Prime Minister John Key has today announced a range of roading, state housing and school upgrades worth about $500 million. They will be projects that can be started almost immediately.
The $32 million Kopu Bridge replacement is scheduled to start in mid-2011 but will now begin in July. Work on the 480m bridge is estimated to take 18 months.
Other projects to be fast-tracked are the Matahorua Gorge Realignment in Hawkes Bay, the Hawkes Bay Expressway Southern Extension, Muldoon's (Rimutaka Corner Easing) in Wellington and the Christchurch Southern Motorway.
The 94km Waikato Expressway from Mercer to south of Cambridge is not part of the package and will be among the very large infrastructure projects the Government will consider for fast-tracking.
Today's announcements:
Education - $216.7 million of spending, including five new schools, school refurbishments and maintenance and ICT infrastructure improvements.
Transport - $142.5 million of spending, spanning five large state highway projects and a programme of smaller, regional roading improvement projects.
Housing - $124.5 million of spending, allowing Housing New Zealand to upgrade and renovate 10,000 more state houses, and build 69 new state houses over the next six months.
The projects are expected to soak up some of the skilled tradesmen in the building and construction sector which has been hard hit by the recession.
Mr Key was expected to confirm an insulation programme for state houses.
He said on Monday that expanding it to private sector housing was a later possibility. Upgrades of some school properties that have already received planning consent will also be included.
In another aspect of its stimulus package, National last night introduced the tax bill comprising relief on provisional tax rules announced last week to relieve small and medium businesses.
Labour leader Phil Goff said about three-quarters of the Government's stimulus package that Mr Key was bragging about had been in Labour's 2008 Budget or in its tax bill.
Progressive leader Jim Anderton criticised the size of the relief package to small and medium businesses ($480 million over four years) amounting to $10.50 a week, "which would hardly buy a big packet of peanuts at the supermarket".
Mr Key warned against MPs calling for more spending.
Excessive debt could also bring a downgrade from credit agencies which would lead to higher interest rates and lower growth.
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