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New Zealand’s construction industry recorded an annual average growth rate of 6.6% between 2016-2019. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the industry contracted by 7.3% in real terms in 2020. The lockdown restrictions imposed by the government in the first half of the year and the resultant economic uncertainty and weakness severely impacted activity in the industry. The downturn was further exacerbated by delays in project implementation and the re-allocation of part of the government’s budget towards its management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The construction industry is expected to recover in 2021, growing by 5.5% in real terms. To support both the wider economy and the construction industry, the government announced plans to fund large shovel-ready infrastructure projects in March 2020. Accordingly, in early April 2020, the government annou
Todd Niall05:00, Apr 30 2021
LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, flanked by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Finance Minister Grant Robertson, announces a $12 billion infrastructure package (Video first published January 2020).
Billions of dollars of government-promoted transport projects in Auckland are legally untouchable, despite public submissions currently being sought on the city’s ten-year transport plan. The Auckland Transport-led Regional Transport Committee has been given legal advice that its ability to make changes to the proposed blueprint of spending, stops short of purely government-funded projects. These included the controversial Mill Road highway south of the city, and the Penlink connection onto the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, funded by the government’s New Zealand Upgrade Programme.
Political parties should temper their election bribery with some hard numbers on the benefits.
The big infrastructure spend-up is looking not so much a Covid rescue package, or even sensible economics, as an electoral lolly scramble.
The government’s $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade programme and earlier Provisional Growth Fund preceded the Covid crisis infrastructure spending supplementation of $3b, which probably won’t be the end of it.
Not to be outdone, the National Party is proposing a $31b package to be spread over 10 years. The bulk of that will be spent well north of the capital, but cheer up: there’s also its proposed $6b upgrade of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project, which