Infrastructure for a Better Future
Welcome to the Te Waihanga ‘Infrastructure for a Better Future’ podcast – a series where we talk to experts both from here and overseas about the infrastructure challenges we are facing. The episodes focus on the key areas of Rautaki Hanganga o Aotearoa – New Zealand’s Infrastructure Strategy. Find out more about the strategy at strategy.tewaihanga.govt.nz
Episodes
5 days ago
Unpacking local government debt
5 days ago
5 days ago
How does local government debt finance infrastructure? What are the options and what situations should they be used? In this podcast episode, Te Waihanga Senior Communications Advisor Shelly Biswell speaks to Principal Economist Graham Campbell about our recent research that looks into if local government is debt constrained. We unpack this research and look at how local government debt options have been used in the past. We also look at constraints to these options and what they could mean for future infrastructure projects.
Monday Feb 12, 2024
Baselining the carbon impacts of education
Monday Feb 12, 2024
Monday Feb 12, 2024
In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, we look at the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, which aims to accelerate emissions reduction in the public sector. In particularly, we look at the work being undertaken by the Ministry of Education. As part of this programme, the Ministry has baselined its emissions across two and a half thousand schools and kura - no easy task. The work is just beginning, but it's already made a difference, through projects like the boiler replacement programme - which has a target to remove all coal boilers by the end of June 2025.
Rebecca Robertshawe, Director or Projects and Programmes - Infrastructure Delivery at Te Waihanga, spoke to Tracy Finlayson, Programme Director - Emission Reductions: Schools and Kura at Ministry of Education, about the challenges of conducting this work, the successes, and what the next steps are for the programme.
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Across the ditch: Choosing Victoria's future
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Population growth is one of the biggest drivers of infrastructure services. More people, means more transport connections, more housing and more jobs. Last year, Infrastructure Victoria published research titled Choosing Victoria’s future that sketches out five urban form scenarios and makes the case that when it comes to an urban footprint, we have a certain set of choices that we can make. These choices lead to different social, environmental and economic outcomes – from the dollars in your bank account, to the resting heart rate on your watch, to the amount that we collectively choose to spend on infrastructure services.
In this episode of Infrastructure for a better future, Geoff Cooper, General Manager – Strategy at Te Waihanga speaks to Dr Jonathan Spear, Chief Executive at Infrastructure Victoria, about Infrastructure Victoria’s research.
Friday Nov 03, 2023
Bridging the diversity gap
Friday Nov 03, 2023
Friday Nov 03, 2023
We know that teams that reflect our communities can listen better, understand better and better engage with our communities, and together can build better more resilientinfrastructure. So why is it that only 11% of infrastructure workers identify as women? In this episode, Te Waihanga Director - Leadership Nicola Richardson speaks to Stacey Mendonça, MNZM, Senior Quantity Surveyor and Estimator at Newcrest Construction, and Co-founder of the National Association of Women in Construction, about how we bridge the diversity gap and encourage more women into the construction sector.
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Shared resilience and Māori communities
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
How are researchers currently seeking to understand the role that indigenous communities play in infrastructure development including post-disaster recovery? How has engineering teaching changed to consider these issues?
As part of our research into Māori engagement in infrastructure, Clare Sinnott, Writer and Researcher at Te Waihanga spoke to Dr Matthew Hughes, Senior Lecturer - Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at University of Canterbury about shared resilience and Māori communities.
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Is our critical infrastructure vulnerable?
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Thursday Sep 14, 2023
Is our critical infrastructure vulnerable? What does New Zealand need to do to ensure that it has the planning capabilities to effectively deal with natural disasters and other events when they occur?
In this episode, Te Waihanga Senior Communications Advisor Simon Thomas speaks to Chair of the New Zealand Lifelines Council Roger Fairclough about the Council's recent Critical Infrastructure National Vulnerability Assessment. Roger spoke about how communities and the infrastructure sector can do more to prepare for events that impact on the delivery of infrastructure and how the interdependence of infrastructure supply means that planning is more crucial than ever.
Read the Critical Infrastructure National Vulnerability Assessment on the New Zealand Lifelines Council website: https://www.nzlifelines.org.nz/
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Taking the long view – a tale of two bridges
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Much of the infrastructure we build today will still be in use a century from now. Would we make better infrastructure decisions if we thought more about the long term?
Wednesday Aug 09, 2023
Planning for an uncertain future
Wednesday Aug 09, 2023
Wednesday Aug 09, 2023
The future is uncertain. While we can do our best to predict what will happen next month, next year, or fifty years from now, we can’t be sure what will actually happen.
In this episode, Te Waihanga Senior Economist Nadine Dodge catch up with Brad Singh, to learn about how the transport team at Wellington City Council is dealing with uncertainty in their business. Brad talked about many sources of uncertainty – from climate change to labour supply to aggregate availability – and what we can do in the face of uncertainty to plan for future generations.
Thursday Jul 13, 2023
Thinking ahead: Protecting land for infrastructure
Thursday Jul 13, 2023
Thursday Jul 13, 2023
While the future is uncertain, when done well, corridor protection – designating or acquiring land for infrastructure in advance of when it’s needed – can have benefits for day and tomorrow. In this episode of ‘Infrastructure for a better future’, Nadine Dodge, Senior Economist – Strategy at Te Waihanga talks with KiwiRail representatives David Gordon, Capital Planning and Asset Development Officer, and Marija Batistich, Senior Corporate Counsel, about how corridor protection works in practice for KiwiRail.
Corridor protection is discussed in one of our recent reports, ‘Protecting land for infrastructure: How to make good decisions when we aren’t certain about the future’. Our report findings suggest that designating or acquiring land for infrastructure in advance can make it cheaper and easier to build the infrastructure we need, from neighbourhood schools to major public transport routes.Research: Protecting land for infrastructure: How to make good decisions when we aren’t certain about the future | New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga (PDF 6.3 MB)
Thursday May 11, 2023
A global view of infrastructure project costs
Thursday May 11, 2023
Thursday May 11, 2023
Large-scale and complex infrastructure projects, often take longer and cost more than expected, but some places seem to get better results than others. In our latest podcast, we take a global view of infrastructure project costs and why certain places are better at delivering infrastructure on time and in budget.
Peter Nunns Director - Economics at Te Waihanga speaks to Dr. Eric Goldwyn from New York University and the Transit Costs Project, and Liz Innes, Director - Investment and Reviews at Te Waihanga, to take a deeper look into global infrastructure costs.
This sits alongside our report, The lay of the land: Benchmarking New Zealand’s infrastructure delivery costs