Welcome to 2025

Alan Pollard, CEO, Civil Contractors Association.

By now, most people will have returned to work and will be planning for the year ahead. I hope that you managed to enjoy some rest and relaxation and have largely consigned 2024 to its place in history.

As we start this new year, I want to acknowledge the association’s regional teams who play a vital role in connecting our members and providing a critically important link with our national office. Alongside our Secretaries and Regional Managers, many at CCNZ branch level are volunteers. Their contribution to our industry from regional committees and sub-committees comes while balancing busy ‘day jobs’, family responsibilities, and the need for personal time. I am grateful for the work our regional committees and sub-committees do, and value their contribution and commitment to our association and its members.

While I believe the first half of 2025 will continue to be challenging, there are signs we may start to see some improvement later in the year, giving cause for some optimism. This comes on a number of fronts. 

The Government has now established a new infrastructure agency, National Infrastructure Funding and Financing Limited, which has taken over existing Crown Infrastructure Partners functions and responsibilities, including administration of infrastructure funds, partnering with agencies to deliver projects involving private finance, and connecting investors to relevant funds and ensuring the process for private investment in Crown projects is transparent, consistent and efficient. 

Having alternative sources of funding for future major infrastructure investment is critical, with income tax, local body rates and excise taxes falling well short of providing the finance required to fund and maintain infrastructure. The Government campaigned on this, and progress may result in critical infrastructure being built earlier than anticipated.

The Government has also shown it is up for a debate about the use of tolls to fund major roading projects, with community consultation already held on tolling some of the roads of national significance. While community opinion was mixed the reality is that our taxpayer and rate payer base is too small to fund major roading projects; they simply can’t get built without some form of user pays.

Projects under the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport are beginning to be scoped and programmed, and some Councils have come together to establish their new water entities, one of the barriers to progress to date.

On that latter point, there may need to be some further government intervention to remove barriers created from local government parochialism. In the main, councils simply don’t have the scale needed to deliver the major water infrastructure projects our communities need.

Importantly for our member value proposition, it is apparent our advocacy with the Government is getting some traction.

We established a clear line of communication with Minister Simeon Brown (Transport, Local Government including Local Water Done Well, Energy, and Auckland). His portfolios span a large proportion of the work our members do, and he has taken a real and personal interest in our current challenges and the solutions government has an influence over. While he is now moving on from transport to the health portfolio, these conversations will hopefully set the stage for discussion with Chris Bishop as he takes on transport, in addition to his current infrastructure portfolio.

In our submission on proposed changes to vocational education, supported by member feedback, we argued that not enough consideration had been given in the Minister’s proposals to the distinction between construction and infrastructure, and between classroom-based and work-based training. To her credit, Minister Hon Penny Simmonds announced just prior to Christmas that she will enter into further consultation on work-based training to ensure the best outcomes for industry, employers, and learners.

There are, however, some continuing warning signs we need to be mindful of: a worse than expected economic situation and outlook, likely geopolitical instability as new administrations come into power around the globe, and the increasingly fractious local political scene that makes cross-party agreement for infrastructure investment unlikely, just to name a few.

My priority for 2025 is to ensure your association remains recognised as the credible, influential, and reliable voice of the civil construction sector, and continues to remain relevant and add value for our members at both a regional and national level. 

I accept that “value” means different things to different members and acknowledge we struggle to communicate the benefits of what we do and achieve on members’ behalf in a format or using a media that is timely, easy to access, and meaningful for members regardless of size. This is a challenge that all industry associations face, and no one has yet found the ‘Holy Grail’ solution to this issue.

What is generally accepted is that the collective voice is stronger than the individual voice, and that policy and decision makers are more likely to listen to and engage with industries that are well organised and coordinated around a strong industry body.

My team and I take that responsibility very seriously, and will continue to work hard to uphold the trust our members place in us.