A comment on yesterday’s eye-catching post by Connor about the skyrocketing costs of the Roads of National Significance programme (and the enormous opportunity cost it represents), made a request:
It would be good to have a post from Greater Auckland on the National Infrastructure Plan. It was commissioned by this government, and seems at first glance like a sensible way forward….but I haven’t gone into it in any depth.
Ask and you shall receive!
The National Infrastructure Plan, released on 17 February 2026 by Te Waihanga/ The Infrastructure Commission, is a very important document that “set[s] a path for New Zealand’s infrastructure over the next 30 years.”
We aim to cover it in more detail, and have referenced it in Connor’s post yesterday (empowering the public to query RoNS value-for-money), and Matt’s 18 February post (on tolling the Harbour Bridge). It’s also received general media coverage – see some links at the end of this article.
But long before this 30-year National Infrastructure Plan – a decade and a half ago, in fact – there were other “national infrastructure plans”: two of them, in short succession, produced by the then-National government under the aegis of the then-Minister-for-everything, Steven Joyce.
These “plans” were really more of a stocktake and a short-term to-do list, than a long-range planning exercise. But it’s interesting to look back at what counted for aspiration and analysis back then, and what we made of it at the time.
To the time machine!
January 2010
Here’s how Greater Auckland greeted National’s first ‘national infrastructure plan” (emphasis added):
The government has today released their “National Infrastructure Plan” [link broken] which details the state of various infrastructure around the country as well as giving some guidance about where investment in infrastructure is likely to occur over the next 5-7 years.
It’s not the “big bang” plan that looks 20 years into the future that I somewhat expected it to be, but in a way I think that might be a good thing. With significant changes happening in the world over the next few years – such as effects of climate change and peak oil really beginning to be felt – it’s probably a good thing that we don’t get locked into a 20 year plan that ends up being outdated before its implementation has even begun.
It’s worth re-reading Connor’s post in the light of that!
July 2011
A year and a half later, we reported on the second “national infrastructure plan”:
The government has today released its second National Infrastructure Plan [link broken], outlining its expenditure (and the principles behind it) on infrastructure such as transport, electricity, telecommunications, water and social infrastructure over the next four years.
Once again, our eye was firmly on the longer-term risk horizon. After noting the list of perceived challenges of infrastructure investment, our writer reiterated the striking omission (emphasis added):
I would have also added to this list the difficulties of not knowing what the price of oil will be in 10-20 years time, or knowing exactly what the impacts of climate change will be – but one can’t have too high expectations of this particular government I suppose.
But here’s our even bigger Nostradamus moment, with emphasis added. (We don’t like to say we told you so… but we did, in fact, tell you so.)
It’s interesting that the plan suggests erring on the side of over-investment rather than under-investment, that seems to me as a fairly risky strategy of potentially spending a lot of money on something that’s not actually necessary. Maybe this is the “RoNS clause”?
Again: worth rereading Connor’s post in the light of this. Sixteen years on, how are we still even debating this stuff?
Finally, while we’re talking about 20/20 foresight, here’s a passing observation from our 2010 post:
… the best argument yet I’ve heard in favour of the CBD Rail Tunnel: that is strategically fits with the growth plans for Auckland, which involve intensification around the rail corridors (at least for now).
Well, at least our younger selves can rest easy that the CRL is almost complete (while making the case the timetable needs to be up to scratch), and that more effective planning for housing in Auckland is (almost) beyond debate (despite recent U-turns and climb-downs).
Now maybe it’s time to finally put “the RoNS clause” to bed?
Header image: the archives from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, via the Internet, as previously seen on this post.
Notes
A selection of other recent coverage of Te Waihanga/ the Infrastructure Commission’s 2026 National Infrastructure Plan:
- New Zealand’s first national infrastructure plan unveiled (RNZ, 17 Feb 2026)
- What NZ’s new 30-year infrastructure plan really means (1News, 17 Feb 2026)
- NZ must invest in small health needs before big roads – Infrastructure Plan (Newsroom, 17 Feb 2026)
- Infrastructure plan warns less money for roads, more for hospitals – ‘hard truths’ (NZ Herald, 17 Feb 2026 – paywalled)
- Hospitals or roads? Hard decisions ahead as government confronts infrastructure crisis (Spinoff, 18 Feb 2026)
- ‘You be the judge’: Infra boss’ critique of mega roading project costs (1News, 22 Feb 2026)
- This report on NZ’s state of repair will ‘shock’ people, Chris Bishop said. Are you shocked? (Stuff, 27 Feb 2026)
If you’re impressed by our combo of tenacity and foresight, consider supporting us by sharing our work on social media, or making a donation.
Greater Auckland’s work is kept running thanks to generous donations from our readers and fans. We’re a registered charity, so your donations are tax-deductible. If you’re keen, you can join our circle of supporters here. Cheers!
Processing...
Here is a Future is Rail comment on the plan https://thefutureisrail.org/a-vision-for-affordable-frequent-low-emission-travel
Funny post, thanks.
I’d love to see you analyse the NIP by working backwards from where we need to be in a few years’ time.
Perhaps: where the 2035 and 2040 citizens of Aotearoa would most wish our economy, ecology, health system and society to be at that time, given the most likely global ecological and geopolitical situation. From that, how does this NIP stand up?
Despite the hard political calls, the difficult civic discussions, and the new techniques that must be used, how should the NIP be altered to give those future citizens (us, older, yes, but others, too) the best possible chance of a good life?
Yes. So much hopeful thinking by govt to build the wrong thing(s) that we can’t afford nor will help in the end anyway.
And the 2015 plan: https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/infrastructure-plan/thirty-year-new-zealand-infrastructure-plan-2015
It’s actually a pretty funny situation that National announced the infrastructure plan with great confidence to “outline New Zealand’s infrastructure needs over the next 30 years, planned investments over the next 10-15 years, and recommendations on priority projects and reforms to fill the gap between what we have now, what we will have soon, and what we’ll need in future” and insisting “To have long-term stability, it’s important that the National Infrastructure Plan has bipartisan buy-in”.
And then the report comes back and says, in a roundabout but quite unambiguous way, that RONs, National’s flagship infrastructure policy, are bad infrastructure investments:
“investment ambitions continue to grow” , user-funding ‘major roads programme’ alone requiring a ‘ 70% increase’ in fuel tax/RUCs
Yet “Household affordability pressures limit how much can be raised from users.”
And their advice is: “Transport investment matches the amount of money available from users”
“Decision-makers must align projects with demand, prioritise low-cost solutions before major upgrades”
“building and replacing land transport infrastructure” to decline from 1.3% to 1% of GDP over 30 years, yet “current investment ambitions go well beyond this level.”
The biggest question mark for getting ‘bipartisan buy-in’ for this isn’t Labour, but National.
It isn’t just “bipartisan buy-in”. It is supposed to be long-term cross-party consensus. It needs to include the parties that are cross for various reasons. Also, consensus implies some application of sense.
“Buy-in” – is that supposed to mean “what the country is willing to pay” or “how can we buy votes at the next election”? Maybe the National Infrastructure Plan is too important to leave to the politicians.