How New Zealand’s infrastructure gap could cost us - Tangiwai: A Forgotten History podcast

That means an enormous bill for the country, but it may be the only way to future-proof ourselves against the growing risk of natural disasters, driven by climate change.

This weekend marks 70 years since the Tangiwai rail disaster, in which 151 people died after a volcanic lahar from Mt Ruapehu damaged a rail bridge over the Whangaehu River, minutes before the Wellington to Auckland Express crossed over.

The event has been revisited in the Herald’s podcast series, Tangiwai: A Forgotten History, with the final episode looking back across the last seven decades to see if the country has learnt what it should have from years of natural disasters.

The podcast had previously revealed that while warning systems are now in place on Mt Ruapehu to clear the area when another lahar occurs, it took 51 years after the Tangiwai disaster - and two eruptions in the 1990s - to get them installed.

Speaking to the podcast, Leggett said that Tangiwai highlights how we cannot engineer to a point where we can 100 per cent guarantee everyone’s safety but we should expect a standard that “protects human life in the first place” to avoid similar “Acts of God” turning to tragedy.

“I can tell you that we argue over the stupidest things,” Legett said. “We don’t get it together. We’ve also got this unfortunate thing where we don’t work particularly well together at times, and we don’t collaborate in the way we should to get things done.”

Concerns over cost blowouts tend to scupper major plans, as seen recently with the new Government’s decision not to meet a $1.47 billion funding request from KiwiRail for a mega ferry project, leading to its cancellation.

However, senior fellow at Victoria University’s School of Government, Max Rashbrooke, told the podcast there is no reason why we shouldn’t be investing in the infrastructure that we need.

“I think not investing in infrastructure is a classic false economy because you just end up paying for it further down the line. And it is a bit of a New Zealand habit. We’re not a country that’s particularly good at long-term planning. If you think about phrases like number eight fencing wire, that’s very much an ethos of ‘let’s find a clever but short-term fix to a problem’,” Rashbrooke said.

“I think we struggle with long-term planning often because it involves having quite complicated debates and conflict and taking things very seriously and those aren’t really hardwired into the New Zealand national character.”

He argues that borrowing from a government ultimately benefits the country in the long term.

“If the Government borrows now, spends it on sensible infrastructure, which could be rail, it could be upgrading the national grid to deal with a whole lot more renewable energy generation, which is something that’s urgently needed, that will make us a wealthier country in future and [we] will be very well placed to pay [it] off.

“To say that we can’t afford to invest in infrastructure makes no sense. We can’t afford not to. It would be a completely false economy not to make those investments.”

Tangiwai: A Forgotten History is available at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The series was made with the support of NZ On Air. For video and photos, go to nzherald.co.nz/tangiwai.