Politicians from Labour, National, the Greens, NZ First and ACT met on Thursday night for the Big Infrastructure Debate, hosted by Engineering New Zealand with Stuff and moderated by Rebecca Wright. The one-hour debate, livestreamed on Stuff.co.nz at 6.30pm on 6 August, drew agreement across party lines on one point: the boom-and-bust cycle that has shaped New Zealand infrastructure spending for decades needs to stop.

"Infrastructure" means the big physical systems a country relies on — roads, bridges, hospitals, power lines, water pipes. Engineering NZ chief executive Dr Richard Templer set the stakes at the outset. Stop-start investment had cost New Zealand billions in lost productivity, he said. Templer called on parties to commit to long-run investment, follow Infrastructure Commission recommendations, and invest 70 to 80 percent in renewables and maintenance.

The Infrastructure Commission is a government adviser on long-term planning for these big projects. In June 2025, it released what it called a "once-in-a-generation" National Infrastructure Plan, setting out a 30-year vision and flagging the need for more investment in hospitals and electricity. Commission chief executive Geoff Cooper had previously briefed politicians on the pipeline of projects expected across the country.

Labour's Kieran McAnulty told the debate that a change in leadership did not need to change the approach to infrastructure. He called for prioritising infrastructure without politicising it, and pointed to a recent congestion charge law that passed Parliament unanimously as evidence that cross-party agreement was achievable in practice.

NZ First's Shane Jones pressed the panel on whether there should be a greater focus on maintenance and repair, rather than building new things alone. The question lines up with the commission's emphasis on the renewals backlog — the pile of work needed to fix or replace ageing assets — and with Templer's call for a larger share of investment to go to maintenance.

ACT's Simon Court took aim at what he called "gold-plating" in public works, meaning spending extra on fancy features that are not essential. A basic bridge that gets built is better than a perfect bridge that never gets built, Court said. Green MP Julie Anne Genter said she had been calling for more basic infrastructure projects for years, suggesting some common ground between ACT and the Greens on the principle, if not the policy detail.

Genter's focus was different. She called on central government to support local councils with more funding and more affordable public transport, and argued for more local control over funds so communities could shape infrastructure to their own needs. That puts the Greens' approach around giving power to local communities rather than Court's focus on value for money.

The debate comes in an election year. The current Parliament has 6 parties and 123 MPs across 65 general electorate seats. Infrastructure has been a recurring point of tension between the government and opposition, but the debate's format, with all five parliamentary parties represented, put the areas of agreement on the record.

The broader context here matters. New Zealand's voting system, MMP, rewards parties for standing out from their rivals, and infrastructure has been easy ground for that. Governments cancel projects started by their predecessors; oppositions promise to revive them. What the debate showed is that all five parties are at least willing to share a stage and say the cycle is a problem.

Whether that agreement survives the campaign trail and coalition talks after the election is another matter. McAnulty's congestion charge example is telling: unanimous votes are rare, and it took a specific, small piece of legislation to get there. The harder test is whether parties can hold consensus over 30 years of investment when elections push them in the opposite direction.

Engineering NZ's ask is clear: commit to the Infrastructure Commission's recommendations, direct the bulk of investment to renewables and maintenance, and break the pattern. The parties have now heard that ask, on the record, in front of an audience.