| PPPs are said to bring | This paper concerns itself with infrastructure concession agreements, under which a government agency awards a long-term contract to a private party to design, build and operate a facility that provides services either to the public or back to the government agency. Typical examples from overseas would include toll roads, prisons, stadiums, water treatment plants and military training facilities. |
| While few public private partnerships of this kind (PPPs1) have been undertaken in New Zealand, they have been popular in a number of countries for advancing the construction of large public infrastructure projects. They are said to offer "the potential to bring forward projects and free up public funds for other projects"2 and "offer the potential for government agencies to achieve better value for money through value drivers such as improved risk sharing, innovation, better asset utilisation and the adoption of commercial production and management practices".3 | |
| This paper discusses the main advantages and disadvantages of PPPs with particular regard to institutional circumstances in New Zealand. | |
| PPPs are very complex and this paper cannot do justice to all the issues they give rise to.4 Moreover, PPPs have been and continue to be controversial. Attention is drawn to the disclaimer on page i which is particularly pertinent in the case of this paper. |
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1 Sometimes also known as private finance initiatives (PFI).
2 The Independent, 11 December 2002.
3 Senator Nick Minchin, Australian Minister of Finance and Administration, June 2002.
4 A fuller treatment can be found, for example, in Webb and Pulle (2002), Osborne (2000), Fiscal Affairs Department (2004), de Bettignies and Ross (2004) and in a recent publication by the Office of the Auditor General (2006).