infrastructure was absolutely trash and was below the standards. happens a lot with communistic background countries.
Top interview! Please expand on this - all kiwis need to see and understand how and why we are going backwards on our NZ infrastructure.
As soon as the government outsourced infrastructure projects to outside private corporations the wheels fell of the wagon. The same thing has happened in Australia. Costs escalated dramatically, training programs ceased with apprentices becoming an endangered species and delays seemed to be written into every new contract for the inevitable price adjustments. The Australian inland rail network and Snowy 2.0 are shining examples of how not to do infrastructure.
Australia has a ton of successful projects delivered recently however.
Snowy 2.0 was a real brain fart by Malcom Turnbull and he was barely in govt for a term in between the other two useless LNP leaders
NZ has a massive infrastructure defecit caused by the neoliberal obsession with low taxes & small government. This means we have some of the lowest taxes in the OECD but have a disintegrating water & sewage system, non existent public transport, terrible electricity grid, collapsing health system and crumbling education system. Is this who we want to be?
We did have these problems when the Ministry of Works was achieving projects like this on time and on budget. The MoW was a really good thing and because it was a good thing to have, we sold it off to overseas companies who now charge us for the work that they do. The Benmore dam was built in 7 years and the MoW had to build a village for the workers, construct a coffer dam to divert the river, and then construct the Benmore dam, and then dismantle the coffer dam, and then deconstruct the village. It was a sad and tragic day that the Ministry of Works was destroyed.
NZ is an insignificant South Pacific island nation with a tiny population and very few natural resources . NZ has no way to generate the wealth to pay for high standard infrastructure .
Your comments are ideologically driven absolute rubbish, and merit no substantive response.
@@stewatparkpark2933 Rubbish. How much profit do the four major banks make each year out of us? Why do we need foreign owned banks, why can't we all bank with Govt owned banks?
@@paulmeersa7162 Careful what you wish for .
Bring back Ministry of Works and have bipartisan agreement on certain projects. That would create ongoing work, a regular infrastructure investment and better quality facilities for the public.
Good interview the guest was aloud to answer properly good one katie
agree we need Katie to interview more the rest are annoying buttinskys
Allowed. The education system needs improving. But you are right that NZ media is just about shouting at the guest and not letting them speak
he wasn't political/partisan, as he said, I'm just an engineer
Yes a top job by the interviewer
Sounds like we need to bring back the ministry of works
So true. The MOW had the knowledge, staff and collective thrust to motivate support from the Government to get 'jobs' done. It was a sad day when they disappeared.
You haven't listened to what Sean was saying. MOW was incredibly inefficient and cost us a fortune, government departments need to work with private enterprise.
@@robertfullarton3020 They call it privatisation, its about profit first for themselves and their shareholders. and how much they can squeeze out of the government, work is secondary
Yup! We'd get an immediate 15% discount on anything built because the Govt would tax itself now would it... :):)
@@takirid the idea behind privatisation is that it incentivises competition and reduces the administrative load and publicly funded resource that a body like the ministry of works would require. This bloke spelled out about 10 times in this video that the issue is that there is no pipeline of work, and therefore no industry and so every job comes with a premium.
NZ's politicised, inefficient, and ineffective approach to long term infrastructure planning is the root cause here, not privatisation...
Hopefully NZ politician were listening to this and find a way to agree across the board things they won’t make political football with….. dreams are free I guess
Unlikely
are you talking to the National? will never happen
They're too retarded
NZ needs to be thinking to 50 years out instead of 3 years, yes things will change with time,
Check out Sydneys M8 motorway all underground
As well as a second Tunnel crossing under the harbour for cars
The new Metro driver less trains and good percentage of that is tunnels
Auckland is at least 40 years behind Sydney
I don't they they plan even 3 years ahead.
Yea that won't happen. 20 years ago no one cares about infrastructure 20 years later here we are nothing has changed. I don't see changes anytime soon.
@@KanyeKetchupnot to mention Auckland is going backwards while Aus steams ahead.
the govt should have a plan ahead for 100 years. not 50 years. especially among the leaders of the world. this would set a pathway to future political and economical projects within the global leaders.
If Auckland wants to be one of the top cities in the world then it must have reliable and sufficient public transport. I just came back from Europe, and it’s a relief knowing that you can land in a place and navigate it without having to get an expensive hired car.
....and sit in a traffic jam all day long!
Do people remember The Ministry of Works which did all the major infrastructure for decades and did it well and took no profit but trained countless trades and professionals?
The training received at the MOW was second to none across the board of all skillsets. See how modern projects do not train at all, but just want to pick up the phone and dial-up a workforce. And then everybody wonders what is going wrong, even Mr. "I'm so important I have to abandon this project and go on to my next project urgently" has no inclination to train anybody for anything in the future. FFS give me a break! There is your problem, and the folded arms. He is not a project anything.
I worked on the largest project NZL has ever seen in terms of dollars, and one of the very first statements at interview time was [not a question but a statement] was there are twenty four hours in a day and there are seven days in a week. Then Mr. Bill Fleming sat back in his chair and took a good long hard look at the expression on your face. Thank you Bill for all you did for us, a great New Zealander and a Maori too!!!
I worked in the MOW building dams and surveying in the early '80s. It was a very stable environment each year. Perhaps we should look for a new solution like that now.
Excellent interview, 100% agree with Sean, development of infrastructure needs to be independent from the 3yr election cycle
Bring back the Ministry of Works and Development, they can do Council stuff too while they are about it.
a nz ministry of works is no longer possible because of government department hierarchy where no one can ever make a mistake without notching down the gravy-train ladder, so no one can ever actually do anything for fear of making a mistake, so nothing gets done. So infrastructure must be built by private contractors who make the same number of mistakes but hide them as cost overruns.
Worked as an apprentice at the MOW (aka ministry of perks)early 80-84 in Auckland, did nothing for 4 years,
@@Leftystrat Give me the money back you lazy shit.
Someone that’s talking some sense 👍🏽
the recent canceling of the Cook Straight ferry projects a good example of what hes talking about , this constant Lab vs Nat road vs rail lunacy has to end, NZ needs both
True but the idea of 2 super ferry is stupid. We need new ships and new terminals but 2 is not enough, no redundancy.
He's a brilliant man.
Yeah !!got a shitload
of money as c.e.o.!!
and did nothing!!😂🤑🤮
@@glengrant3884 under his leadership the project has looked more stable and made more significant progress than what has been made in the previous 10 years before he came in.
The interview everyone needs to hear. Especially journalist and government critics talking about construction without ever sitting in a work site before.
So good to hear from someone who understands what he’s talking about. If only the nation and its leaders would listen. We need to invest heavily in long term infrastructure development 50 years ago. Failing that we need to do it now
The way we currently do major infrastructure is akin to building an entire housing development by planning and budgeting for one house at a time.
this was actually a really good listen, I feel for what they are going through.
Someone with some sense who knows what the hell they're talking about, instead of 'puffed up' polly's with 2 minutes under a hard hat!
Sean Sweeney is 100% correct. I have work in both the construction and public service and what really causes waste and inefficiencies is the political invovlement and our electoral cycle. successive governments are short term thinkers. only wanting to do whats barely achievable by the next election so they can't be called failures. Compared to China where they have 50 year infrastructure plans.....and they achieve them. Even Australia has 30 year plans....she'll be right attitude doesn't work in modern industries and is what holds us back.
I got back from China on Friday night. Staying in a northern city that doesn't rate in the top 20 in the country for population, and the region has been described as China's rust belt. But nonetheless they have built light rail, an entire metro system, extended to the airport since I was there pre-covid, high speed rail links, multi lane inner city freeways with attendant "scooterways", dramatic high rise architecture, some of it much more interesting than most Kiwi efforts, new shopping, office and entertainment developments in an area the size of South Auckland, and a lot of substantial tree planting to create green arcades, on top of which you'll see more street cleaning, gutter clearing and general rubbish uplifting in a day than you would see in Auckland in five years or more. Makes Auckland look like Palmerston North.
Changing routes and directions can hamper progress yes. But when he can't deliver just 3.5km of rail line at the start of the route in over 10 years of work - this if failure on another level altogether. Dude is full of excused in his mismanagement of the project, that interview C level exec charm and persuasion for ya, don't fall for it.
Luxon could really learn a thing or two from this guy about how to actually answer a question instead of deflecting - really great interview from both parties involved
Very good interview, what he was saying really made sense. I wonder how much cheaper Transmission Gully & Waterview Tunnel & CRL would have been if the same crew had just moved on to the next project.
Not entirely the same project requirements though. Bulk cut fill earthworks, road tunnel and rail tunnel. But it's a valid point and reinforces what Sean is saying...
To be fair, this happens in many other western countries too. London's Elizabeth line (Crossrail) was years late and billions over budget, but they did eventually deliver a good railway. The UK's HS2 rail line is running so far over budget that the second phase been cancelled/indefinitely delayed before construction really even got started and it's now just a line between London and Birmingham. California's High Speed rail line is reported to already be US$100 billion(!!) over budget.
Reestablish the Ministry of Works to design and manage large infrastructure projects.
We need the right infrastructure in the right places and need to think long term!
One problem is they agree on sensible, necessary projects like for example Auckland Light Rail where the intial consensus and vision of the project become the victim of scope creep and political meddling, to the point that it is unconstructable.
@@BigBlueMan118 would be nice if politics didn't get in the way and we could all just work together
Try get these clowns to think long term. Got ferries coming then we haven’t got ferries coming. Got road works happening 10 million cones 40 ppl checking on the cones 3 guys in suits talking and two guys one leaning on a shovel and the other on a broom.
@@annahouston9528 politicians couldnt build an outhouse
Scope creep and direction change may be a factor, but they are just on where the route should go and end. He can't even deliver the first 3.5km of the initial line in over a decade of work is another level of failure on this dude.
I’d love to have a beer with this man, I could listen to him all day. He’s absolutely correct
The current Government and its obsession with cutting taxes, cutting Public Servants and cutting public spending epitomise the short-termist, small-minded thinking that blights our country. This a particular problem given that not only do we need to be bringing up the standard of our infrastructure so it is on a par with the rest of the world, but building resilience into our system of infrastructure so it can withstand the adverse weather climate change and natural disasters will throw at us.
And how many of the people laid off were actually doing just that...?
@paulmeersa7162 Given how wide ranging the job cuts were probably indirectly quite a few. MBIE and Ministry of Transport staff would have been working in identifying areas where infrastructure needs improvement, and preparing policy papers and proposals to lobby politicians for their improvement. Plus tax cuts that take money out of the Government's coffers, providing less money for infrastructure projects. Staff at MHUD and LINZ also play important roles in infrastructure,
I@@BenCharminEats
Current government isn't to blame IMO. They're doing what they were voted for. Blame labour for blowing a majority vote opportunity.
Current government isn't to blame IMO. They're doing what they were voted for. Blame labour for blowing a majority vote opportunity.
The great public work projects in New Zealand were all built by the government's construction arm, the ministry of works. The MoW was one of Roger Douglas's first targets.
Sean is incredibly articulate! Absolutely nailed it. Same issue in Australia with politicised infrastructure - we need a pipeline in each state.
One project that did not take forever is the rail electrification of the auckland railways EVEN through kiwirail only existing since 2010 and they started it way before this. It only took a decade from 2003-ish to 2013 to rebuild and double track railway lines, electrify it, and build electric trains. It is incredible how fast they built it as most of it was finished in 2012/13, the waiting on the 31st of July 2015 was due to the trains taking forever to get built.
Hold on a minute. The rebuilding of the suburban rail network is an ongoing exercise causing significant disruption and expense as the newly replaced rails are having to be ripped up again because nobody bothered to investigate the condition of the earthworks beneath them. What a botch. A flawed success story at best. At least they don't have 10,000 orange road cones along the tracks.That's something to be thankful for I suppose.
I thoroughly get what this man is saying. It is reasonable and rational. The question was repeated at him several times over, in one form or other, even after he had answered it. I ditched my TV when NZ went Digital, and if this treatment of issues is representative of TV today, I certainly made the choice back then. What big project in NZ has gone on budget? gone on timetable? Transmission Gully? Manapouri power station? Clyde Dam? etc etc - his answer is right and validated by so many precedents. Oh, if only we had intelligent treatment of issues and news . . .
Loved this interview!
These companies lowball deliberately to win the contract. Only do fixed price contracts that are legally binding and have penalties for time delays that are not act of God
No one will finish a project that will bankrupt them.
Good interview - Sean Sweeney sets out why major infrastructure projects are difficult to cost and go over budget, with the lack of a programme of projects to keep a skilled workforce in being one key factor. This applies in Great Britain equally. He said the target handover date to the client is November 2025, so he has seen most of the work completed, all the difficult stages probably. He is leaving for Ireland now to manage the Dublin Metro North construction because they need an experienced CEO in post before the start of major work. (Incidentally debate and argument in Ireland about the nature and form of the Dublin Metro project was running 10-15 years ago - so it has taken a long time to get to decisions and construction too.)
Protect this man at all cost! He knows what he is talking about. Bring back Trade Schools!
This has really opened my eyes to what our country needs... like the Engineer suggested.. we need a bipartisan agreement happening like Ireland - I hope our politicians can stand up for what the country needs.
Imagine the post war generation who built the dams, steel mill ,oil refinery, aluminium smelter,harbour bridge,power stations ,and countless manufacturing businesses for the future generations to prosper from .Well here we are the future generation !! Half the country cannot afford a first home, half have less than a 1000nzd in savings, another half were not even born here!! We have little manufacturing,everytime a project is proposed greenies iwi and others get upset!! What a let down to our elders!!
Excellent interview. Very clear points to take. Away. Agree with the comments suggesting a ministry of works. Not just good for large infrastructure but a great training ground.
This is a very honest take from someone who has among the best visibilty on why his project was so expensive and who (because he's leaving) has no political incentive to scapegoat things like covid and inflation (although those obviously also play a role).
The western motorway link with a massive tunnel was built on time and is excellent. The fibre internet broadband rollout was built on time and is excellent. We can build infrastructure. Where we run into problems is with things like trains and trams, because of the politics involved.
Broadband rollout? Lol. You have clearly never lived outside a major centre in NZ
Her first question after having why contracts increase in cost being "When can people commute?" Speaks to the problem. It's just about either cost or time with no understanding of logistics. The next question being "Why has it taken so long?" demonstrates the publics lack of realisation of how long infrastructure projects through governments can take. A more honest pricing model of how much these projects will cost instead of going to whoever can produce the lowest numbers than week before exploding the costs out over the project and some patience for affordable public transport is what is needed. PT is the solution to removing conjection on the roads long term and finding a sustainable way for people to commute but this will be a multi year project.
My father was in a shed in the bush drawing up plans ( beside a dam) as one of the think big dams was being built. MINISTRY OF WORKS architect section 1960's. They where in the bush so the press could not see that the plans where not completed. My dad was just out of university.
Yeah , we need to think about pile line and long term time lines and strategy.
Great piece of reporting, Nice stuff
I would regard the Government's attitude to funding of major infrastructure projects is irresponsible. They're always quibbling over cost and then backing out of agreed support or butchering the project to save money and then the project is not quite fit for purpose, e.g Kiwi Rail Cook Strait ferry and terminal upgrade, costal shipping and the Dunedin Hospital. NZ is not progressive, infrastructure is lagging and replacement or maintenance to existing infrastructure not undertaken. Politicians ony plan for 3 year election cycles.
As an Australian that was bewildering. Cancelling such an important project over such a small amount of money. You've decided that the country is not worth uniting
@@Secretlyanothername
She just wanted to show she was tough and had the power to cancel a “labour” project.
@@Secretlyanothername Yes, totally irresponsible, the decisions made now will still be a problem for NZ into the next decade. Very short sighted governance and quite sad really.
“Infrastructure is the underpinning health and wealth of the nation” He’s spot on here.
Great report
I had Dubai metro experience for 23 overground stations before moving to NZ in 2011, CRL did not offer me a position after submitting my application for twice and found me again for interview in 2022 and then did not offer me a position again. Really nothing for me. 😅 we completed 23 overground and 6 underground stations in 2 years.🎉
NZ. You obviously didnt know the right people. This country is not a meritocracy
you are quite right
Amazing interview Katie, great questions.
There's actually very good analysis on YT on what makes digging such tunnels under an inhabited city and through volcanic rock so challenging, and why it is actually a masterpiece.
Fantastic interview and insights
Great interveiw!
This has been a problem that goes back years. In 1995 a tunnel was built down Queen street to house a few electrical cables. A few metres extra in diameter could have been a rail tunnel what a waste.
We need to put a lot more of our highways underground, we continue to go up and over or around terrain when we should just go through it. As a kiwi living in Norway the amount of tunnelling done here is mind boggling.
As is the revenue from oil & gas.
Check out Sydneys M8 motorway all underground
As well as a second Tunnel crossing under the harbour for cars
The new Metro driver less trains and good percentage of that is tunnels
Auckland is at least 40 years behind Sydney
@@paulmeersa7162 even before they started making large amount of money from oil and gas, which didn’t really kick in until the mid 90’s tunnelling was standard practise.
Almost all new roaring infrastructure is tolled. The tolls normally last about 10 years, if the road is more popular they are paid off quicker.
@@MasterChief37 Big mountains in Norway!
@@paulmeersa7162 fun fact the mountains in New Zealand are on average higher than Norway’s.
My departed engineer Dad said that the Manipori project engineer team annual pay total was less than that of the later CEO.
10:34 - I'm having trouble finding stats on the size of the Irish infrastructure deficit, esp. as a % of GDP.
I suspect that Ireland is responding to different issues and is in a deeper infrastructure hole than NZ but I can't confirm.
Well done. Well spoken. Thank you
Politicians aren’t watching this … they know better 🤦♂️
Who hires politicians & buys into their rhetoric?
@@hivetech4903 no one hires them, their elected
@daemonicust ... obviously I meant the people choose politicians 🙄
Btw its "they're"
Feels like so much has gone into this and it’s not really going to move the needle in terms of liveability in AKL. Wish NZ could figure out a way to make a 2nd ‘big’ city so the population gets spread out more.
I think our biggest issue is politicians and their egos. They all come in with big “new” ideas, and they want to shelve everything else, to make their own mark on the country’s history. But at what cost?
Next project. Redo our entire rail network to the international standard gauge.
Britomart with three platforms is a joke. How many does Wellington have? Eight?
Greatly increase the rail in Auckland. Trains are still the best way to rapidly more lots of people.
That there is no passenger rail to Auckland's North Shore or an old suburb like Howick is absurd.
This guy is spot on. He is very clearly blaming bloody the neoliberal privitization of government departments
Singapore sorted their public infrastructure decades ago
Yeah but much smarter than us
It did not used to be like this. No excuses, it is just to maximise profit lines. This pressure is not excuse.
For decades the MOW successfully built a large number of, and huge diversity of civil engineering projects.
@@timtowers7997 public service motive versus maximum profit motive
@@timtowers7997 None of them a city underground rail tunnel though, competing in an environment where Sydney+Melbourne+Brisbane+Perth are also building large rail tunnel projects at the same time competing for resources in a high-inflation backdrop.
Politician wants a legacy project, like light rail or underground railway. Pressures bureaucrats to submit insanely low budget as the actual cost would never be approved on a cost benefit basis. Project starts and then progresses to the point of no return, then the leadership team leaves for another job, new team arrives and submits actual budget to public. Unless of course we are talking about the light rail which was canned once its budget blew out by about 9000% and there was a change of government (no that number is not made up)
In the case of the light rail though, they intially agree on sensible options and vision of the project, but then the project becomes the victim of scope creep and political meddling by bureaucrats, (in this case turning it into a half-assed Metro) to the point that it is unconstructable.
Send this video to all the politicians in the country...
First honest interviewee I've seen for as long as I can remember
Incisive interview. It’s important that senior Govt ministers - and more importantly CEO’s and Senior Managers of Councils have infrastructure engineering awareness, knowledge and abilities. Too many don’t, one wonders how they got those jobs.
That’s why everyone should jump on board with the fast track approvals bill
How do you manage the disruption - Albert st was closed for many yrs - it’s your way of management of the site
Well said Sean - Regards Warren Lancaster
Good work Sean looking forward to sending you a selfie when its finished
Basic problem: Big business likes things to be expensive . NZ needs a MoW to run infrastructure planning to suit the country. So much was thrown away in the 80s. Difficult to get it back. PPPs are a way to give to the private sector.
We need a vision for our country that’s longer than three years. This short term start-stop, like te pukenga - what a waste of money! Our politicians are failing us because there’s no vision for NZ in 50 or 100 years. And just trying to eradicate public debt in a fractional reserve banking system is just lowering our quality of life as New Zealanders to no real end goal. We’re being failed as a population and we just keep trudging along going : “she’ll be right, mate…” 🙄
The complexities & logistics incorporated to undertake such a project is & can be daunting. If you can get the small things right, the big parts will or should fall into place. But Good Leadership, Co Ordination, Safety & Skill. Will achieve a satisfactory result at best. It's not easy, anyone that say's it is, hasn't done it.
That is why we had a Ministry of Works.
Why budget, if you cannot do it right? In NZ, where is the responsibility?
Infrastructure in NZ has always been behind and slow for a very long time
We have a saying in Construction, "He is a heck of a nice guy"...
He should be employing people to fo the job, and what they will pay to get the job done, not just contract out to contractors so you do not have to soak up all their problems.
Contractors costs spiral out of control.
if you think this is in trouble the Subway system in Taipei Taiwan filled up with water after a typhoon stopped over the city for 3 days ( I am not joking )
sydney road tunnels were built by a japanese company for free and ahead of time. they just took the tolls for 20 years as payment.
Interesting interview 👍👍
Back in the day we had the Ministry of Works for this kind of thing. In a small nation like ours, we need something like this. Going to the market for competitive quotes doesn't work when we can't even staff one heavy tunnelling project team.
I'm leaving NZ to live in Osaka, Japan. Here we have had underground subways for 100 years. Things happen. Decisions are made. Not every single person has to be asked about what they think about it. NZ is a poor country, with very little expertise in anything. But everyone thinks they know best. In terms of subways stations, in Osaka they are mostly just modest entrances, not the grand and expensive buildings Auckland has planned. I honestly wish the best for Auckland and New Zealand, but I want to live in a country of people who contribute to the collective, not half the population claiming benefits. By the way, my first job was at the Ministry of Works as a drafting cadet. There were jokes about glide time and government workers, but it was a hell of a lot more organised and less greedy than what is happening now.
we're rich in gold medals : maybe we can melt them down.
I'm amazed with all the speed bumps and potholes
The budget changed because that is how councils get things built. They lie about the costs to get a project going and then 'discover' along the way it will cost much more. Had they told anyone the actual cost and true level of disruption then nobody would have started this wasteful exercise.
My dad and myself are both bricklayers My father built homes as a byproduct to big government enterprises such as wairaki geothermal and glenbrook steel mill etc. Today I build homes for low wage generally unproductive migrants to make New Zealand appear to be booming when in fact our productivity has tanked.Our best go getter enterprising years have been now stifled by greens iwi and other self interested parties. Relying on building houses as an indicator of our economy is silly and unsustainable
The productivity of this country especially in the public sector has dropped so much in recent years even before COVID it has become a joke. These days it's all about "work life balance", "wellbeing", "mental health", "flexible working". No one talks about accountability and productivity anymore. Some of the people I work with, when they work from home, you can never get hold of them.
This is the guy who manages the most expensive subway project in the world - a few times more in per km! There are contingencies and uncertainties but that’s a part of any large project.
Overall maybe a congress is required to have a NZ 30 year plan of investment for infrastructure and grants/growth that parliament parties shouldn’t be able to change it but work with it like in Asia