Public money, private terms
The $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund was launched in July 2024 to push capital into regional New Zealand. Two years on it is almost entirely committed or ring-fenced. Where the fund hands out grants, there is no accountability problem worth arguing about. The problem sits with the loans, because for the hundreds of millions being lent, the public has almost no idea how much will be repaid, on what terms, or at what interest rate.
The Government’s answer to every question is commercial sensitivity. For a fund built on borrowed money that future taxpayers will service, that answer does not clear the bar.
This is not an argument against regional investment. It is an argument that when the state acts as a lender, it should meet the same standard of disclosure and risk discipline any private lender would face.
Where the money has gone
According to the fund’s January 2026 progress report, the RIF had committed $1,174.2 million, approved $602.4 million, paid out $61.1 million, and completed 10 projects. It is structured as $900 million of CAPEX in loans and equity and $300 million of OPEX for grants and operations.
Most of the money has gone into public assets – stopbanks, airport runways, wharves and port upgrades. But roughly $120 million flows through loans to privately held companies, and those terms are entirely hidden.
A blanket shield, not a case-by-case call
Grow Regions, which administers the fund, states in its own monitoring and reporting framework that loan details are withheld to protect its negotiating ability, alongside information on declined proposals, unannounced agreements and projects under active consideration. Its documentation page confirms the same in 2025.
That is a blanket policy, not a case-by-case assessment. It does not just protect live negotiations. It prevents any retrospective scrutiny of whether a completed loan was ever prudent.
The cowshed that failed the test
The clearest illustration came when the Taxpayers’ Union used official information requests to surface a $1.07 million RIF loan for a Taranaki cowshed upgrade, of which $900,000 came from the fund and $120,000 from the recipient trust. The project is projected to sustain 1.8 ongoing jobs. The financial analysis, loan terms and risk assessment were all withheld.
Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Rhys Hurley put the challenge plainly: “If this project stacks up commercially, why couldn’t the trust get a loan from a bank like they have before? And if it doesn’t stack up, why are taxpayers being asked to carry the risk?”
It is a fair question, and the commercial sensitivity shield makes it impossible to answer.
The default risk nobody can see
This matters more because the state’s regional development loan book is already under stress, with over half of an existing $433 million book at heightened risk of default or in default. With the RIF now nearly fully subscribed and loan terms hidden, there is no public mechanism to check whether the same pattern is forming.
The secrecy is not unique to the RIF. In May 2026, 1News reported that Chief Ombudsman John Allen upheld the refusal to release the cost estimate and benefit-cost ratio for the Northland Expressway during procurement, accepting significant public interest but finding it did not outweigh commercial sensitivity. The last public benefit-cost ratio for that road was 0.7, from a business case now seven years old.
Even the fund’s own reviewers flagged it
The accountability gap is systemic. A May 2026 report by WSP and the Helen Clark Foundation found fewer than a quarter of infrastructure bids over five years included formal cost-benefit analysis, and that New Zealand sits in the bottom 10 percent of the OECD for infrastructure value for money.
And the fund’s own independent formative evaluation by Sapere, published June 2026, found delivery exceeded early expectations but specifically recommended improving transparency in assessment and decision-making. When the fund’s independent reviewer says the disclosure is too thin, the commercial sensitivity defence has run out of road.
Disclosing loan terms after a deal closes costs the Government nothing in negotiating leverage. What it would cost is the ability to hide loans that never stacked up. That is exactly the scrutiny taxpayers are entitled to, and exactly what the current policy is designed to avoid.
Sources
- Regional Infrastructure Fund loans buy social good (we’re told) so why hide details for commercial reasons? – Kate MacNamara (2026-07-05)
- Regional Infrastructure Fund – January 2026 progress report (2026-01)
- Taxpayers Milked For $1.07m Cowshed Loan Creating Just 1.8 Jobs (2026-05-26)
- New Report Warns NZ Is Spending Billions On Infrastructure Without Proper Accountability (2026-05-22)
- Public in dark on cost of huge Northland road as Govt nears deal (2026-05-20)
- Optimising support – Formative evaluation of the Regional Infrastructure Fund (2026-06)
- Grow Regions: Monitoring and reporting – Regional Infrastructure Fund (2026-05)
- Grow Regions: Documentation and reporting – Information we may not be able to release (2025-10)
- Regional Infrastructure Fund – July 2025 progress report (Treasury) (2025-07)
- $1.2b Regional Infrastructure Fund: Which private companies have benefitted so far