Political bickering over infrastructure is one factor costing the country dearly in sky-high build costs, the outgoing boss of New Zealand’s biggest infrastructure project says.
City Rail Link (CRL) chief executive Sean Sweeney criticised the “expensive” impact of politicians opting to frequently alter infrastructure priorities in an interview with Q+A.
It follows the Government’s decision to axe Auckland’s light rail project amid fresh plans to build over a dozen new motorways and highways across the country. The former Labour-led government also re-prioritised transport projects after taking office in 2018.
“The Link Alliance had to build a workforce to do this sort of work from scratch. Everything is set up as a one-off, and then it’s decommissioned,” Sweeney said.
“At the moment, when we do these projects, the country is paying an enormous premium because we’re doing them as a series of one-offs.”
He added: “I’ve sat in rooms where politicians have talked about the issue of an [infrastructure] pipeline.
“There’s a view that they have a right to do that; they’re elected on a mandate. I understand that view. What I don’t think politicians or the public understand is how expensive that is making building in New Zealand.”
He said an alternative approach would “require a commitment and a discipline to building in a certain way, and an agreed list of projects”
“It’s all doable, but political parties would then give up absolute freedom to pursue their agenda. And that’s going to be the rub, is what’s the issue of greater good here?”
Sweeney has previously called for a “reset” on infrastructure planning.
After managing the $5.5 billion CRL project over the past six years, the Kiwi infrastructure supremo announced he would take up a new job in Ireland in June.
The project supremo returned to New Zealand from Australia to take on the mega-project but said he was “not surprised” to be leaving once again.
Speaking to Q+A, Sweeney said the “one-off” nature of infrastructure projects created uncertainty for construction companies, which made it more expensive to build.
“I’m an engineer, I’m a builder, I believe that infrastructure is a good thing for the country.
“I’d like New Zealand to have a really big conversation about, ‘what do we want to build in the next 30 years and what sort of country do we want to be?’ because infrastructure is a way of taking it there.”
He continued: “If we have that debate in a big way, I think we’ll have a big list, and that would enable people like me and the construction industry to stay and move forward.”
Sweeney added: “We need to have that big conversation as a country, not do sort of a series of one-offs.
Michael Holland takes a trip deep under Auckland’s central city. (Source: Seven Sharp)
“Because at the moment, we’re doing a series of one-offs, and they stop and they start, as we’ve seen recently; that’s incredibly hard for the industry to approach them efficiently.
“We’ve lost what I’d call the tier-one construction industry in New Zealand in the last 20 years. It doesn’t exist anymore.
“We don’t have the capacity internally to do major projects, and that’s because the pipeline isn’t there for firms to staff and plan and work towards.”
He added: “Nearly all my tunnelling guys have gone – they have to, they want to work.”
‘Almost impossible to price’ – CRL boss on over-runs
An underground tunnel and stations were first proposed for under Auckland’s city centre in the 1920s, but has taken close to a century to come to fruition.
The mega-project began construction in 2016 and test trains are expected to begin running later this year. However, the tunnels won’t be open to passengers until sometime in 2026, according to the most recent estimated completion dates.
The CRL project, which has had several budget overruns, has involved extensive tunnelling with three new stations, two built underground in the Auckland city centre.
Sweeney confirmed the practical completion target for the project remained November 2025, at which the infrastructure would be given to KiwiRail and Auckland Transport.
On well-documented budget over-runs, Sweeney said it was “almost impossible to price” highly complex projects like CRL correctly, but added that there would’ve been pressure to keep the price down in the early stages of the programme – well over a decade ago.
“These projects are just incredibly complex to price. I’ve spoken to people in the industry, I’ve spoken to people in Australia, and they think projects of this size are actually almost impossible to price correctly, and that’s a challenge for the industry,” he said.
“When a construction firm prices one of these – if you can just imagine – they have to deconstruct the job into tens of thousands of elements. They have to make assumptions about productivity on every one of those elements.
“They’re assuming that people will work at a certain rate. People aren’t machines. They have good days, bad days. We have good weather; we have bad weather. We’ve had floods. We’ve had Covid. We’ve had supply chain problems.
“All those sorts of uncertainties impact the end time and cost. And, you know, I’d say, not glibly, we only have limited ability to foresee the future.”
The disruption caused to businesses in the city centre also needed to be addressed better in future projects, Sweeney said when asked.
“Future projects are going to have to accept — particularly if they’re in the CBD — there’s going to be disruption, and there needs to be a realistic way of addressing that disruption,” he said.
“I think there should be a fund. I think there should be an acceptance of the level of disruption.”
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
