The draft National Infrastructure Plan sets out key challenges facing New Zealand when it comes to building and maintaining infrastructure and the Infrastructure Commission's recommendations for how we can address these challenges.
The NZCTU welcomes the Commission's analysis of the efficiency deficit of New Zealand infrastructure spending - the poor value for money we have been getting from our infrastructure investment compared to most other OECD countries. We also welcome the Commission's work to highlight the importance of developing an infrastructure plan that recognises the long-term challenges posed by climate change and an ageing population.
This submission comments on select aspects of the draft plan. One point of particular concern for the NZCTU is the Commission's recommendation to transition network infrastructure to a fully user-pays model. User-pays models typically have regressive distributional effects. They also risk de-democratising infrastructure over the long run - rather than being a public service equally available to all, regardless of income, user-pays infrastructure becomes a market service that is dependent on one's ability to pay. The NZCTU therefore strongly opposes a wholesale turn to user-pays for network infrastructure.
