Bob Edlin: ACT’s pledge to lop road-tax spending on highway pou....

.....raises questions about the payoff – and the total expense

A report for The Detail yesterday raised questions about ACT’s pledge to remove motorway art from road project budgets.

It noted that advocates of the artworks say the effort to save us money will make us poorer.

The report tells us:

It doesn’t make your trip faster, safer or more resilient.

So it’s got to go.

ACT’s new infrastructure policy says road taxes should pay for roads – and not the big-budget statement artworks that increasingly sit alongside them.

Spokesman Simon Court says “non-functional art, monuments, and decorative amenity features” shouldn’t be eligible for transport funding, such as from the National Land Transport Fund.

Furthermore, he says, the fund shouldn’t be raided for “public art, decorative landscaping and cultural monuments that do not make a journey faster, safer or more reliable”.

The country is in a cost-of-living crisis, Court contends, and the ACT Party says the “nice to haves” must go.

The Detail report asks: so, how much would it save?

The answer it provides is a guess.

The Transport Agency (NZTA)’s best guess is that artwork makes up between about 0.2 percent and 1.4 percent of a road’s cost.

But Court says we don’t really know what the cost is, telling NewstalkZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan that NZTA “in their sneaky way” doesn’t declare how much all of the art, decorative landscaping and other amenities actually costs on an annual basis.

The Taxpayers Union last week chimed in with its calculations:

At least $15.8 million has been spent on iwi and hapū resourcing, cultural monitoring, advisory roles and artwork across just three major transport projects, information obtained by the Taxpayers’ Union reveals.

Some examples?

Simon Court cited the $630,000 for a sculpture of a bird in the middle of the Piarere roundabout near Cambridge, on the Waikato Expressway.

The Detail says that sculpture, called Te Manu Rangimaarie (Bird of Peace), is 12 metres high. NZTA says the cost included design, build and installation, and made up 1.4 percent of the $57 million budget for the project.

Other projects:

• The 35 pou, or Māori carvings, on the Te Ara Tupua cycleway between Wellington and Lower Hutt which cost $3.7 million.

• Another six pou beside the Waikato Expressway (the cost of these is not mentioned).

• The Detail then turned to Bill McKay, an Auckland University senior lecturer in architecture and planning, who says he gets a buzz from seeing pou on the Waikato Expressway and says the cost is a drop in the bucket in terms of financing the motorway.

He mentioned yet more artwork: Auckland’s City Rail Link has two new bronze statues which cost $1.38million.

McKay points out that cultural aspects of our country are what tourists want to see, and that’s an industry that can’t be ignored.

Many tourists do come for that purpose. But official statistics show that outdoor exploration—specifically walking/hiking, visiting beaches, and touring national parks—consistently ranks as the Number One activity for international tourists visiting New Zealand.

1. Walking, Hiking, or Tramping – national tracks, day walks, alpine crossings.
2. Visiting Beaches & Coasts – coastal relaxation, swimming, scenic shores.
3. National Parks & Nature Reserves – conservation estates, native bird habitats.

The Taxpayers’ Union has spotlighted other examples of spending on artworks in recent years.

In October 2024 it was calling on the agency to “work on their negotiation skills” after documents obtained from an Official Information Act request showed $270,000 was spent on design costs and $390,000 on installation for a 14 metre tall art sculpture outside a rest stop near Tekapo.

The documents also showed more than $50,000 was spent on a piece of cultural panelling down the road in Burkes Pass.

Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer Alex Emes declared:

“The first sentence on the NZTA’s website states ‘our primary function is to promote an affordable land transport system’. Whichever bureaucrat approved this expensive piece of artwork needs to be reminded that this object is neither affordable, nor a land transport system.”

Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, Emes said, “but no one is stopping their car mid-journey just to see a 14m tall metal eyesore when the stunning Mackenzie Basin is in the backdrop. And the mountains didn’t cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands to commission.”

The Taxpayers’ Union also complained that the NZTA can’t tell the public how much it is spending “on questionable art across the country” because even they have no way of keeping track of the massive sums.

The Press’s report of this spending said NZTA media manager Frances Adank had drawn attention to the agency’s OIA response to the Union which said the project was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

She deferred all further comment to MBIE.

The project was funded as part of a Regional Investment Opportunities package and administered by the MBIE through Kānoa (the Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit).

Another press statement was released in September 2025 when the Taxpayers’ Union established that the agency had spent $5.05 million on cultural artworks along the Te Ahu a Turanga – Manawatū Tararua Highway.

The spending had gone ahead without an open tender process.

The union spokesman on this occasion was James Ross, who said:

“Blowing $5 million on roadside art with no accountability is exactly the sort of decision-making that drives up project costs and erodes public trust.

“While this may be a fraction of the overall budget, the same approach across projects nationwide adds up quickly. What’s the real bill to taxpayers?”

In its statement last week, The Taxpayers Union said its official information responses show:

• Ōtaki to North of Levin: $7.98 million (GST inclusive) on iwi and hapū resourcing, including $2.01 million on iwi advisor roles.
• Transport Rebuild East Coast: $3.54 million paid to iwi and hapū groups for cultural oversight and monitoring.
• Te Ara Tupua: $4.26 million (GST inclusive) for mana whenua sculptures and artwork.

Taxpayers’ Union Investigative Lead Rhys Hurley welcomed ACT’s policy as exactly the kind of reform taxpayers need on transport projects.

“Infrastructure funding should be about who can deliver the best project at the best price, not who can tick the right cultural box.

“These OIAs suggest around one percent of major transport project budgets is being set aside for ethnicity-based requirements. Consultation with iwi where projects affect sites of genuine cultural significance is entirely appropriate, but that is very different from millions being spent on ongoing advisory roles, monitoring and artwork.”

But the NZTA can’t be accused of not wanting to save money.

It is cutting the amount of funding it gives some councils to help with essential infrastructure, prompting calls for a review of how the calculations were done.

Tararua District Council, for example, said the agency’s decision to cut its contribution to the roading network will cost the district more than $1.2 million over three years.

RNZ reported:

Tararua District Council is one of more than a dozen councils that have seen their Financial Assistance Rate, or FAR, from NZTA reduced over the next three years.

The move has left councils struggling see how they can fund road maintenance, public transport and other costs at a time they’re also being forced to keep rates down.

NZTA currently contributes 73 cents towards every eligible dollar spent on Tararua roads. Next year that will reduce to 72 cents, before dropping again to 71 cents for the following two years.

Tararua District Mayor Scot Gilmore told Checkpoint while a couple of cents doesn’t sound like a lot, it will all add up.

The Far North District council is also facing cuts.

Far North District Councillor Anne Court told Checkpoint that the amount lost in FAR co-payments was subject to final checks by the finance team but it was roughly $1.4 million.

The Far North has the largest roading network in the North Island, with 723 bridges and 28,000 culverts but just 11 ratepayers per kilometre of road, she said.

PoO wonders what the financially bruised councils would say in response to a simple question: should budget cuts be made to FAR or to pou?

Our readers might have another question: does NZTA spend on non-Maori art?

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE.