Budget 2025: The infrastructure elephant in the room

Budget 2025: The infrastructure elephant in the room
More bipartisan agreement is needed for infrastructure to become stable. (Image: Getty)
Katrina Van Houtte
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Budget 2025 has done little to accelerate the provision of the new public infrastructure that New Zealand so clearly needs.After all, the Budget is the outcome of a deliberative process of policy choices. If those choices are too difficult or cannot be sustained, they will not be made.As a result, when it comes to critical public and health infrastructure, incremental new investment in the rail network, improved tax treatments, or the publication of updated lists of projects, all of which have been see...

More Policy

Fast-track legal fight over Tauranga wharf extension
Policy

Fast-track legal fight over Tauranga wharf extension

Bay of Plenty hapū seek High Court intervention to stop expert panel being set up.

Contractor costs climb as Scott Base spend tops $143m
Policy

Contractor costs climb as Scott Base spend tops $143m

Antarctica NZ spent $9.3m on contractors in five months this year.

Oliver Lewis 21 Jul 2025
Simmonds bins official advice on waste policy
Policy

Simmonds bins official advice on waste policy

Officials pushed for planned targets, bans and mandates. Simmonds overruled them.

Cécile Meier 18 Jul 2025
Banks class action: the lawyers blinked first
Policy Opinion

Pattrick Smellie: Banks class action: the lawyers blinked first

Class action funders show their hand with pre-emptive settlement offer.

Pattrick Smellie 17 Jul 2025