Half a billion dollars a year for status quo failure. Parliament rejects the challenge, vision is lost, and the people are left to flounder. This blog exposes the cost of theatrics, the silence of the middle ground, and the urgent need for durable delivery over primitive drama.
🎭 Missed Opportunity
The Waitangi Principles bill was an opportunity to forge a way forward together. Instead of rejecting it outright, Parliament could have sought common ground. This was a chance to clarify and reconcile — to revisit an agreement made over 100 years ago between two cultures who had no interpreters, both probably well‑meaning, but left with ambiguity.
Rather than a dramatic exit and leaving the courts to untangle history, the middle ground could have worked to bring things closer together. The extremes — right and left — stood firm, but the centre failed to find a way forward.
And yet, the middle politicians shied away from the challenge. Just because it is hard, they should not be so quick to dismiss an idea. This is what they are paid to do: work towards a better country and find a way forward for all voices, not leave the people to flounder.
The haka was one thing, but the intimidation and the subsequent time wasted on arguing punishment made it much worse. While it may have been great for social media, it achieved nothing. Every sitting day of Parliament costs around NZ$60,000 in salaries and operations, and NZ cannot afford to pay politicians for drama that belongs in the movies.
To the outside world, these theatrics confirm the impression of a primitive democracy. What we need is clarity, accountability, and delivery.
🔑 Diagnostic Pivot
This blog is not about the theatrics. It is about how the middle might have worked — how infrastructure could have been laid down differently if protection had been framed as inclusion rather than exclusion.
Here’s how the ledger might have played out: housing, services, earthworks, heatpumps, and transport — delivered as outcomes, not arguments:
📜 What If Clause: Protection as Delivery
Imagine if the bill had tied “protection” directly to outcomes instead of leaving it abstract. A clause could have read:
Clause X: Protection and Partnership in Infrastructure
1. Housing Outcomes
• Crown: funding, service connections, regulatory support
• Māori: land allocation, cultural design input
• Shared accountability: homes built, accessibility features delivered, overcrowding reduced
2. Transport Outcomes
• Crown: vehicles, operating costs, driver training
• Māori: route design, community scheduling, cultural integration
• Shared accountability: daily school attendance, elder access to health services, reduced isolation
3. Accountability Framework
• Inputs: funding, land, vehicles, services
• Outputs: homes, accessible features, buses, routes
• Outcomes: improved health, education, and community connection
This reframing would have turned “protection” into a ledger of delivery — measurable, accountable, and harder to retreat into symbolism.
🧾 Māori Responsibilities
Shared funding requires shared responsibility. The framework assumes at least two people per house — no single dwellings. Māori leadership must:
Coordinate household arrangements to ensure homes are occupied as intended.
Take responsibility for upkeep and maintenance once housing is built, protecting the investment and ensuring durability.
This shifts protection from symbolism into practice: homes are not just built, they are sustained.
🧩 The Funding Paradox
Māori communities claim housing and transport failures as evidence of Crown neglect. The Crown points to existing funding streams and settlements, arguing it should not pay twice. Both are correct — money exists, but outcomes are missing. Accountability is absent. Every delay is not the Crown stopping you — it is you stopping yourselves.
🏠 Clean, Dry Homes as a Start
Clean, dry homes with reliable access to medical care and education are the baseline. These are the issues raised time and time again as areas where Māori are let down. The responsibility now lies with Māori leadership to propose alternative solutions that move beyond disruption and drama, and instead deliver outcomes.
🏠 Housing Needs: Cards on the Table
• Population needing homes: 50,000
• Average household size: 4
• Homes required: 12,500
🏠 Housing Ledger
• Population needing homes: 50,000 (≈12,500 households)
• Baseline build: NZ$300k–360k per home
• 2-bedroom starter home: NZ$300,000
• Extra room (3-bedroom): +NZ$60,000
• Mix assumption: 50% 2-bedroom, 50% 3-bedroom
• Accessibility features: 20% of homes NZ$50m
• Homes needing accessibility: 2,500
• Average per accessible home: NZ$20,000
• Accessibility subtotal: NZ$50m
• Service connections: NZ$500m
• Heatpumps: NZ$37.5m ($3K per home)
• Earthworks: NZ$562.5m midpoint of NZ$45k per home
Sensitivity to land choice:
• Flat, serviced land: closer to NZ$30k–40k per home; fewer retaining walls, simpler drainage, lower truck time and cartage.
• Steep/marginal sites: can exceed NZ$60k–100k+ due to retaining, complex drainage, geotech remediation, and longer cartage distances.
Environment + economics: the flat land advantage
• Lower cost: Flat, accessible sites reduce cut-and-fill volumes, drainage complexity, and cartage — cutting earthworks into the lower band of the range.
• Lower impact: Less excavation and fewer retaining structures mean reduced sediment risk and lower carbon from machine hours and truck trips.
• Higher certainty: Fewer geotechnical surprises, more predictable budgets, smoother consents.
🚐 Transport Ledger
Housing is not just about walls and roofs — it’s about access. A bus service can double as a community connector, taking tamariki to school in the mornings and kaumātua to doctors or chemists on designated days. This turns transport into a multi‑purpose service : mobility, health, and social connection.
• Fleet: 500 vans = NZ$60m
• Running costs: NZ$25m per year
• Community add‑on: NZ$35m
• Total transport investment: ≈ NZ$120m
Inclusive Service Model
Transport must not become a “race service” that excludes non‑Māori. Instead, it can operate as a subsidised community connector:
Koha contribution: passengers contribute what they can, ensuring dignity and shared responsibility.
Subsidy base: 50% funded through the housing/settlement framework, 50% through Crown or community funding.
Open access: services available to all residents in the area, Māori and non‑Māori alike.
Dual purpose: school runs in the morning, elder health access during the day, community events in the evening.
This model reframes transport as a shared service tile — inclusive, sustainable, and accountable — rather than a race‑based entitlement.
💰 Grand Total
• Housing + Transport = NZ$5.395 billion
• Cost per person = NZ$107,900
📊 Current System Costs
• Housing: ≈ NZ$260m–NZ$325m per year
• Transport: ≈ NZ$130m–NZ$195m per year
• Total ongoing cost: ≈ NZ$390m–NZ$520m annually
* Break‑even horizon: ≈ 11–13 years
*Failing to find middle ground means we simply accept the status quo — and keep paying these ongoing costs (NZ$390m–NZ$520m annually) year after year. Until a solution is found, which does not seem to be happening any time soon, the country continues to burn through half a billion dollars annually for poor outcomes.
🧩 Sidebar: Engineering + Professional Fees
The housing and transport ledger already includes engineering‑type work — civil, structural, mechanical, and compliance costs are embedded in the baseline figures. But professional expertise deserves to be named:
• Design + Engineering Fees: typically 10–15% of total build cost
• Includes: architects, engineers, surveyors, project managers, compliance specialists
• Purpose: ensures homes are safe, durable, and meet building codes
• Transport: mechanical engineering, safety compliance, and ongoing maintenance are bundled into fleet and running costs
By explicitly recognising these fees, the ledger shows that delivery is not just about bricks and vans — it’s about professional oversight and accountability.
🧩 Sidebar: Consents + Compliance
Consents and compliance are essential but unpredictable. They are excluded from the baseline build estimate to keep the ledger transparent.
• Estimated range: 5–10% of total project cost
• Funding split: 50% Crown, 50% Māori (settlement or iwi contribution)
• Scope: building consents, resource consents, service connections, and transport compliance
• Risk: costs can escalate if disputes or delays occur — accountability lies with Māori leadership to streamline applications and avoid unnecessary legal entanglements.
🧩 Consent + Compliance Cost Estimate - to be added to the budget
Key Notes
Excluded from baseline build: these costs are not part of the NZ$5.395b housing + transport ledger.
Funding split: 50% Crown, 50% Māori (settlement or iwi contribution).
Risk: costs can escalate if disputes or delays occur — Māori leadership must streamline applications to avoid blowouts.
Baseline Only
The funding framework applies to baseline builds only — standard homes with accessibility features, service connections, earthworks, and heatpumps, plus shared transport.
• Anything beyond baseline (larger homes, bespoke designs, advanced environmental features, or community extras) must be funded entirely by iwi.
• This ensures the Crown’s contribution remains capped at 50% of baseline + consent costs and predictable, while iwi retain the freedom to invest in complexity at their own cost if they choose.
Transport Consents
Transport consents include passenger service licences, operator compliance, vehicle safety inspections, and in‑vehicle camera or registration systems. These are excluded from the baseline budget but estimated at 5–10% of total transport costs, shared 50/50 between Crown and Māori.
💰 Funding Framework
The investment does not need to fall entirely on the Crown. A balanced approach could be adopted:
50% from settlements already made
50% from Crown funding (existing streams or new allocations if suitable funding does not exist)
Priority given to iwi where a settlement has been made and Māori are prepared to commit their 50% share.
Unsettled claims can still participate, but they must fund 50% of the cost from their own sources if they are not prepared to settle.
This ensures accountability, shared commitment, and prioritisation of communities ready to act.
🛠️ Visionary Delivery Roadmap
Assumption:
The below roadmap assumes iwi have agreed to the proposal and funding is secured.
Where there is dispute, delay, or funding shortfall, milestones would need to be adjusted.
It is therefore a visionary roadmap — showing what durable delivery could look like if consensus and resources align.
🏠 Housing Delivery Roadmap
Day 1:
• Consents lodged, groundwork begins.
• Vision Impact: visible action, families see progress toward safe, warm homes.
Month 3:
• First homes under construction.
• Vision Impact: families begin moving in, health improves as overcrowding eases.
Month 6:
• 500–1000 homes completed.
Vision Impact: families begin moving in, overcrowding eases, health stabilises. Resilience grows — fewer respiratory illnesses, children sleep in beds not cars.
Year 1:
• 1,500–2,000 homes delivered.
Vision Impact: costs decline as resilience rises, health gains compound. Visible progress, but still urgent need for scaling.
Year 2–3:
• 5000 - 7000 homes complete.
Scaling factors:
• Prefabrication factories ramped up — domestic + imported modules.
• Workforce expansion — training, iwi partnerships, migrant labour if needed.
• Consenting streamlined — faster approvals once templates and overlays are standardised.
• Supply chain stabilised — bulk procurement of materials reduces delays.
• Delivery mode: mix of prefabricated + traditional builds, with higher throughput.
Vision Impact: communities stabilise, health costs decline more sharply, education gains compound.
Year 5–7:
≈17,500 homes complete.
Full programme completion: scaling sustained, backlog cleared.
Vision Impact: durable delivery achieved — housing tiles locked in as legacy infrastructure.
These milestones assume accelerated prefabrication, iwi agreement, and funding alignment. If disputes or supply constraints arise, delivery pace must be recalibrated.
🚐 Transport Delivery Roadmap (Conditional)
Day 1 Commitment:
Purchase orders placed for one van per iwi (≈70 vans total).
Conditional: vans cannot be deployed until they are in the country and have consents + compliance approvals (Transport Service Licence, safety checks, operator rules).
Vision Impact: Māori leadership takes responsibility for tamariki getting to school and elders reaching healthcare.
Month 3:
• First vans cleared and deployed.
• Vision Impact: school attendance stabilises, health access improves.
Month 6:
• Fleet expands to 100 vans, aligned with housing clusters.
• Vision Impact: tamariki thrive in classrooms, elders access clinics, workers reach jobs.
Year 1:
• 250 vans operational.
• Vision Impact: costs decline, education + health gains compound.
Year 2–3:
• 400 vans integrated into community hubs.
• Vision Impact: stronger literacy, numeracy, and long‑term employment prospects.
Year 5–7:
• Full fleet of 500 vans in service, capped at NZ$120m.
• Vision Impact: durable delivery achieved — transport tiles locked in as legacy infrastructure.
Diagnostic Imperatives
Urgency is not optional: every year of delay costs ≈ NZ$500m in ongoing failure.
Timeline must be front‑loaded: housing builds and transport fleets should begin within the first 12 months.
Health + Education gains compound: the earlier families are housed and tamariki are reliably in school, the faster costs decline and resilience rises.
🪧 Ongoing Costs, Continued Failure
The ledger is clear: protection adds, barriers subtract. Māori already have land. The frameworks are in place. The funding is available. Yet disruption and in‑fighting keep doors closed.
Accountability means showing outcomes in units — homes built, people housed, children transported, elders taken to doctors — not just endless arguments.
Cards on the Table:
Maori have land. Maori have frameworks. Maori have pathways to funding.
Responsibility lens: Free the land. Choose flat, serviced blocks. Build the homes. Deliver accessibility (20%). Connect the services. Do the earthworks wisely.
Outcome ledger: Count homes, people housed, children transported, and accessibility delivered — not court filings and delays.
Provocation: Are Maori protecting people, or creating their own barriers?
The challenge is simple: make it work. Free up your land. Build the homes. Add the accessible features. Connect the services. Do the earthworks wisely. Install the heatpumps. Run the buses as community connectors. Protect your people by delivering outcomes, not by creating your own barriers.
✨ Closing Vignette
This is the “keys in hand, doors unopened” situation. The Crown has handed over the keys (frameworks, funding, settlements), but many doors remain closed because of internal divisions and choices.
Protection reflected in glass is not protection delivered in homes. The Crown has obligations, Māori leadership has responsibilities, and the middle politicians must stop shying away from the hard work.
Primitive theatre confirms a primitive democracy. Durable delivery proves a mature one. Ongoing costs plus continued failure are the price of inaction — and the middle ground is where and shared, koha‑based delivery is the mature alternative. The middle ground is where vision must be realised — not abandoned in drama, but in outcomes.
These are the voyages of Random Circuits, boldly entering the arena of ideas that disrupt, challenge, and transform.
