Public Infrastructure Lacking In Transparency

This isn’t just my opinion, or Greater Auckland’s view: it’s confirmed by some very timely research on transparency around publicly-funded infrastructure projects in New Zealand.

A research paper from 2023, commissioned by the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga, scored a number of anonymised projects and found many of them wanting in transparency.

The Commission’s Chief Executive Ross Copland says: “New Zealand does not currently have public accountability standards for proactive disclosure for large, public infrastructure projects, so we’re seeing inconsistent performance in how New Zealanders are being kept informed. The research showed that around half of all the Business Case and assurance case documents in these big, public projects were not accessible, and that reviews were not accessible for completed projects.”

That’s a damning line, that “[we do]not have public accountability standards for proactive disclosure for large, public infrastructure projects.”

Because everything is hidden, project costs are also hidden, old numbers are used in public, what is being designed is opaque to the people who will use it, details are redacted, and in general, the public has no idea what is happening for years and years while key decisions and huge investments are made on our behalf.

There are occasional proactive document dumps – as we’ve covered here recently, documents released by the Ministry of Transport show how the current government ignored widespread concern about the GPS. But notice how all the up-to-date costs for major capital projects are redacted? Why?

We are only permitted to see the numbers from 2017 – that’s seven years ago, for those of you keeping track – and many of those old numbers were what National relied on in last year’s election campaign. But clearly, updated numbers exist, or they wouldn’t be redacted in this document.

So what are the estimates now? We deserve to know – and, especially given the significant inflation over the last seven years, we are entitled to ask what is actually contributing to the project costs of these projects?

There’s also the question of what, if anything, is actually being done with this public money? How much has been spent by now on scoping, and re-scoping, and consulting and re-consulting, an additional Waitematā Harbour crossing? How many years of talk, by how many successive governments? Why has so much time and money been poured into speculatively designing a tunnel that looks set to cost the entire transport budget of, not just Auckland, but the whole of New Zealand?

When important things are covered up, we cannot see if something is going wrong, or even just veering away from original intentions, promises, and public needs.

When things are hidden from view, they can morph, grow and escalate in all sorts of ways.

When things are hidden, there’s no way for us to know who’s in charge, what’s happening, and why the cost and scope of a project is growing. Whether it be light rail, a crossing, or a motorway, it doesn’t matter.

The point is: if we do not know what is going on, how can we, the public, ever trust the process – or, figure out what might need to change?

Does it have to be this way?

The short answer is: no. To take an overseas example, in France, when it comes to major projects that affect land planning or the environment, “deliberative democracy” procedures promote transparency and access to information as a public right.

Likewise, as Marco Chitti from the Transit Costs Project outlined recently, Spain fully releases the costs and cost estimates of public projects.

And, closer to home, we can look to CRL as an example. A previous Greater Auckland post from 2021 shows how these things can and should be done (even if not perfectly):

The CRL – or something similar to it – has been talked about on and off for the last hundred or so years, but serious discussion of the current incarnation began in the mid-2000s after Britomart was built, starting with a feasibility study in 2004.

The project had appeared in various planning documents, but things kicked off more seriously around 2009 with the first discussions of what ultimately became the Commercial Bay development. The original proposal was to build a big underground carpark on the site, which would have prevented the ability to build the CRL in the future.

The then-new National Government weren’t supportive of the CRL project and frequently ridiculed it; however, at least they let it be investigated. In 2009, the ARC’s transport agency ARTA announced a joint study with KiwiRail into the CRL including investigating routes and station locations. What is most relevant for this post is what happened next.

In early 2010, the first phase of that study was released. This initial phase came up with a long list of options for routes and station locations and then narrowed that down to a shortlist. It also included a high-level look at the benefits of the project.

Not long after, the preferred route and station locations were announced. It was only after this stage that the work on a Detailed Business Case kicked into higher gear.

With the exception of the Newton Station, which was dropped to enable the Mt Eden junction to be grade-separated, this (as outlined in 2010) is what is now being built.

Much to the chagrin of the government, both main candidates to be the first mayor of all of Auckland (aka the SuperCity) supported the project. Newly elected mayor Len Brown released the business case just over a month after winning the mayoralty. The government weren’t happy and delayed the project for years, kicking off a bunch of dodgy reviews and other studies to try and avoid it. Although, ironically, some of those studies ended up making the case for CRL stronger, and one even resulted in the emergence of light rail – the City Centre Future Access Study highlighted that even with the CRL there would still be bus congestion issues in the city.

The key point to all of this is that key information like route options and initial costings were made public well before any decision was made on whether to fund the project. That allowed for the public to start gaining and understanding of the project, and people living along the proposed route could start to understand what might happen. It also meant [news and advocacy]sites like this could discuss the issues, to help imagine a better future for Auckland and build greater social licence for the project.

We are so incredibly lucky that much of the CRL work was made public – and yet, so much time and money was still wasted on relitigating CRL, instead of just building it.

What projects would be under way right now, and/or being built for significantly less cost, if the public could actually see what was happening?

The secrecy needs to go

It simply doesn’t make any sense to keep the infrastructure process as hidden as it has been.

It’s appalling that the mountain of publicly funded work produced for the Auckland Transport-led light rail proposal up to 2018 was not publicly available until now.

It makes zero sense that millions of dollars can be preemptively spent on work toward a whole new harbour crossing, without anyone outside the room having any idea what is actually being built, or dreamed up.

And now, with the government so set on spending billions of dollars on a handful of four-lane highways, shouldn’t we be able to see what’s going on?

If these four-lane highways are all going to be wrapped up in long term Public-Private Partnerships that lock the next generation into contracts they haven’t signed, shouldn’t we, the public, know the terms – and the cost – of those deals?

Why shouldn’t we see analysis of these options? What if all the evidence points towards two-lanes, or 2+1 upgrades to existing roads?

It’s shocking that we don’t see anything, that it’s all kept secret – under the pretext of “commercial sensitivity”, or so as to not affect “negotiations”, or in order to “maintain free and frank advice.”

Who benefits from this? And is it even true?

Look at France, where open-participation practices are incorporated into major projects, which reveal a lot of detail about ongoing work – and they have some of the cheapest infrastructure costs. Or look at this history of one of the light rail lines in Edmonton, Canada, which shows maps of potential property acquisition were publicly visible from after the preliminary designs back in the 2010’s.

Lastly, why does it require concerted effort by ordinary people, through dogged research and Official Information Act requests, to unearth even the most anodyne or even crowd-pleasing information about these major projects? Especially when they’ve since been cancelled – why not show your workings, so we can see why you’ve downed tools?

How can we deal with our infrastructure deficit without even knowing what is going on?

Who does all this public secrecy benefit?

Because it sure as hell isn’t the public.

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