Unlocking New Zealand’s potential starts in the North-West
By Simon Court, ACT MP and candidate for Kaipara ki Mahurangi
As a civil engineer, I look for practical solutions. In the North-West, that means keeping infrastructure ahead of growth.
People see it in new homes and queues on SH16. Our challenge is making sure growth comes with the infrastructure to support it.
A major step forward came in September, when the North-West Rapid Transit project received fast-track approval. The plan is for a dedicated busway alongside SH16, running from Brigham Creek to Auckland city centre, with seven stations and a park-and-ride at Brigham Creek. When completed, it is designed to provide a reliable 25-minute trip into the city.
Demand is already clear. The Western Express bus service recorded more than 1.1 million passenger trips in the year to May, around 40 per cent above forecast. People will use public transport when it is frequent, reliable and gets them where they need to go.
For Helensville and Waimauku, the next question is how local services connect people to this wider network. A rapid transit route at Brigham Creek can make a real difference across the North-West when people further north have practical ways to reach it.
Transport is one part of a bigger challenge. The 2023 floods showed why stormwater and flood protection must be planned alongside housing. Roads and public transport need to be ready before communities are left trying to catch up. Local businesses need confidence that people and goods can reach them.
That is why the new planning laws matter. With Royal Assent, the Planning and Natural Environment Bills are now law. After 35 years, the RMA era is over. ACT worked for years to replace it with a system that gives greater weight to property rights and makes it easier to build the homes, infrastructure and businesses New Zealand needs while protecting the environment.
Under the new system, land-use planning is separate from rules for managing the effects of resource use. Councils and communities get a clearer framework for deciding where growth should happen and what infrastructure must support it. Implementing that framework will take time. The clearer rules give councils and businesses a better basis for planning and investment.
We also need fair ways to pay for infrastructure. Parliament passed changes to the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act in July. Private investors can fund roads and water infrastructure upfront; the cost is repaid over time through levies on properties that benefit. This is the model that helped unlock infrastructure for thousands of homes at Milldale. The changes make it easier to use for transport and water networks, and allow ongoing maintenance to be funded.
The next step is replacing development contributions with development levies, expected from 2029. They will let councils recover the forecast cost of growth infrastructure across defined levy areas, with charges reflecting the cost of servicing each area. The Commerce Commission will oversee how levies are calculated, and the Crown will pay when its projects add demand to local networks.
Engineering teaches you to plan before you build, get the basics right and deliver things in the right order.
New Zealand has spent too long doing the opposite — allowing homes to get ahead of roads and water infrastructure, wrapping necessary projects in layers of process, and spending too much money without getting enough built.
ACT has spent this term changing that.
We have helped replace the RMA with a planning system that gives greater weight to property rights and makes it easier to build the homes, infrastructure and businesses New Zealand needs. We have improved the tools available to fund growth infrastructure. And our transport policy is built around a simple principle: waste less, build more, and make every infrastructure dollar work harder.
There is still plenty to do.
For the North-West, that means making sure rapid transit is delivered, local communities are properly connected to it, roads and water infrastructure keep pace with development, and planning rules allow investment rather than getting in its way.
The North-West has enormous potential. Unlocking it will take more than another round of plans and promises. It requires stable rules, disciplined investment and a Government prepared to keep reforming the systems that have held New Zealand back.
ACT’s case this election is that the reforms started this term need to be carried through, not reversed. A stronger ACT presence in the next Government would give us greater influence to continue reforms in planning, infrastructure, transport and energy — and to keep Labour out of Government.
That is why I am asking for your Party Vote for ACT this election: to lock Labour out, keep the Government moving in the right direction, and unlock New Zealand’s potential.
That is the approach I have brought to Parliament as an engineer and as ACT’s Infrastructure spokesperson, and it is the work I intend to keep pursuing for Kaipara ki Mahurangi.
