3. Question No. 3—InfrastructureANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister for InfrastructureQuestion No. 3—Infrastructure3. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister for Infrastructure: What are the 15 shovel-ready projects being re-scoped and why has construction only started on less than a quarter of shovel-ready projects?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Infrastructure): The 15 projects I mentioned in question time yesterday are currently subject to commercial negotiations and it would not be in the public interest to comment on them in detail at this time. As I said yesterday many of these projects are likely to go ahead but are the subject of due diligence at this time. In answer to the second part of the question 205 projects have been contracted. This gives the construction industry certainty that the projects will go ahead. There is an expectation that the projects must start construction within 12 months of the contracted date which is still to come for many of them. Again I would note for the member when we called for projects for the Infrastructure Industry Reference Group in April last year and announced those projects in July last year economists were expecting mass unemployment and a potential collapse of the construction sector. Thankfully that scenario has not eventuated and in many parts of the country the construction sector is in fact at capacity.Andrew Bayly: Why are 15 shovel-ready projects being re-scoped when they were approved by the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Infrastructure as shovel-ready only just months ago?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It's interesting that Mr Bayly would be so cavalier with taxpayer money as to not want due diligence to be done on all the projects that we fund. This is 15 projects out of over 200 projects which have been contracted. As I said in my primary answer I expect many of them will go ahead very shortly.Andrew Bayly: Why do 156 shovel-ready projects still have no shovel in the ground 11 months after the shovel-ready projects were announced?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in my primary answer in April last year we had projections of unemployment up towards 20 percent. That did not occur. We now have extra workers in the construction workforce. We have a pipeline of work. Mr Bayly should celebrate the success of New Zealand's construction sector and the fact that the Government has a set of projects ready to go working with the sector to deliver them.Andrew Bayly: What were the failures in the ministerial decision-making process for the $3 billion shovel-ready scheme that has resulted in the 15 projects being re-evaluated—SPEAKER: Order! I'm going to give the member a chance to start his question again and within order.Andrew Bayly: Were there failures in the ministerial decision-making process for the $3 billion shovel-ready scheme that has resulted in the 15 projects being re-evaluated given the first selection criteria mandated that the projects would be starting within six to 12 months?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There were no failures in that regard.Andrew Bayly: Why did the shovel-ready funding allocate $100 million into a feasibility study into a pumped hydro scheme that won't have shovels in the ground until 2023 at the earliest and how many shovels does it take to do a feasibility study?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That project and the member's attitude to it exemplifies exactly what is wrong with the approach that the Opposition is taking. This is a scheme that can revolutionise the way in which we deliver sustainable energy in New Zealand and their reaction to it tells you all you need to know. You stay in the 19th century Mr Bayly—it's fine.