Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: National's roading announcement was a massive letdown

Author: Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2026, 7:03pm

Follow the podcast on

The plan for the Government's Roads of National Significance will need foreign capital to be implemented, Luxon says. Photos / Marty Melville, Tania Whyte, Ara Tuhonu

Let's not pretend that this roading announcement is not a massive letdown for anyone who voted for the National Party believing it would deliver the roads it promised. It is a huge letdown.

Of the 15 Roads of National Significance promised following the last election, only six have construction dates: Takitimu North Link Stage 1 in Tauranga, Ōtaki to north of Levin, the Hawke's Bay Expressway, Warkworth to Te Hana, Cambridge to Piarere and the Ōmanawa Bridge. I don't even know where that is.

The rest of them? Well, good luck to you.

The second Mount Victoria Tunnel, which is one of my personal obsessions because of how badly Wellington needs it, has no construction date. In fact, the pre-construction work could take us all the way through to 2037. That is incredibly disappointing.

I've heard rumours for months that this was the case. I've kept asking Chris Bishop about it on this show and he has assured me the project was all go. But it's not really, is it?

And remember what National said at the last election: spades in the ground in the first term. That is now a broken promise.

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to Chris Bishop because he fronted up and got honest with the public about this. That can't have been easy for him to do - for his own reputation and for the political fallout facing the National Party ahead of the next election.

I know he's been anxious about this day coming and it has come. I think he's handled it as well as he could.
But this is a mistake that Chris Bishop and the Nats cannot blame on anyone but themselves.

They cannot blame Trump. They cannot blame tariffs. They cannot blame the conflict with Iran. They cannot blame inflation. They cannot blame the Labour Party.

It was obvious in 2023 that they were being too ambitious in promising all these roads. They were warned they were being too ambitious and the warnings were correct.

Now there will be significant numbers of disappointed voters who will have to wait so long for the roads they were promised that - given how changes of Government work - they may never actually get them.

LISTEN ABOVE