Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand

Incredibly disappointed is the only way to describe how I feel about the Government’s recent announcement on the fate of roading projects in the

New Zealand Upgrade Programme.

Firstly, the good news is that the 24 kilometre highway from Otaki to north of Levin, costing around $817million, will be built as planned. Wellington’s Melling Interchange will also go ahead at a higher cost – now estimated at $420m, having been costed at $258m just a year ago.

The bad news from a road transport point of view is that the Mill Road project in Auckland will not go ahead – due to reprioritisation and concern over future transport emissions. 

This again proves the Gover...

I’m mindful we remain apolitical, but Transporting New Zealand does play an important role in keeping members well-informed when they consider exercising their right to vote in the General Election.

Our road funding model is predominantly based on user-pays; the duties collected from fuel and RUC are ring-fenced and invested in accordance with the National Land Transport Plan (NLTP). The amount of funding collected that way is important because we have certainty that it will be ...

In July I joined a panel at the New Zealand Cargo Owners Council AGM to discuss building freight resilience in an uncertain world. It was a multi-modal panel representing rail, shipping, and ports.

I like engaging in these discussions because it’s a great opportunity to better understand what matters to other parts of the supply chain.

The first part of the conversation recognised that our supply chains are pretty resilient, albeit more often a result of reactive, rather than proactive measures and risk mitigation controls. Consider the earthquakes in Christchurch and Kaikōura, COVID, and more recently the volatility with fuel; by and large we’ve come through...

The 32nd update in May presented some interesting shifts from earlier reports. The most significant change was a surge in concern for petrol and fuel prices.

In the October 2025 report, “petrol / fuel prices” ranked 14th. In February 2026, it ranked ninth, and then moved up to fourth place in May.

The ranking for transport / public transport / infrastructure did not change quite so drastically – going from 13th, to 16th, to 12th in October 2025, February 2026, and ...

Transporting New Zealand was proud to support Road Safety Week from 4-10 May, held by the Brake charity.

The initiative is especially important for our sector because the road is the workplace for over 30,000 truck drivers and many others working in transport. In 2024 alone trucks, buses and light commercial vehicles collectively travelled over 14 billion kilometres. We want...