By John McDonald (CityWatch NZ Editor)
Earlier in 2026, Infrastructure New Zealand welcomed the release of the National Infrastructure Plan produced by the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission (Te Waihanga).
Infrastructure New Zealand is a lobby group representing various corporations, consultants, firms, and other organisations involved in the infrastructure sector (i.e. those organisations financially supported by the money the government spends on infrastructure).
The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission (Te Waihanga) is another organisation created to provide “independent“ advice on how the government should be spending on infrastructure.
On paper, Infrastructure New Zealand and the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission are two separate organisations. However, there exists a “classic revolving door” between the two organisations. Personnel linked to Infrastructure New Zealand (or its members/funders) move into positions at the Infrastructure Commission with Stephen Selwood being the most obvious example (a former Chief Executive of Infrastructure New Zealand and currently a director on the board of the Infrastructure Commission). The Infrastructure Commission’s current “General Manager – Strategy” is Peter Nunns, who has a controversial history of working for the MR Cagney consultancy firm while he was the partner of the Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter. MR Cagney is partially responsible for the numbers of raise crossing speed bumps installed around Auckland.
In April 2026, the Minster of Finance Nicola Willis and Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop announced that they are “transferring responsibility for infrastructure project assurance from The Treasury to the independent NZ Infrastructure Commission”.
In the same month, Infrastructure Commission Chief Executive Geoff Cooper was reported by RNZ pointing out the huge “deferred maintenance gap” and huge amounts of planned water infrastructure spending.
“The number that we have here from the water service delivery plans is about $49 billion over the next 10 years…
…To put that into perspective, that’s about on par with what New Zealand has spent on water services in the 125 years since 1885.”
Infrastructure Commission – Te Waihanga Chief Executive Geoff Cooper as quoted by RNZ in The $49 billion cost of fixing water infrastructure woes laid bare, 23 April 2026.
Both the Infrastructure Commission and the Minister of Infrastructure understand some of the major problems with infrastructure in New Zealand as indicated by the quote below.
“New Zealand is in the top 10% of the OECD for infrastructure spending, but we are in the bottom 10% for what we get for our spend.
We rank fourth to last in the OECD for asset management.
Half of all capital-intensive central government agencies have reported that they do not have robust asset registers or adequate plans for looking after existing infrastructure.
And around half of all proposals for investment in the last five Budgets did not have complete business cases.
On top of this, Central Government agencies often don’t follow rules on basic investment management.
Since coming into Government, I have also been concerned about the quality and completeness of information Ministers receive to make billion-dollar decisions.”
Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop, Speech to New Zealand Infrastructure Commission Symposium, 22 April 2026.
The Ministers are transferring responsibility for infrastructure spending oversight to the Infrastructure Commission; which is largely staffed by people who have worked for other organisations which have been highly-involved in decades worth of building and managing New Zealand’s infrastructure. Those other organisations (heavily represented in Infrastructure New Zealand’s membership list) are going to be partially responsible for the failing, dysfunctional, and eye-wateringly expensive infrastructure around this country.
Many generations of politicians and bureaucrats also share some of the blame for the misallocation of resources or failures to be honest with their electorates. The politicians and bureaucrats also should be protecting the interests of the public from commercial entities which have financial interests in profiting from wasteful spending on unnecessary/unwanted projects.
These days if a government puts the foxes in charge of the henhouses we would expect a press release from the Association of Professional Foxes in Management (APFM), it would read something like this…
“The Association of Professional Foxes in Management (APFM) recognises the recurring problem of chickens which just keep on dying or disappearing at night for no apparent reason. APFM members have spent decades advising farmers on international best practice for flock protection strategies. The APFM welcomes the renewed interest in large-scale purchasing of more replacement hens. Farmers should invest in buying flocks of plump, tasty, hens that cannot run very fast. The APFM also welcomes the construction of improved chicken coops with fences that hens cannot fly over and gates which can be easily opened by smaller carnivorous mammals. The cost of replacement flocks and improved henhouses can be paid for with debt. Increased borrowing allows the costs to be spread over multiple generations of farmers. This is the fair option which will improve intergenerational equity.”
Spokesperson for Association of Professional Foxes in Management (APFM)
In these postmodernist times a lobby group ‘of foxes for foxes’ would probably be rebranded “Safe Hens Aotearoa” and state-funded media would enthusiastically introduce them to audiences without explaining their strong potential for biased commentary and conflicts of interests.
The so-called “independent” Infrastructure Commission is led by people who have worked for the various lobby groups, corporations, consultancies, and council bureaucracies which some of us hold responsible for decades worth of obscenely expensive, unwanted, and/or poorly-managed infrastructure projects.
An optimistic view would be that the Infrastructure Commission is largely staffed by well-intentioned people who have spent careers as junior members of teams where they had to watch powerlessly as all manner of waste, rorts, bad decisions, poor planning, grift, and technical failures occurred within New Zealand’s infrastructure projects. The optimist can hope those people will use the new oversight powers of the Infrastructure Commission, combine their new found influence with their insider experiences, and help clean-up the sector and make sure that New Zealanders get good value from all future infrastructure spending.
That optimistic view is somewhat undermined by the recent plan released by the Infrastructure Commission. The 30-year plan is a mixture of common-sense recommendations (many things which probably should have been standard practice decades ago) and the promotion of concerning concepts cloaked in euphemistic language. I agree broadly with getting better value from infrastructure spending, a greater focus on responsible long-term planning, and prioritising maintenance over flashy new projects. However, the report contains some concerning euphemisms, including:
- “Manage assets on the downside“ which is associated with de-growth, declining communities, stalling the population growth, loss of services, and “asset recycling“.
- “Asset recycling“ is the selling of public infrastructure and assets. Privatisation done in the name of funding other infrastructure. The infrastructure which offers opportunities for the private sector to extract reliable profits will tend to be prioritised for sale, with the public being left with the ongoing liabilities and higher risk infrastructure.
- “Upzoning” and setting“land-use policies to enable maximum efficient use of existing and new infrastructure“ is the pushing of “higher-density mixed-use development near rapid-transit corridors and in other locations where infrastructure can support growth“. Planning decisions will likely override the wishes of local communities and the rights of landowners in the pursuit of technocratic efficiency.
- “People and businesses that benefit from network infrastructure pay for its costs“ which isassociated with user-pays infrastructure, congestion charges, turning existing roads toll roads, constant monitoring for time-of-use charges, incentivising behavioural changes for demand reduction, and water meters.
- “Identify cost-effective flood risk infrastructure“ which is connected with increased flood risks attributed to climate change, and can lead to managed retreat and abandoning of communities.
These euphemisms and concepts indicate that the Infrastructure Commission (and Infrastructure New Zealand) are pushing the country towards a future where we pay more to get less, we are monitored constantly for user-pays revenue collection and to optimise our behaviour, the most lucrative common infrastructure is privatised, and you could be forcibly moved off your land because a computer model has decided you live in a “managed retreat” zone or area being “upzoned” for higher-density housing.
Its a future where modelled efficiency takes priority over the rights, ways of life, and choices of people. Despite the value the well-established managers of New Zealand’s infrastructure claim to put on efficiency, the building and maintaining of infrastructure in this country has been appallingly inefficient under decades of their management.
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Further reading on this issue:
KPMG International Publication – “The Great Reset: Emerging trends in infrastructure and transport”
OPEN LETTER: John McDonald’s Feedback on the Public Works (Critical Infrastructure) Amendment Bill
