Dear Subscribers
I’m currently making some changes to the Substack platform that I use to send out my research and information about New Zealand politics.
I originally used this Substack platform as part of the Democracy Project, which I set up at Victoria University of Wellington in 2020. The name of the Substack was changed this year to assist with a different venture, but I am now reverting the name back to the Democracy Project.
All my research, advocacy and communications about New Zealand politics continues with the Democracy Project. As always, the Democracy Project is 100% reliant on the funds from subscribers, so if you want to support this work, please do take out a paid subscription.
I will come back to you with further information about the plans I have for the Democracy Project, especially for election year.
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Kind regards
Bryce
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Democracy Briefing: Bishop’s bridge and the brazen return of pork-barrel politics
“Pork-barrelling” isn’t a term we’ve used much in New Zealand politics in recent decades. It’s a phrase that feels distinctly, and grubbily, Australian. Over there, the political landscape is littered with scandals bearing the name: the “sports rorts” affair, where grants were systematically channelled to marginal electorates, or the “car park rorts”, which saw public money allocated to seats the government wanted to win, not to areas with any actual transport need.
We’re going to need to re-learn the term, and fast.
Pork-barrelling, in its simplest form, is the use of government funds for projects designed to please voters in specific electorates and win their political support. It is the practice of channelling public money based on political desire rather than on a proper, merit-based allocation. It’s a form of what academics call “grey corruption”—behaviour that might not meet the high threshold of a criminal bribe, but which involves a “breach of integrity standards” and fundamentally erodes public trust.
While we in New Zealand have often looked smugly across the Tasman at their political rorts, a new scandal involving one of our most senior ministers shows we are just as susceptible. An excellent piece of journalism by Henry Cooke in The Post today provides a textbook, and brazen, case study of pork-barrel politics in action.
The Case Study: Chris Bishop’s $27m electorate bridge
Today’s story lays out the facts clearly. Chris Bishop, in his dual roles as Minister of Housing and Minister of Transport, “used housing money earmarked for a stormwater project to fund a walking and cycling bridge in his electorate”.
This was $27 million from the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund (IAF), originally set up under the previous government. That fund was “specifically intended for use in supporting the development of homes.” And that $27 million was part of a $99 million agreement for a critical “stormwater infrastructure” upgrade in Lower Hutt, a project with one specific goal: to “enable 3500 new homes to be built”.
So, where did this money, meant to unlock 3,500 new homes in the middle of a housing crisis, go?
It was redirected to fund the “City Link” bridge, a pet project in Bishop’s own Hutt South electorate, one that he “had promised to fund” during his election campaign.
The cynicism here is layered and deep. This funding black hole for the bridge only existed because the Government’s 2024 transport policy, which Bishop himself as Transport Minister championed, had “slashed any funding for non-car infrastructure”.
This is the ultimate political manoeuvre. Minister Bishop (Transport) creates a funding crisis for his electorate project. MP Bishop (Hutt South) needs to deliver on his local promise. Minister Bishop (Housing) “solves” the problem by raiding a fund specifically designed to help build the infrastructure for 3,500 houses. It’s a perfect, closed loop of political self-interest.
This wasn’t a clever, “pragmatic” solution dreamed up by officials. It was a political decision made against explicit expert advice. Cooke’s story, based on official documents, reveals the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was “against the move”.
Officials warned their minister in no uncertain terms:
The “potential savings” in the stormwater project were “unclear,” as was the final cost of the bridge.
They warned that it was not “prudent” to proceed.
Crucially, HUD “did not believe that the bridge directly enabled housing as the stormwater infrastructure would.”
And most damningly, officials flagged the “reputation or precedent risk”. This is the polite, bureaucratic language for “Minister, this looks corrupt and sets a terrible example”.
The deal was also rammed through so quickly in March that “Treasury did not have time to take an official view”. This is a classic tactic to avoid the fiscal watchdog.
Bishop, of course, ignored them all, telling The Post he saw it as a “pragmatic response”. This “pragmatism,” echoed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, is a weaponised word. The truly pragmatic advice was from HUD: don’t raid a critical housing project for a non-housing one with unclear costs. Bishop’s “pragmatism” was purely political. It was pragmatic for him to deliver a visible project to his own voters.
Demolishing the “Nicola Willis Defence”
What makes this more than just cynical politics is that, according to Cooke, it “seemingly goes against a Cabinet Manual directive”.
The Cabinet Manual is the rulebook for good government. Its rules on conflicts of interest are foundational. The Manual is explicit that ministers must “exercise careful judgment about possible conflicts between their constituency interests and their ministerial roles”.
When a minister is making “major decisions about projects within their constituency,” the solution is clear: the minister “should pass ministerial responsibility for it to another Minister” or leave the decision with their agency. As Cooke’s article notes, “None of this was done in this instance”.
Labour’s Tangi Utikere pointed out that Bishop “had options, including delegating to Associate Transport Minister James Meager. Instead, he’s raided funds from social housing to make himself look good in his electorate”.
This brings us to Bishop’s justification, which is perhaps the most contemptuous part of the entire affair. He claims that because the funding decision “had to be signed off by both him and Willis”, this was an “adequate safeguard in this instance”.
This defence is not just weak; it’s an arrogant dismissal of constitutional principle. It reveals either a complete misunderstanding of why the rule exists or, more likely, a deliberate decision to ignore its spirit.
The rule exists to provide an independent, unconflicted check on a minister’s power, to protect the decision-making process from even the perception of bias. Getting your political friend, Cabinet colleague, and Finance Minister to co-sign your decision is the opposite of a safeguard. It’s an admission of cronyism. It redefines an ethical check as simply “getting a mate to help you”.
Why these rules matter
It’s worth pausing to ask why we even have these rules. The Cabinet Manual is not just “red tape” or bureaucratic fluff. It contains the foundational guardrails of our executive government. These rules exist for one primary reason: to maintain public trust in the integrity of government.
As the Auditor-General often reminds us, the perception of a conflict of interest can be just as damaging to public confidence as an actual one.
Bishop’s case is a perfect storm of conflicts. He is the local MP (the project’s political beneficiary), the Housing Minister (whose fund was being raided), and the Transport Minister (whose portfolio was gaining the project). He is conflicted three ways.
When ministers dismiss these rules as inconveniences to be side-stepped with a nod from a colleague, they are demolishing the one thing that separates good governance from the arbitrary rule of mates. They are confirming the public’s worst suspicion: that government is just a game, and taxpayer funds are a re-election tool. The “reputation risk” warned of by HUD was not a risk to Bishop’s reputation; it was a risk to the integrity of the entire system.
A Pattern of Pork
This is not an isolated incident. The brazenness of Bishop’s manoeuvre echoes one of the modern high-water marks of pork-barrel politics: National’s 2015 Northland by-election. Just 19 days before the vote, the party promised ten new bridges in the electorate. This move was so blatantly political that even National ministers admitted it was election-driven.
Law professor Andrew Geddis later analysed Northland’s official transport plan and found that only three of the ten bridges were even listed as potential projects, and two of those ranked at the lowest possible priority. In short, the Government announced tens of millions of dollars of spending for projects that local experts didn’t want, didn’t rate, and didn’t need. This was a textbook example of political, not merit-based, allocation. Bishop’s bridge decision follows the same pattern: funding justified by political urgency rather than genuine public need.
And, of course, there is the long history of New Zealand First’s regional funds. The $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) under the Ardern-Peters government became a “byword for ‘pork barrel’ politics”. It was a “$3 billion grab-bag” that was widely derided as a “slush fund”.
The hypocrisy here is staggering. At the time, the loudest critics of the PGF were National MPs. Chris Bishop himself was scathing, calling it “Labour’s reward to NZ First,” a “giant waste of money,” and accusing its minister, Shane Jones, of “spending cash without making sure business cases stack up”.
How ironic. Bishop, who built his opposition credentials attacking Jones’ “slush fund”, but he’s now treating the Infrastructure fund in a similar way. And his Government has now institutionalised the practice, creating the $1.2 billion “son of PGF” (the Regional Infrastructure Fund) and putting Shane Jones right back in charge of it. This demonstrates that the objection was never about the principle of pork; it was purely about who got to control it.
We see the same pattern in the government’s insistence on funding a new Waikato Medical School. The Otago Daily Times editorial was blunt, stating the “decision runs the risk of it appearing to be pork-barrel politics”. Why? Because, just like Bishop’s bridge, the Government’s own fiscal watchdog, Treasury, was “strongly against the proposal,” warning of “inefficiencies and ineffectiveness”. As I was quoted in the ODT on the matter, this was “a government that had already decided its course of action and was simply seeking bureaucratic validation rather than genuine policy analysis”.
“Pragmatism” is the new word for Pork
This brings us back to the defence offered by Bishop and his Prime Minister: “pragmatism”. This word is being used to launder what looks, to all intents and purposes, like soft corruption. It is the new euphemism for pork.
Was it “pragmatic” to take $27 million from a fund specifically intended to enable 3,500 new homes? Only if you believe the true purpose of that $99 million IAF grant to the Hutt Council was not, in fact, to build homes, but to act as a personal re-election slush fund for the Minister of Housing.
This episode reveals a Government that sees public funds not as a public trust to be administered on merit, but as a political weapon to be deployed for “pragmatic”, that is, political, gain.
The officials who wrote “reputation or precedent risk” on their advice were right. This decision, and the brazen way it has been defended, damages the reputation of everyone involved. More importantly, it damages the public’s faith in the integrity of our entire system of government.
Time for accountability: Call in the Auditor-General
This is where our existing watchdogs must step up. The Auditor-General should immediately investigate the Bishop bridge decision. We need a forensic examination of how and why $27 million was reshuffled away from its intended purpose, who pushed it, and whether due process was followed. Was the decision financially justified? Did it represent value for money, or was it, as it appears, a political indulgence?
The Auditor-General doesn’t have the power to reverse a decision, but a public report on this affair could at least illuminate the truth and assign responsibility. The Office of the Auditor-General has played this role before. Notably, it reviewed the Provincial Growth Fund and highlighted serious concerns about transparency and conflicts of interest in that program. A similar review here would bring independent, apolitical scrutiny to what smells like a misuse of public resources.
Beyond the particulars of the bridge, we should seize this moment to tighten the conflict-of-interest regime. The Auditor-General (or perhaps a special commission) ought to review the Cabinet Manual’s guidance on ministerial conflicts and recommend ways to give it real bite.
For example, when a minister’s own electorate stands to benefit from a funding decision, perhaps that decision must automatically be referred out, not just as a guideline, but as a hard rule, with the Prime Minister’s Office and Parliament notified. Or we could require an open declaration and justification in Cabinet papers whenever a minister does handle something touching their electorate, so it can be scrutinised.
At the very least, the “adequate safeguard” loophole that Bishop tried to use needs to be slammed shut. Two ministers agreeing to break the rule should never be deemed acceptable. We might even consider if New Zealand now needs an independent anti-corruption agency (akin to Australia’s ICAC) to monitor and investigate these kinds of dealings, since political self-policing is clearly not cutting it.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: transparency and accountability are the only antidotes to pork-barrel politics. When politicians know their actions will be exposed and judged, they are far less likely to misbehave. And if we don’t insist on integrity now, we may wake up in a few years to find our politics drowning in pork.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project
Further Reading: