Provide feedback on the draft National Infrastructure Plan

What’s in the draft Plan?

The Plan tackles a problem New Zealand has seen for decades: our infrastructure investment and governance system isn’t delivering the outcomes needed for a modern, growing, and resilient society, despite high levels of spending.

It aims to fix the problem by providing clear actions to bridge the gap between what we need and what we’re planning so we can be confident that we’ll have infrastructure that’s affordable, reliable, and fit for future generations. The Draft sets out 19 recommendations over four key areas:

• Establishing affordable and sustainable funding. We spend a lot on infrastructure, but it's challenging to keep up with rising costs and to balance with other demands for taxpayers’ money. This means we need smarter ways to fund what we build and look after.
• Clearing the way for infrastructure. Complex rules, changing policies and poor coordination make it slow and expensive to get things built. It also makes it hard build up the workforce required to build and maintain what we need over the long-term.
• Starting with maintenance. Too often we prioritise new projects while the infrastructure we already have runs down. In the long run, this leads to higher costs and can make services unreliable.
• Right-size new investment. We often launch major infrastructure projects before they’re ready, without proper planning or being clear on how we’ll pay for them. This can lead to delays, projects costing more than expected, and communities not getting all of the services they need.

If we get these right many of our other infrastructure challenges will be addressed too.

How did we produce the draft Plan?

Over the past five years we’ve heard from New Zealanders, other government agencies, Local government and business on what matters to them. We know New Zealanders care about the services they receive and about how much they pay for infrastructure.

In 2022, we launched New Zealand’s first Infrastructure Strategy. This Plan builds on the Strategy and draws together evidence from the National Infrastructure Pipeline, in-depth sector research, and direct input from communities.

Alongside this, we have undertaken new research on things like asset management, project delivery, consenting, and workforce capability.

What's next?

Feedback on the draft Plan closed on 6 August 2025. Once we've incorporated the feedback we'll send a final version of the Plan to Government by the end of the year.