Hon Grant Robertson

Minister of Finance

28 June 2018

PĀNUI PĀPĀHO

MEDIA STATEMENT

Transport infrastructure plan backs businesses to grow, gives certainty on funding pipeline

New Zealand’s largest ever 10-year plan for land transport investment announced today sends a clear message that the Coalition Government is committed to a long-term nationwide infrastructure strategy to boost productivity and support businesses to grow, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says.

“We know that productivity and economic growth in New Zealand has been held back by gridlock in our cities and under-investment in regional roads and rail. We are fixing this by ensuring that the land transport component of our economic plan supports a modern, growing economy,” Grant Robertson said.

“The 2018 Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS) provides certainty to New Zealand businesses and exporters that we are backing them to become more productive. The GPS is also key to our goal of transitioning the economy to more sustainable growth, and will promote more inclusive growth by spreading increases in transport investment across every region.”

The investments made as a result of the 2018 GPS will:

• Boost productivity by reducing congestion in our cities

• Support our primary industries by ensuring that regional networks are better connected

• Give our exporters easier access to international markets by making sure nationally important transport connections are maintained and improved, and

• Support New Zealand’s tourism industry by improving transport connections on key regional tourist routes

“We are prioritising a land transport system that provides increased access to economic and social opportunities for businesses and individuals,” Grant Robertson said.

“The GPS includes a series of reporting measures to track the progress of these goals, including reliability of freight and passenger average travel times on regional networks, tourist routes and metropolitan areas.

“The Government is also providing certainty by detailing upfront how we are fully funding our transport plans.

“The GPS supports implementation of the $28 billion Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) between the Government and Auckland Council.

“We inherited an ATAP plan with a $9.7 billion funding gap, which created uncertainty over whether unfunded projects promised by the previous Government would have to be scrapped.

“We made it a priority of our first few months in Government to address this so that we could give Auckland businesses certainty that the projects we were backing were fully funded.

“This is the same with the nationwide GPS announced today. New Zealand businesses that rely on land transport, and construction firms seeking to bid for these projects, can be confident about the Government’s long-term transport infrastructure pipeline,” Grant Robertson said.

GPS 2018 can be found here: https://www.transport.govt.nz/multi-modal/keystrategiesandplans/gpsonlandtransportfunding/

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