Pitched as a way to hand transport decisions back to the elected councillors Aucklanders actually vote for, rather than an arms-length agency.

The Policy: NZ First Auckland Transport Reform Policy — August 2024 →

NZ First's position is that Auckland Transport (AT) — the council-controlled organisation set up in 2010 to run the city's roads, buses, trains, ferries, cycleways and parking — should be disestablished, with its powers returned to Auckland Council and its elected representatives. The party introduced a member's bill to do exactly that in August 2024. Since then the coalition government NZ First sits in has advanced substantially the same goal through its own legislation, which passed in 2026.

What it does:

• NZ First MP Jamie Arbuckle lodged the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Disestablishment of Auckland Transport) Amendment Bill on 29 August 2024. It would scrap AT and let the council stand up a new, more directly accountable transport body after a one-year transition.
• AT is the largest of Auckland Council's CCOs, with more than 1,700 staff and responsibility for roughly 7,452 km of roads plus the region's public transport network — functions that absorb a large share of council spending and around 40% of rates.
• Winston Peters framed AT as a "failed experiment" (his words) that he said held too much power with too little accountability to councillors or the public — a contested characterisation AT and some councillors reject.
• The party's argument is one of governance, not service cuts: it says the question is "who decides", and that elected members, not an independent board, should drive Auckland's transport planning.

The result:

NZ First's own member's bill has not been drawn from the ballot, but its central aim has largely been achieved by the coalition government. On 5 September 2025 ministers announced the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill, which transfers most of AT's policy, planning and roading functions to Auckland Council and reduces AT to a smaller CCO focused on running buses, trains and ferries. That bill had its first reading on 16 September 2025, was passed under urgency, and received royal assent on 6 May 2026. A council restructure to give effect to it — disestablishing about 180 roles for a net reduction of roughly 20 jobs, and shifting around 1,350 staff between agencies, with about 650 moving to a new public-transport CCO — was consulted on in May 2026, with new arrangements due to be in place by around October 2026. Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Mayor Wayne Brown say the changes restore democratic accountability; Brown welcomed the original NZ First bill as putting control back in Aucklanders' hands. Critics, including Massey University's Prof Imran Muhammad and Dr Fawad Ahmad, argue AT was created to fix exactly the fragmentation the city is now risking again, and point to AT's assets more than doubling between 2012 and 2024 as evidence the agency model worked.

The impacts to watch:

• Whether splitting public transport delivery from road and network planning slows down joined-up decisions like bus lanes and bus-stop placement, a risk flagged by commentators at Greater Auckland.
• Whether councillors and local boards have the in-house engineering and traffic expertise to make the technical calls AT's specialists used to handle.
• Whether returning decisions to elected representatives delivers the promised accountability, or reintroduces the politicised, fragmented arrangements the 2010 super-city reforms were meant to end.