Let’s build for that future, not a repetition of the past, writes public and private sector director Rob Campbell.
Opinion: I’ve been involved in a few discussions recently about “infrastructure”. It is the current fashion. Our infrastructure is bad, we are too short term, we must build more infrastructure, we must build better infrastructure. We love infrastructure and wish we had more. If we had bought more infrastructure we would not be punished as we are being.
Most of these discussions reduce infrastructure issues to concrete, cranes, consultants and capital.
I think we have the debate wrong. There are many questions to be settled before we can make a reasonable decision about how much infrastructure, of what kind, where, and how fast we should build. The 'concrete, cranes, consultants and capital' chorus does not much care about these. 'More, big, now' is an adequate answer for them. It suits them from the planners to the painters of infrastructure.
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The rest of us should think. If we were not so intent on being a bigger economy, a more populous economy, if “growth” were not so important clearly the infrastructure we need would be different in kind and scale.
If we were more concerned to combat than to adapt to or mitigate the global climate crisis it would be different again.
If equity in the fairness sense were more important than equity in the stock market sense it would be different.
It goes much further. Maybe we should be asking whether building more and larger hospitals is the most effective and efficient and equitable way to spend marginal dollars to advance healthy futures. Maybe more universities, institutes and schools with more buildings is not the most effective, efficient and equitable way to deliver education any more.
By way of analogy, maybe its not the “slash” that is the problem but plantation forestry cropping itself. Heaven forbid, but maybe building more prisons is an expensive trap not a solution.
Are our ways of even thinking about these things adequate? What if our conceptions of what is a “cost” and a “benefit” are not neutral but deeply flawed (Spoiler alert! They are).
These sorts of questions should not be answered by those with a vested interest in the 'concrete, cranes, consultants and capital' response.
We currently have to do a lot of repair jobs, across many sectors, arising both from current destruction and from past neglect. But let’s not confuse that with letting the bigger, tough, but ultimately defining issues stand aside.
The rest of us should not be pushed into their solutions and left with the bills. By and large these interests delivered the infrastructure we have now. They planned, engineered, built and maintained the roads, buildings, bridges and connections that we have now.
If only we give them more money to do more it will all be okay? You reckon?
I think we have to think a lot harder before we accept their mantra. What are the models and the purposes we really want for our society? Let’s build for that future, not a repetition of the past.
Obviously we currently have to do a lot of repair jobs, across many sectors, arising both from current destruction and from past neglect. But let’s not confuse that with letting the bigger, tough, but ultimately defining issues stand aside. They start with more 'why', 'what for', 'what if' than the 'build, baby, build' brigade would like.
It struck me as a bit unedifying at a Te Waihanga discussion this week hearing contributions about more infrastructure building on the national scale. The flood waters have barely receded, the slips not yet stabilised, the death and loss still being identified from our most recent reminder about our vulnerability.
In healthcare at Te Whatu Ora is the everyday reminder of how ill health falls unevenly and harshly from well outside the hospital doors and the pressure that puts on health and other care professionals, to say nothing of the whanau affected.
And at AUT University our problems stem not from inadequacy of buildings but from the schools and communities deprived of adequate resources. This does not mean that physical infrastructure does not matter, it does.
But the social and environmental “infrastructure” – how and why we do what we do and who benefits – is where we should be starting.
Not assuming we can build our way out of crises we ourselves built in the first place.
Rob Campbell is chancellor of AUT University and chairs health agency Te Whatu Ora, the Environmental Protection Authority, NZ Rural Land Co and renewable energy centre Ake Ake. He is a former chair of SkyCity Casino, Tourism Holdings, WEL Networks and Summerset. He trained as an economist and originally worked as a unionist before eventually becoming a professional director.
