Infrastructure: A billion-dollar plan to build resilience (NZ Herald)

The Government set aside $6 billion in last month’s Budget as part of a National Resilience Plan for strategic investments to “build back better” following the damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary floods.

This is in addition to the Government’s $71b infrastructure plan over the coming five years.

Damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods has been estimated by Treasury as ranging from $9b to $14.5b — second behind the Canterbury earthquakes in terms of damage from natural disasters New Zealand has faced. Of this, $5b to $7.5b of damage is expected to relate to infrastructure owned by the central and local governments. These costs relate to damage, without including all the immediate and ongoing support for communities and businesses.

The North Island weather events hit the country when the Budget 2023 process was already relatively advanced, requiring Minister for Cyclone Recovery and Minister of Finance Grant Robertson to reprioritise other initiatives in the draft Budget to make way for the response.

Robertson said while the investment will initially focus on building back better from the recent weather events, it will include future-proofing road, rail and local infrastructure wiped out by extreme weather, as well as telecommunications and electricity transmission infrastructure.

“Addressing vulnerabilities in our infrastructure systems to function during adverse conditions and quickly recover after an event is fundamental to the wellbeing of communities,” he said.

“I expect to continue to build on the plan over many years to reduce the severe infrastructure deficits that have held New Zealand back.”

The package would also deliver a new Crown infrastructure delivery agency, Rau Paenga, which could be engaged to assist agencies to deliver the projects in the National Resilience Plan at a cost of $100 million over five years.

This funding follows the $1.1b pre-Budget announcement to assist with repairs to basic infrastructure including road, rail and schools and providing flood resilience support.

Infrastructure funding in the announcement included:

• Roading: An additional $275m into the National Land Transport Fund to support the immediate response and recovery costs for state highways and local roads. This comes on top of the $250m allocated to fix roads in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.
• Rail: $200m to repair North Island railways, with repair work to rail tracks, sleepers, bridges and other structures on the North Auckland line, Palmerston North to Gisborne line, Auckland metropolitan network, North Island main trunk and East Coast main trunk.
• Schools: The more than 500 North Island schools damaged by the severe weather events would receive $116m for repairing and rebuilding, with additional funding for the potential redevelopment or relocation of schools. A further $700,000 would be invested over two years for Special Reasons Staffing funding, with $315,000 available immediately.
• Stopbanks: Regions affected by the recent North Island extreme weather events will be able to apply for funding from an initial $100m in Budget 2023 for local solutions to keep them safe from future floods. This includes raising stopbanks and shoring up lifelines that failed during the record rainfalls.