Written By:
- Date published:
1:19 pm, October 21st, 2025 - 14 comments
Categories: chris bishop, infrastructure -
Tags: corruption, nzier, roads, roads of national significance, RONS
Yesterday Chris Luxon and Bishop announced their commitment to spend $1.2 billion to commence major works on “roads of national significance”. Their overall plans are much larger than that – equating to about $62 billion of roading plans without any funding sources under them.
On one road alone, the Northern Expressway, independent advice suggests the cost could easily double from $10 billion to $20 billion.
Yet this hasn’t stopped National, who have gone all in on the commencement –
Over $515 million is expected be spent on acquiring local properties to allow the construction, as part of a $1,200 million commitment to start the roading projects.
Bishop also touted the benefits of tolling, but refused to admit his preference for tolls in yesterday’s press conference, saying that we would have to wait and see, despite NZTA’s business cases suggesting “a higher cost benefit ratio if the roads remain untolled.”
In fact last year, Bishop had stated unequivocally that all roads of national significance were going to be tolled under National, and NZ would hereon become a “user pays” nation –
“Our expectation is that every significant infrastructure project that seeks support from the Crown will consider opportunities for user-pays funding and private financing”
And talking of business cases, Bishop proved he had none for the roads they had selected, in a sit down with Jack Tame a few months ago.
Asked about the Northern Expressway, a project that will consume 1 in every $10 of capital spending over the next 20 years, Bishop answered with his finger in the sky, explaining it ‘just made sense’.
And Newsroom’s analysis by Sam Sachdeva shows considerable issues around National’s current numbers, commissioned to the NZ Institute of Economic Research.
An independent analysis carried out for Parliament’s transport and infrastructure committee by Motu Research affiliate Dr Simon Chapple has questioned some of the conclusions regarding the expressway’s benefits.
“The NZIER report is advocacy research, paid for by people with monetary skin in the game to commercial providers of consultancy services, meaning its conclusions need to be regarded with caution by the public,” Chapple said, with its estimated benefits not readily verifiable.
The NZIER analysis estimated average speeds along the current route to be 67km/h, but Chapple’s own estimates were “considerably higher”, which would affect the purported improvements in travel time.
This isn’t a surprise given Chris Bishop and National’s modus operandi, but one has to laugh at the nation’s forgiveness of National shuttling the i-Rex project, that would have only cost another $1.4b to finish, while throwing away an effective $1b, and in the same breath committing to projects of this mega-nature without credible analysis.
Excerpted article from National bets big on roads as economy teeters
Why aren’t we using the c word- corruption?
From Bernard Hickey:
the road (will be consulted on later).” NZTA’s updated business cases for the RONS.
We could but not enough people are paying attention
yes, upfront with the public. In other words, some honesty.
You won't find "honesty" and "politician" in the same sentence very often.
I see from the Listener (4-10 Oct 2025) that funds from the tourist levy are not going to preserve the conservation estate or improve infrastructure and so cushion the effect of the hordes of tourists entering NZ. Instead, thanks to some fancy footwork, the money is going straight into the government's coffers.
No wonder Louise Upston, Minister of Tourism, refused an interview.
Additional information:
Bishop is willing to spend billions on the Northern Expressway, without knowing the cost benefits… whilst his colleague, Nicola Noboats Willis, scrapped the costed iRex ferries which, in February 2023:
"The programme carried a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 4.4. In other words, the benefits of the $1.450 billion programme were quantified to represent a total economic benefit of $4.276 billion in economic, emissions, reliability, and resilience."
So that information existed.
Bishop can't produce his figures, and gets to walk away without accountability.
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2024-05/project-irex-4914527.pdf
Note: They did use NZIER above but as per article, it could be problematic and the benefit ratio just passes 1
Mr Tobacco and accountability aren't in the same postcode.
I wonder if we even have an opposition some days it's so featherweight as we sure don't have a functioning media.
I don't understand how Peters could announce the deal for a Chinese shipyard to build the two ferries but not say how much they will cost. WTF? There is no possible reason to hide this now as the deal is done.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-zealand-secures-major-shipbuilder-new-ferries
In other words, Peters doesn’t know yet.
So the contract has been awarded to them but Peters doesn't know the cost?
The link says that a fixed price has already been secured. I smell a rat.
“As we said in early September, we have secured major components including a fixed price, completion in 2029, and full delivery of our ship specifications for 200-metre-long ferries with road and rail decks, and room for 1,500 passengers each.”
Read carefully..
If you remember, it wasn't the costs of the iRex ferries that blew out, it was the cost of the port facilities. Mostly because of the problems of building port facilities to both fit the new ferries and that have some reasonable probability of being fit for purpose over the lifetime of the ferries.
Considering that both ports lie on major fault lines, and the weather in the Cook Strait, most of the same engineering problems still exist. So each time a compromise between ferry design and port design changes, so does the overall price.
Peters probably has a overall price for building and delivering the vessels. What they are doing now is figuring out the nasty bits about which side deals with design changes to deal with the environment. That can mean overall cost shifts in roughly the range of 10% difference to something like 100% increase.
As we saw on the iRex project. They are likely to be lower than the iRex movement, simply because more of preliminary unknown work has been done on things like geological stability and changes to roading and rail.
Fair comment all of that.
It sounds like with the contract breaking fee the overall cost is going to be greater than Labour's proposal and the ferries will be smaller and 2 years later.
Omnishambles. Peters will try and hide the total cost until after the election.
No, I don’t think so. By all indications, and in line with their MO, the
spinpress release will be in mid-December when people show least interest & attention, just like last time.https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-ferries-will-ensure-safe-resilient-connection
Of course, with large complex infrastructure projects, true costs are never truly fixed and delays are common, which tend to drive up costs even further.
Edit: Peters won’t miss this opportunity to brag about outdoing Willis/National and Labour.
Thanks as always for your work Tui!
Welcome