By Suzanne Wilkinson*
Flooded roads, our largest international airport underwater, overwhelmed storm water systems and significant sewage discharge into the sea and streams. The recent floods and then cyclone in Auckland are a stark reminder that our basic infrastructure lacks the resilience needed to survive major weather events.
When we talk about infrastructure resilience, we’re talking about an infrastructure system that continues to meet community needs – even after earthquakes, floods or cyclones.
After years of neglect, Auckland’s roads and water systems were simply unable to cope with the unprecedented rainfall and flooding seen in January. While the rainfall may have broken records, there have long been calls to future-proof the city’s infrastructure in the face of climate change.
In large part, this has not happened.
The importance of lifeline utilities
Roads, airports and water systems are included on a list of critical infrastructure described as “lifeline utilities”. These fall under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002, which requires that the utility is able to function to the fullest possible extent during and after an emergency.
The fact that many of Auckland’s lifeline utilities buckled during the floods points to failures to meet the basic requirements of the Act.
The Auckland Lifelines Group – of which Auckland Council, Auckland Airport, Vector and Watercare are members – falls under the National Lifelines Council. Both organisations have been helping Auckland’s essential utilities develop resilience and keep critical infrastructure running during an emergency.
They have also been calling for more investment in infrastructure resilience, including highlighting the problem in transportation.
Auckland floods: There’s no excuse for failing to plan and invest in our infrastructure - Master Plumbers, Gasfitters & Drainlayers NZ, via @nzherald https://t.co/RtcwJEfqJe
— Ben Ross (@BenRoss_AKL) February 7, 2023
Remove profit requirements
According to the 2020 edition of the New Zealand Critical Lifelines Infrastructure National Vulnerability Assessment, significant action is required to prevent lifeline utilities from being locked into inflexible or short-term response options.
The report also took a dim view of the funding and regulatory models for both public and private utility organisations that required a commercial return on resilient infrastructure improvement projects.
Creating resilience in infrastructure should not require a commercial return on investment. Instead, resilience should be embedded in every decision made regarding infrastructure development and improvement.
The Infrastructure Commission endorses this view in their recently released report. The authors argued that making New Zealand’s infrastructure more resilient and investing in resilience planning will enable quicker recovery from natural and human-created disasters, minimising the impact on our society and economy.
Former Auckland mayor Christine Fletcher is calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the underlying infrastructure issues revealed by the floods.https://t.co/RMpPZkJyLd
— RNZ (@radionz) February 7, 2023
Long-term planning needed
We need to rethink what infrastructure gets built and what gets retrofitted. We also need to reexamine how we incorporate and fund resilience thinking across the organisations that manage our lifeline utilities.
Resilience needs to start at the organisational level by engaging staff in problem solving, scenario planning and by providing training to develop innovative thinking.
Resilience also needs to be embedded at all levels of an organisation. Without training and advice, employees are less likely to be proactive and useful during an event.
During the recent flooding, the response from Auckland Airport, Auckland Transport and Auckland Council showed there was a lack of organisational resilience planning.
But there is a more serious issue: we have infrastructure that is ageing, built in unsuitable places or built for today’s population, not the population of the future. Resilience requires an inter-generational approach, which means creating infrastructure that will suit growing populations and changes in the way we live.
Our research on flooding in Northland advocated for better community-led response plans that were integrated with infrastructure improvements and collaboration with councils to reduce the risk of future floods.
The current methods of decision making are not optimal, meaning infrastructure is built without an intergenerational view. We inevitably end up with infrastructure that is not fit for the populations they are supposed to serve, such as new roads that are congested soon after opening.
Nor do our design standards adapt swiftly to new pressures that come with climate change.
Robustness and redundancy
Infrastructure needs to have some robustness and redundancy. Robustness means being able to withstand hazard events without significant damage. Redundancy means spare capacity, such as alternative routes for transport.
With both, we have infrastructure that can operate during unusual conditions. For Auckland Transport, for example, this means rethinking routes and creating alternatives before events occur. It also means creating a network strong enough to cope with increased demands beyond business-as-usual traffic levels.
Utility providers don’t have to reinvent the wheel to identify what needs to change. Auckland Lifelines Group, the National Lifelines Council and Massey University’s School of Built Environment have done research to identify critical infrastructure, critical interdependencies between infrastructure and how to build resilient infrastructure.
Critical infrastructure – such as airports, significant roads and our water systems – should be treated as too important to fail. The recent floods are a warning that prioritising resilience for our infrastructure is urgently needed.
*Suzanne Wilkinson, Professor of Construction Management, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
47 Comments
How did Key's "increased economic activity" magicked up by Treasury to ensure his tax cuts were "revenue neutral" work out for us?
Quite clearly the "tax increases by stealth" as you like to call it are insufficient to meet the expectations of the public when it comes to infrastructure.
Maybe the avalanche of failed policies and spending outcomes could have been directed into something, you know, useful.
But having honest discussions with the electorate about funding levels, taxes and prioritising spending is probably asking a bit much because there's useful idiots everywhere who will defend them no matter what they do. Or don't do.
The "tax increases by stealth" you bang on about wouldn't be happening National had supported Michael Cullen's plan to index tax brackets to inflation in 2005.
They didn't.
So you can thank National for those "tax increases by stealth", just like you can thank them for giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy, increasing GST and creating a housing and infrastructure deficit by pumping immigration - a policy they never campaigned on.
The housing deficit is almost under control - after John Key's government refused to acknowledge there was a crisis and half-heartedly put in a 2 year bright line test, that they're now promising to repeal after Labour increased it to 10 years.
I'll support parties that actually achieve things, thanks.
Ah, so it's National's fault, despite Labour cancelling Bill English's tax cuts after getting elected and then making such a mess of the CGT that was supposed to allow pressure to come off income taxes.
But here we go, dig up something from 18 years ago while ignoring what Labour does and has done to actively make the situation worse, instead of entertaining the notion of scrutinising the government we actually have now with an outright majority.
I suppose doing something that things massively worse is technically still doing 'something' so I can't fault your logic there.
Ah, so it's National's fault, despite Labour cancelling Bill English's tax cuts after getting elected
The tax cuts that only went to people earning over $48k per year, yes.
then making such a mess of the CGT that was supposed to allow pressure to come off income taxes.
Labour's coalition partner did not support the proposed policy so it could not be passed.
while ignoring what Labour does and has done to actively make the situation worse
I'm not ignoring anything Labour have done to improve the situation, such as clearing up the meth house hysteria that National created, and presiding over such a booming economy that we have nearly cleared the housing deficit built up under National's last them in office - which ended 5 years ago, not 18.
Pretty good turn around in 5 years for such systemic issues, really.
I suppose doing something that things massively worse
Not sure what you think Labour has done that is massively worse - please elaborate with supporting evidence. I'm quite happy they have passed 3 Waters legislation to actually do something about our water infrastructure instead of leaving it to incompetent councils like National did, and have started the RMA reform process that National never bothered with, and have put in the bright line year with actual teeth, and have removed interest deductibility from landlords which recent evidence shows has resulted in the housing market being skewed strongly to first time buyers and away from National's prime constituency of property investors.
Not sure what you think Labour has done that is massively worse - please elaborate with supporting evidence.
Constantly stuffed up light rail and totally ruined public buy-in for rapid transit in Auckland? Ruling out a capital gains tax as long as Ardern was leader? A state house building program that people put their lives on hold waiting for cheaper housing to come out of, only for it to stagnate? Wasted millions on cycle bridges, a media merger and a prolonged fuel tax discount, on top of a pathetically flawed attempt at helicopter money strategy to reduce living costs (wasn't that meant to be inflationary when National proposed doing it with tax cuts?). A blow-out in the number of families and people living in emergency accomodation without wrap-around support? All acceptable collateral damage, apparently.
The only people who have gotten anything meaningful out of this governments are Wellington policy analysts and contractors. For people actually living with the fallout, there is no end in sight. And if you actually get up and go to work, the Finance Minister thinks the fact the government can't control their cost inflation means he should be able to keep undermining your ability for your wages to keep up with what your living costs inflate by.
As far as moral high ground go, it's not super convincing.
As for 3 Waters, it's great you're prepared to overlook the undermining of the PM by Mahuta that probably led to her resignation. But some might consider that even more of an affront to democratic process than the idea that people who paid for water assets might have some say in how they are used. Don't worry, I'm sure all of Auckland's water problems can be resolved by making Auckland ratepayers cover Northland as well. That definitey isn't insane.
There are things they have done I liked, like the UDS for transit corridor density which they then undermined by making it apply all across cities and the interest deductibility. But I also like the idea of being able to get seen at a hospital waiting room, or that I can go to the shops without getting caught up in an armed robbery like the jewelers at my local mall have been subjected to about for or five times.
Constantly stuffed up light rail
How does that make anything worse, as you claimed? Light rail has not been built. It would not have been built under National either. So how is it worse?
Also, the government had to deal with an unsolicited bid from the superannuation fund. What would you have them do, just ignore it? Then they'd get calls from the opposition for the government funding light rail when there was the superannuation fund willing to do it. They had to address the plan, and that slowed everything down.
totally ruined public buy-in for rapid transit in Auckland?
Not sure what that is supposed to mean. People are suddenly not using rapid transit in Auckland because... Labour?
Ruling out a capital gains tax as long as Ardern was leader?
How does that make anything worse? National were not going to pass a CGT either. Labour had already campaigned on it for 3 elections, and only managed to win in 2017 with the help of NZ First who opposed the policy.
What did you expect Labour to do, pass an unpopular policy and lose the 2020 election, so that it would be immediately repealed? What would be the point of that?
Politics is the art of the possible. Labour knows this. You apparently don't.
A state house building program that people put their lives on hold waiting for cheaper housing to come out of, only for it to stagnate?
If you are refering to Kiwibuild, it was never a "state house building program", it was a state-financed house building program that relied on private builders to put in the effort. I'm also not sure how many people "put their lives on hold" waiting for one of these houses as you claim - I suspect you simply made that up. More people had their lives on hold by not being able to get any house at all thanks to National's term in office of huge immigration and lack of house building.
In any event, we now have an additional 10,000 state houses build under Labour since 2017. By contrast, National had a net loss of 1,500 houses between taking office in 2008 and leaving in 2017. That's just the state houses, too - 1 out of 11 of every houses in this country was built in the last 5 years under Labour.
Wasted millions on cycle bridges, a media merger
How did those make things worse?
and a prolonged fuel tax discount
How did that make things worse for people? Pretty sure a lot of people are very happy about cheaper fuel.
on top of a pathetically flawed attempt at helicopter money strategy to reduce living costs (wasn't that meant to be inflationary when National proposed doing it with tax cuts?)
This was not a strategy to "reduce living costs". There was a payment towards people earning less in this country to help them meet the increased living costs that were not unique to this country, and in fact the inflation in this country has been lower than many comparable countries elsewhere in the world.
And yes, tax cuts are inflationary, especially when they go to the wealthy as National's tax cuts always do.
A blow-out in the number of families and people living in emergency accomodation without wrap-around support?
Because when National are in charge they use every trick in the book to kick people off waiting lists, so they just 'disappear' into the community and magically stop being a problem. As already noted above, Labour have built 10,000 state homes in the last 5 years, clearly it is not enough. Do National have any plan to build more, while simultaneously giving huge tax cuts to landlords and people earning $180,000, and funding education and health at at least the rate of inflation?
All acceptable collateral damage, apparently.
A claim no one but you has made.
it's great you're prepared to overlook the undermining of the PM by Mahuta that probably led to her resignation.
lol
But I also like the idea of being able to get seen at a hospital waiting room
The people of Dunedin are glad that we have a Labour government, after National promised in 2009 to start building a new hopsital, then repeated it at the 2011 election, and the 2014 election, and the 2017 election. Labour actually did it.
or that I can go to the shops without getting caught up in an armed robbery like the jewelers at my local mall have been subjected to about for or five times
Yeah, we need to support the most disadvantaged in the community so they don't have to resort to crime. Taxcuts for landlords ain't going to do that. Neither are failed bootcamps for teenagers, who aren't the ones even committing the crimes you are speaking of.
Public buy-in for rapid transit has tanked because they've blown out the project to a massively unaffordable mess to the point the public sees it as a badge of failure. The fact they haven't delivered it and are years overdue from their policy promises isn't something they should be able to hide behind like it excuses them from the giant mess they've made of it.
The fact you're out here defending policy failures (and that's being generous, they were really bait-and-switch policies that were never seriously meant to be delivered) like Kiwibuild is pretty telling. One day you'll wake up and realise National hasn't been in power for six years, and maybe, just maybe, Labour should have actually a teeny bit more, given they're the ones actually in power now.
But keep rallying against a government we haven't had since 2017. I'm sure the people living in emergency accommodation will be so relieved you're fighting the good fight on their behalf.
I'm not "defending policy failures". I'm rebutting your claim that the Labour government has made things worse.
It's really very simple: Labour tried to do something and failed. In your mind that makes them worse than National who never even tried.
You barely addressed any of my points however, so there's not really any further this debate can go until you do.
Yes, I have noticed that Lanthanide (apparent spokesperson and principal apologist for the Labour Party) has made an active reappearance on this site of late. Perhaps you get that in election year?
But back to the article. It makes absolute sense to actually do everything we can now to mitigate the damaging climate effects caused by global warming because we have already "missed the boat" in attempting to halt, let alone reverse, global warming.
It actually annoys me that every time we see major floods, bush fires, heat waves or reports of glacier retreats, etc. the media just have to produce yet another climate change scientific expert to tell us that this is all evidence for human induced global warming. Quite frankly, most of the intelligent world has accepted this long ago so now we should simply take effective measures to try to reduce its impacts on our societies. Tackle greenhouse gas emissions for sure but don't wait around for just that to solve the problem.
The nerve of people wanting to keep more of their money when the government lets inflation spike, extends the term of the RBNZ Governor responsible and refuses to stop taxing the inflation component of people's earnings.
You'd think food inflation was running at 10% or something.
Priorities. Perhaps then NZ’s well intentioned and worthy program to curb climate change could be better spent on infrastructure to protect NZ from the climate change being imposed on the globe by the huge industrial powers, compared to which, NZ’s contribution is miniscule.
There only 3 reasons for NZ to do anything about climate change:
1. Moral reasons
2. Export market reasons - being forced to by our customers
3. A blend of the above - becoming a world leader in green agritech such that we can export our tech globally and reduce the world's emissions by more than just NZ's footprint and earn revenue in the process.
None of them really seem to be working.
That’s not even an argument!? How do you know what it would have been spent on? All those capital gains over the last 20 years. The government should be licking their lips trying to figure out how to get a chunk of that meat pie. Tax the living life out of it as far as I’m concerned
Inheritances too of course. And farms. And businesses. And shares. And increases in value of kiwisaver. Your own home too.
You're right. Tax it all.
And yes it was an answer. There has been virtually zero urgency to invest in critical infrastructure for decades. The opposition never calls for it, the government never puts it forward... because the voters never demand it. Now voters (I hope) will demand it and we will see some action. But to link it to tax policies around (I assume only housing like everyone else on this website) is utter nonsense. On par with people who go to a town hall meeting for school fundraising and go off their rocker about something completely different.
Infrastructure is way down the list of most voters' priorities, so I would agree even if the government took in more revenue over the past 20-30 years our infrastructure would unlikely be much better than today.
As for a way forward, very hard to say. There's a long list of natural disasters NZ is prone to, and incorporating resilience from them into our infrastructure and buildings would mostly give a very poor return on investment.
Many anti-tax people think that taxed money vapourises. It merely redirects it within the economy. Taxing the better off redirects it from things like yachts into things like schools, or heaven forbid... stormwater infrastructure. Money does not vapourise when it's spent, it circulates. Money velocity is half of the GDP equation.
If we are to plan for 'resilience' (which would be a paradigm shift for NZ) then we should probably determine what size population we are planning for (and where)...it hasnt served us well that different segments of society are operating on differing goals in that respect.
We've been forcing new developments to install SW retention tanks instead of Watercare increasing the SW pipework infrastructure to actually get rid of the water. If we'd spent as much on pipework as we have on tanks, the floods in Auckland would have been significantly less damaging... How do you flood Beach Rd in the CBD for crying out loud. It's 100m from the sea. It would have taken one or two decent stormwater outlets for 100m to prevent that.
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