Potential redundancies on billion-dollar Transmission Gully project

Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Workers on Transmission Gully face potential redundancies.

Workers building the delayed billion-dollar Transmission Gully project now face potential redundancies thinning their ranks.

About 88 staff working with the joint venture CPB-HEB could be made redundant.

Amalgamated Workers Union national secretary Maurice Davis said the union was contacted last Friday about a proposed restructure, including the 88 redundancies.

The Transmission Gully motorway north of Wellington was due to open in late 2020.

'Over the weekend we were having conversations, but come Monday they have postponed it and put it on hold for a week for negotiations with the NZTA.'

* New opening date for stalled Transmission Gully the million-dollar question

The NZ Transport Agency is refusing to comment on potential redundancies on the Transmission Gully project.

* Transmission Gully project 'likely' pushed out to 2021

CPB was proposing the redundancies, which could have kicked in as soon as mid-June, due to the seasonal winter slowdown in work and impacts of Covid-19 restrictions.

The tarps came off work at the end of the coronavirus lockdown, but now workers face potential redundancies.

But Davis said the 88 workers were actually the 'meat in the sandwich' in negotiations over delayed payments of $190 million additional funding the NZ Transport Agency previously agreed to pay joint venture CPB-HEB.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the road - mooted as a possibility a century ago - was on track for a November opening this year.

Transmission Gully roading works at Takapu Rd, pre-lockdown.

The level 4 lockdown put paid to any chance of that, plunging the agency, the Gateway Partnership contracted to deliver the road, and the road builder CPB-HEB into further negotiations.

Earlier this year the agency settled claims made by CPB-HEB over previous unavoidable costs and delays, which saw the agency agree to pay an additional $190m. The opening deadline, already pushed back from April to May, was pushed back again to November 2020.

The road will now not open till 2021 at the earliest.

In a written response to questions, an agency spokeswoman refused to comment on possible redundancies or the status of the $190m additional payment, saying it was in commercial negotiations with the joint venture.

'We understand that there is a high level of interest in the project, and we will provide further information as soon as we’re in a position to do so.'

CIMIC, the Australian parent company to CPB, declined to comment.

The public-private partnership between Gateway and the agency was signed in July 2014.

The Gateway Partnership would design, construct, finance, operate and maintain the road for 25 years. It contracted CPB-HEB, a joint venture, to build the road.

Construction began on the 27 kilometre-long road in 2015, with April 2020 initially touted as the month traffic would finally flow on to four lanes connecting Linden in north Wellington to Paekākāriki on the Kāpiti Coast.

The public-private model for the project was crafted under a National government.