“The fact we are all here today is recognition of what an incredibly important project this is,” she said.
“An exercise of this size is not just a matter of picking up tools and locating them down there and constructing something, it will be a six-year project that will have a massive local benefit.”
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pets a husky during a visit to the International Antarctic Centre.
The cost of the rebuild had increased by more than $50m since it was first unveiled in June 2019, but Ardern said the work would be done “without question” because of how critical Scott Base was.