Down underKiwis plan for critical infrastructure investment

New Zealand’s finance minister Michael Cullen has indicated the government plans to make important infrastructure announcements before the election. He said that since Labor came to power in 1999 it had massively increased investment in roads, rail and power generation. “We will deliver more investment,” he said in a speech to the Council for Infrastructure’s “Building Nations” symposium in Auckland. “You will be hearing a lot more about infrastructure from the Labor-led government in the months ahead.” In an apparent reference to the National Party’s intentions, he said there was no way the government was going to let itself be outflanked on the infrastructure front.

Cullen used most of his speech to outline the government’s achievements, and he said New Zealand was at a critical crossroads. “Saying we need more infrastructure investment is not enough,” he told the symposium. “Of course we need more. It is the vision of what we are trying to achieve together that will really matter.” Cullen said the global economy was undergoing fundamental change. The price of food was rising and demand was unlikely to decrease in the long term. Oil prices were rising, which increased the cost of producing food, and climate change was threatening crops in a number of important regions. One of the most important questions New Zealand had to face was whether it had the will to invest in the research and technology to help farmers become world leaders in sustainability.