Transport Minister Chris Bishop defends commissioning another Auckland harbour crossing report

The Transport Minister is defending commissioning another report on a second harbour crossing in Auckland.More than $106 million has been spent on consultants and contractors to date, but there is still no plan for what should be built and how.On Monday, Chris Bishop announced plans for a detailed business case due next year.He told Morning Report on Tuesday that previous reports have answered the 'why,' and now it needs to answer the 'how.'"This will be multiple billions of dollars, one of the biggest projects we've ever built in New Zealand, and it's really important we get it right. I think everyone would agree on that," Bishop said."So, all the expert advice on this from when you do a mega project from the Infrastructure Commission and from others is that you need to follow a proper, thorough process, and that's what we're doing."We're going to do a detailed business case. That will take a bit of time, but that will give Cabinet, whoever is in the Cabinet, whether it's us or another set of parties, that will give the Cabinet good decisions on how to make an informed decision, and that's what we're all about."Bishop said the NTZA had done two investment cases into a bridge next to the existing one and also into a tunnel.He said it looked at what's preferable to be built from engineering, network connectivity, and transport point of views.Bishop said if he had announced then they were building a tunnel, he'd be asked to explain how."You would say, 'well, how are you going to pay for it?' And then you'd say, 'how much is it going to cost?' And then you'd say, 'when's it going to start?' And then you'd say, 'how's it going to be delivered?'"We need to answer all of those questions because they're completely legitimate questions that the government has, and we need to do that work, and that's what we're going to do," he said."I think we're taking a very thorough, evidence-led approach to this."He said another report did "absolutely" not mean they were back at square one."People who are framing it like that are, frankly, being a bit misleading and a bit mischievous," he said."There's been a huge amount of work done over the last two years or so, and, frankly, over the last four years, this whole process actually started with an indicative business case kicked off by the previous government."Bishop said in 2027, Cabinet would be in a position to decide on what to build and how to pay for it."Once we have that information in a package, there'll be a range of options we look at, we'll be able to make an informed decision," he said."My hope would be that whoever is in government does it on a cross-party basis, because this will span multiple parliaments and multiple governments, and we need to get it right."We're setting the project up for success now and taking an evidence-led approach, which everyone says we should do, and I hope that we will end up with a good outcome next year."