Building infrastructure

Everyone deserves a safe, affordable place to live that has access to modern infrastructure and low-cost public transport. We need to build communities that enable people to prosper.

Build affordable housing

Housing is unaffordable for many New Zealanders, both as renters and prospective homeowners. Successive governments have kicked the can down the road on this issue, by either failing to set or failing to deliver a plan to improve affordability. To improve accountability in this area, the Government should set new housing affordability targets for both rent and homeownership and publicly demonstrate how it is going to work to achieve those targets over the next decade at each Budget.

Rapidly deliver more public housing

Our poor quality and unaffordable housing stock creates many social and economic problems and places additional burdens on the health and welfare systems. Through Kāinga Ora, the Government should seek to rapidly expand the supply of quality and affordable public housing.

Resource papakāinga development

Māori communities are at the sharp end of our housing problems. Whānau, hapū, and iwi often find that capital or resourcing constraints hold them back from building new housing. The Government should partner with iwi to remove these barriers and scale up papakāinga developments. This would rapidly deliver new healthy and affordable housing, together with skills development and sustainable employment.

Understanding our infrastructure needs

We currently know how much new infrastructure costs to build, but not the future liabilities we create for failing to invest today. The Government should produce a national infrastructure needs assessment at every Budget, which sets out the infrastructure bill facing the country over the next 30 years and how these infrastructure needs will be met.

Build new infrastructure

Inadequate planning, a lack of access to skilled workers and capital, and the use of public–private partnerships have undermined Aotearoa’s ability to build infrastructure at reasonable costs. A central government agency – along the lines of a Ministry of Green Works – should be tasked with delivering the pipeline of infrastructure work, its implementation, and the delivery of the necessary skills. This would include specific protections against forcible acquisition of Māori land.

A fully electrified and affordable public transport system

Many workers are forced to use private cars for transport due to a lack of affordable public transport options. The Government should kick-start a just transition to a fully electrified and affordable public transport system, together with a more equitable public transport funding mechanism. As a first step, the Government should invest in a fully electrified passenger bus fleet.