National Infrastructure Plan: NZ challenged to cut transport spending and fund billions more on health and energy
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
The Infrastructure Commission, tasked with creating a multi-decade bipartisan infrastructure plan, has released a report pushing New Zealand to massively increase health and energy spending - while cutting back on land transport.
The National Infrastructure Plan will be tabled in Parliament today, with the Government given six months to respond. Opposition parties are invited to consult on the plan to with a goal of creating some level of bipartisan consensus on large projects.
The authors note that two thirds of the $275 billion in New Zealand’s infrastructure “pipeline” is unfunded - $193b. This unfunded spread largely comes from 44 “largely unfunded megaprojects” promised by central Government, many of them large transport plans such as the currently unfunded second harbour crossing in Auckland.
It notes that the only way to realistically fund these large transport projects is “likely unacceptable” rises in user charges like tolls - meaning some will need to be scaled back.
A $9 toll on both the existing Auckland Harbour Bridge and a new crossing is put forward as potential way to help pay for a new crossing.
The commission points out that currently the country is only planning to spend about 30% of its total infrastructure spend on renewal and maintenance - while the authors believe it should be more like 60%.
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The plan pushes a bevy of measures to help deal with our infrastructure challenges, including:
Time of use road charging.
Reprioritising and delaying some transport investments.
Massive investment in hospitals.
Cost-effective flood risk infrastructure.
Reformed planning laws.
Prioritising maintenance and renewals, with 60c of every $1 of infrastructure spending focused on maintaining what we already have.
Some of these moves are already in train under the current Government, such as reformed planning laws and time of use charging, but others will face a steep political battle.
The authors are unsparing in their critique of New Zealand’s current system, noting the country spends more of its GDP on infrastructure than anyone else in the OECD but gets some of the worst results, ranking fourth-to-last in maintaining current assets.
Infrastructure Commission chief Geoff Cooper said recent weather events showed just how important maintaining existed infrastructure was.
'Weather events and infrastructure failures make very clear the importance of investing to renew and build resilience into the networks that sustain our way of life,' says Commission chief executive Geoff Cooper.
“We can’t keep doing what we’ve always done. Each year we invest just over $20 billion on infrastructure, yet on a dollar-for-dollar basis we achieve less than many of our more efficient international peers.'
Cut transport, boost health and energy
The commission looked at how New Zealand’s needs will change as its population ages and the economy decouples from fossil fuels, making recommendations of how spending should change with it.
It compared this future spending for 2024-2054 with how we had invested in infrastructure through 2010-2022, measuring the spend as a proportion of overall GDP.
Land transport - roads, public transport, and rail - had taken 1.3% of GDP in those 12 years, and the commission recommended it drop to 1% for the period of 2024-2054.
That .3% drop would mean cutting between $55b and $70b over the 30-year period, when compared to how we had invested between 2010 and 2022.
The commission thought this would be possible thanks to wider decarbonisation and slower income and population growth. Income growth is generally correlated with higher usage of transport networks.
Meanwhile it saw a need for massive investment in the electricity and gas network for decarbonisation and maintenance, with the share of GDP going from 0.8% in 2010-2022 to 1.3% in 2024-2054 - a boost of around $95b-$112b.
The commission noted this would be paid for by “user charges” - implying dramatically higher power bills.
But it also saw a need for serious investment from general taxes to double the share of investment going to hospitals - from 0.2% in 2010-2022 to 0.4% in 2024-2054, a boost of around $38b-$45b.
Auckland would need just under 5000 beds by 2050 - up from a bit under 4000 currently - and Canterbury would need a big boost too.
This would be needed to deal with New Zealand’s ageing population - commensurately investment in schools could drop somewhat.
Minister: We are already doing some of what is asked
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said he had asked the independent experts to come up with the plan shortly after coming to Government as the country needed to get better at infrastructure.
“We spend a lot on infrastructure – around 5.8% of GDP annually over the last 20 years, one of the highest in the OECD – yet we rank towards the bottom for efficiency, and fourth to last in the OECD for asset management. Many central government agencies do not properly understand what they own or have long-term investment plans,” Bishop said.
He has to officially respond to the plan by June, but said the Government was already undertaking work on many of the priorities - such as time of use charging and zoning reform.
On perhaps the most controversial recommendation from the commission - to scale back large scale transport projects like the Roads of National Significance - Bishop said the Government “will soon publish a Major Transport Projects Pipeline.”
Bishop has sought to promote some level of bipartisanship on the plan, saying he was trying to involve other major parties as much as possible, as the plan would naturally span multiple governments.
But Labour’s transport spokesman Tangi Utikere said that while he had met with the commission, Bishop himself had not met with him.
“I'd like to know what his definition of bipartisanship is, because I would have thought the very first port of call would be at least sitting down with the relevant spokespeople in transport and to have a conversation. We have not done that,” Utikere said.
Health Minister Simeon Brown said the Government was already making “huge investment” in hospital infrastructure but there was always more to do.
He noted that actually getting things done was taking too long, as the last Government had announced funding for recladding Middlemore Hospital in 2018 but work had only started in 2025.