Kieran McAnulty

The first episode of the election-period run, with Kieran McAnulty, Labour list MP from the Wairarapa, introduced as shadow Leader of the House and holding housing and infrastructure. His core definition is the episode's spine: "Anyone can come up with a list of projects. A pipeline is a list of projects that are funded or have a have a clear pathway to being funded." Labour would put all Crown infrastructure through the Infrastructure Commission's independent assurance process and says it broadly agrees with every recommendation of the national infrastructure plan, with one carve-out: the LNG terminal. On housing he is direct about the philosophical split with National over whether the state should build, concedes KiwiBuild's 100,000 was missed, "fair cop", and says material progress after a change of government would take at least 18 months. Andy pushes hard from the business owner's side: stop-start hits whoever is in power, and his own firm had to find work overseas to survive the trough. The closing answer is deliberate: asked what a builder on site would notice under Labour, he says "Uh well, as little as possible."

Key Topics Discussed

• Rural MP, urban portfolio. Seven generations in the Wairarapa (Masterton, family from Eketahuna), holding housing and infrastructure. He corrects Andy's framing that they are one combined portfolio: "They're two different portfolios."
• What keeps him up at night. Construction job losses, which he puts at 20,000, driven by government reversals and the absence of a visible pipeline. Cancelling the inter-island ferries "was dumb". He describes the Roads of National Significance as $56 billion of roads with no plan to pay for $30 billion of them (his figures, unsourced on air).
• A pipeline means funded. Projects get cancelled for political reasons, or because they were promised without a way to pay. Labour will honour everything "if it's underway and it's funded" and will "actively go and find ways to fund" the unfunded two-thirds of the Infrastructure Commission's list. Andy supplies the list figures (about 12,000 projects, under a third funded) and Kieran confirms them.
• The Infrastructure Commission as the gate. All Crown infrastructure projects should go through its assurance process, does it stack up, is it value for money, is there a plan to pay, and existing assets should be maintained before "goldplated brand new things". Labour contributed a foreword to the government's response to the national infrastructure plan. The LNG terminal (roughly a billion dollars) is the one carve-out, because the government will not put it through the Commission.
• Housing as the 2050 answer. Asked about a vision, he answers through housing: everything flows from a secure home. The government has instructed Kāinga Ora not to add to its stock "whilst we have the highest level of homelessness we've ever had" (based on frontline providers, there is no official measure outside the census). He claims Labour built or funded more public houses than any government since the 1970s, now past 21,000, against fewer than 600 under the current government (his figures). Labour would fund community housing providers more and tell Kāinga Ora to start building again, progress in "at least 18 months".
• KiwiBuild, conceded. "We said 100,000 houses and we didn't deliver that fair cop." Both parties have missed housing targets.
• Retention, not vision. Young people need "certainty that they're going to have a decent job that pays comparative to Australia". Labour's Future Fund would ring-fence some state-owned assets and route dividends into a fund, governed alongside the Super Fund, investing in New Zealand infrastructure and jobs.
• PPPs, tolls and congestion charging. Broadly supportive of private investment, "not in favor" of PPPs that mean privately run prisons or hospitals. "Totally comfortable with toll roads if there is a free alternative", signalled from the start. Supports Auckland congestion charging.
• Water storage, case by case. Both "regardless of the cost" and "no water storage whatsoever" are "silly positions to take." Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa schemes discussed; the Wairarapa scheme is drinking water as well as irrigation.
• The stop-start argument, from both sides. Andy: "we've actually had to go find work overseas" when the trough hit. Kieran's answer is that Labour will "build as many houses as we're able to afford" and challenge the next government not to pull back: "My argument is don't go down." When Andy credits him with fixing Wairarapa's public-housing problem he declines it: "I'd never said that."
• RMA and consistency. The government took "the entirety of this term to replace it with something that is 80% the same as what we had." Labour has "pledged not to scrap it and start from scratch." Technology in consenting needs consistent rules across councils first. Andy frames the digital opportunity as "It's applications, it's data, it's process." and quotes 12-14 months paper to spade in New Zealand against 3-4 months in the UK. No digital policy is stated; Kieran teases an unrelated announcement "tomorrow".
• Community housing finance. Extend the Crown guarantee to the Community Housing Funding Agency, which he says cuts borrowing costs by half a percentage point and is unlikely ever to be drawn on.
• For the builder on site. "Uh well, as little as possible" would change, Labour is "not going to come in and rip the guts out of" what works.
• Enrolment. He warns that enrolment rules have changed and urges listeners to check their details.

Notable Quotes

• "Anyone can come up with a list of projects. A pipeline is a list of projects that are funded or have a have a clear pathway to being funded.", Kieran McAnulty (3:45)
• "We said 100,000 houses and we didn't deliver that fair cop.", Kieran McAnulty (15:17)
• "taken the entirety of this term to replace it with something that is 80% the same as what we had.", Kieran McAnulty, on the RMA replacement (52:35)
• "Uh well, as little as possible.", Kieran McAnulty, on what a builder would notice under Labour (59:33)
• "we've actually had to go find work overseas", Andy Alagappan, on surviving the trough as a small business (50:16)

Guest Background

Kieran McAnulty is a Labour list MP from the Wairarapa, from Masterton, with family in Eketahuna going back seven generations; his grandfather was a farmer and "a labor man". He refers to his record "when I was local MP". He holds housing and infrastructure for Labour and is introduced as shadow Leader of the House. He names Labour colleagues covering local government (Tangi Utikere, as heard) and building and construction (Arena Williams). In Ep 99 Andy says McAnulty handed the Rural Communities portfolio to Mark Patterson in 2023; that is Andy's statement, not Kieran's.