The Labour leader must re-explain his party’s position on infrastructure after several new examples of mixed messages from him and his MPs, says National’s Infrastructure Spokesperson Chris Bishop.

“Labour cannot claim to support construction jobs after fighting against fast-track, Roads of National Significance, RMA reform and public-private partnerships. But after embarrassing flip-flops on infrastructure, new comments reveal they are no clearer on where they stand.

“In alignment with the Greens and Te Pati Māori, Labour MPs marched in the street against fast-track and the thousands of jobs it will create. According to a Labour branch’s post on social media, Chris Hipkins told attendees of a private fundraiser that Labour would repeal fast-track, but when media asked him about that, the post was scrubbed.

“Why are attendees at a Labour Party fundraiser being told a different story to the public? If Labour does now support fast-track, why did their MPs march against it? If the position has changed to only amending fast-track, what are the amendments, which projects would be excluded and how many jobs would that affect?

“In March, Labour MPs stumbled through several different positions on PPPs, laid out in excruciating detail by Newsroom. Despite being open to PPPs to get infrastructure built faster, Barbara Edmonds was undermined by her leader into reversing her position after he told media that a ‘bottom line’ for Labour is ‘we don’t support the private sector building and operating’ hospitals, schools and prisons.

“After several further positions, Edmonds’ final clarification to Newsroom was that ‘Labour was ruling out PPPs at the design-build-finance stage – not just at the operational stage’ for those things.

“Now, in a return serve contradiction of both Hipkins and Edmonds, Kieran McAnulty has changed Labour’s position again. When asked about PPPs earlier this month, McAnulty said Labour is ‘more than happy’ to work with the private sector to get schools and hospitals built.

“Labour and Chris Hipkins cannot get their story straight on infrastructure and have proven over several years they are incapable of delivering it. With all these shifting positions, Labour’s word is worth about as much as it was when they promised 100,000 KiwiBuild houses, light rail to Auckland Airport and a cycle bridge over the harbour.

“Whether it’s Transmission Gully, the Christchurch Motorway, the Waikato Expressway or the Waterview Tunnel, it’s always been National that gets stuff built to grow our economy and improve Kiwis’ lives.”

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