Time to build | Josie Pagani

JOSIE PAGANI

STRAIGHT AND TRUE

Time to build

We haven’t built infrastructure for a booming economy for decades. Instead, governments fund studies. Never in the field of human endeavour has so much feasibility been evaluated.

Here’s a plan: There is bipartisan support for a new infrastructure commission to plan what we need. So, next, set up an infrastructure bank so that government projects can be ranked against each other according to the return to the country. They can be financed across a whole portfolio of roads, housing, trains, cycle lanes and virtual reality tourist trails. May the best plan win.

Governments today can borrow more cheaply than ever. If we don't build things now, we never will, because it will always be more expensive and the returns will always be lower.

Time to build.

Josie's column in Stuff.

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