City Rail Link’s $3.4 million marketing and PR bill questioned

Friday, 27 February 2026

Auckland Transport’s rendering of a new Karanga a Hape station to open along with the City Rail Link later in 2026.

New Zealand’s most expensive infrastructure project has also come with a costly PR and advertising bill, official figures show.

Between Auckland Transport and CRL Limited, $2.4 million has so far been spent on “marketing” the City Rail Link train line, while a further $1.03m will be spent before the end of the year.

AT’s spend includes $833,200 towards “creative development” and $365,600 on an “interactive website” with video. Some ad materials have been translated into seven different languages, at a cost of $12,000.

Staff tell The Post it’s necessary as part of an ongoing campaign to ensure the lines have a high patronage “on day one”, with ticket sales needed to meet operational costs.

Yet, despite the millions spent on “communication”, the one thing Aucklanders remain none the wiser on is when the CRL will actually open.

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The spending figures were released after an Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) request made by the Auckland Ratepayer’s Alliance.

Spokesperson Josh Van Veen said extensively promoting an infrastructure project years before it opened “raised a lot of questions about value for money”.

“We acknowledge the need for outreach and community engagement given the scale of disruption caused by the project. But, too much was spent on corporate PR during the years in which the CRL was still a distant promise.”

In a response to the information request, AT staff say the spend “reflects a very small proportion of the total cost to built and open CRL; less than 0.05% of a $5.5 billion project”.

Said Van Veen: “This money would have been much better spent if it had gone to supporting the residents and businesses negatively impacted by construction work in the CBD.

“After all, it is their rates and taxes we are talking about here.”

The Council and government did put together a $12m hardship fund.

Stacey van der Putten, Auckland Transport Director of Public Transport and Active Modes, pictured with the last of the city's new electric trains coming off a boat at the docks.

In a statement to The Post, AT’s director of public transport Stacey van der Putten said ongoing communication was “critical” to “ensure a positive customer experience”.

“There will be changes for every train service in Auckland, with new routes using the CRL that completely replace today’s lines.

“This means the scale of change and potential disruption for passengers is significant, if this is not well communicated ahead of time.”

But the Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling for the remaining communications and marketing budget in the 2026 financial year to be cancelled.

“Every Aucklander knows what the CRL is. We’ve been talking about it for a decade. So why the need for paid media? This is a total waste of money at a time when households and businesses are facing the biggest rates increase in the history of the supercity.”

Figures show AT spent $621,200 on traditional media advertising while CRL Ltd spent $138,514 on “advertising activities”.

“It sounds like an outrage,” said Massey University’s Professor of Marketing Analytics Bodo Lang. “But, for a project of that size, it’s the flea on the back of an elephant.”

Lang said that a company like Noel Leeming, which has a billion-dollar-a-year turnover, spends approximately $50m annually on advertising.

“And this is also a really complicated project: we're not selling toasters or iPods.”

Lang said the Ratepayers Alliance was right to question where the money was going, but he felt it was “well spent”.

“They’re spending the money on keeping the public informed, because if they didn’t there would honestly be riots.”

Lang said CRL’s challenge was in communicating where its budgeted billions were going when works were largely concealed.

“A huge underground tunnel is completely invisible, and all you see is the disruption, you don’t see the actual deliverable. If they were completely silent over how they're progressing and what the bottlenecks might be, they would be lambasted in the court of public opinion.”

Aucklanders face an average 7.9% rates increase this year, which has been attributed to the cost of CRL. It brings the average household rates bill up from $4023 to $4341.