CCNZ on the cost of stopping

Civil Contractors NZ has put a cross-party, depoliticised infrastructure pipeline at the top of its election manifesto, and its Cost of Stopping report estimates the alternative has cost New Zealand $11.8 billion.

Civil Contractors New Zealand has set out what the industry wants from the next government, and its central demand is one every contractor working on public projects will recognise. Stop starting and stopping the work.

The industry body launched its 2026 Election Manifesto on 1 July, built from 12 member workshops held around the country. Its members construct and maintain the country’s horizontal infrastructure, including transport, water and energy networks, and its biggest challenge is the uncertainty created by the boom-bust cycle. When most of your clients are central or local government, as chief executive Alan Pollard put it, what politicians do or say lands directly on the industry.

The manifesto attaches a number to the problem. The Cost of Stopping report, cited alongside the National Infrastructure Plan, estimates that stop-start infrastructure investment has cost New Zealand $11.8 billion over the past 25 years, through higher costs, lost productivity and delayed public benefits. For the firms that carry the staff, plant and training through those gaps, it is a familiar kind of waste.

CCNZ frames its asks around five themes. The loudest is a stable, depoliticised pipeline, a long-term cross-party commitment with independent accountability for delivery, so a change of government does not mean a change of work. The rest follow from it. A nationally consistent procurement framework with early contractor involvement. A common-sense, risk-based approach to compliance and site safety that is right-sized rather than blanket. Workforce settings that back apprenticeships and on-the-job training and fix immigration for the civil trades. And a proactive approach to resilience and maintenance, including a formal package of resilience works and formal recognition of civil contractors as essential first-response partners when the weather turns.

“Contractors have practical knowledge that can inform whether policy that works in theory works in practice,” Pollard said, urging parties across the spectrum to avoid delaying or cancelling projects already under way.

The pitch is aimed at every party rather than one. Founded in 1944, CCNZ represents more than 800 organisations, including more than 530 civil construction businesses, and the manifesto is aimed at the incoming government rather than a preferred side of the House.

For the wider building sector, the manifesto reads as the civil arm making the case for greater certainty in infrastructure investment. CCNZ’s argument is that the work needs to be planned and delivered consistently rather than repeatedly paused, cancelled or delayed. Whether the next government takes the point is now an election question.