40741 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Transport

40741 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Transport: Does he think funding for Southland infrastructure under the Funding Assistance Rate model adequately reflects Southland’s contribution to the national economy and the costs of maintaining its 5,000km road network; if not, will he review that model?

Hon Chris Bishop: The Funding Assistance Rate (FAR) model is a co-investment framework used by the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to allocate funding to road controlling authorities (RCAs) for transport activities. It is also an NZTA responsibility to determine the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) contribution towards the total cost of activities. I understand that in the case of Southland District Council (SDC), the NZTA Board FAR review for the 2024-27 NLTP resulted in a 3 percent increase to SDC’s normal FAR, moving the FAR from 52 percent to 55 percent. The FAR applied to Southland is slightly above the average. NZTA is at the start of reviewing criteria for setting funding assistance rates for councils for the 2027-30 period. The last review done by NZTA was in 2023 when it set funding assistance rates for the 2024-27 period. Inputs included population size, level of deprivation of population, length of road network and size of roading programme. NZTA has the statutory responsibility to set the funding assistance rates.