We recognise that we have a significant responsibility to communities throughout New Zealand, and we work closely with people and organisations affected by our activities to ensure ongoing engagement and representation, develop partnerships, ensure clear lines of communication and grow understanding.
We have a regionally-delivered, centrally-coordinated model, which means we work closely every day with local Māori partners, local government partners, community members, road user groups and suppliers to understand, respond and deliver on local transport priorities.
Publicly notified public consultation opportunities are therefore just one part of our ongoing engagement and partnership commitments. Find out more about our wider engagement work below.
As a Crown agency, we acknowledge the status of Māori as tangata whenua – the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand – and as partners with the Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi.
As a Crown agency, we:
We strive to build and maintain collaborative working relationships with Māori, and we also work with our colleagues from other government agencies to engage, communicate and to work with Māori.
To achieve these objectives we provide our people with the knowledge and skills to appreciate and understand the Treaty of Waitangi, and Māori language, culture and protocols.
Māori and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency
Hononga ki te iwi – our Māori engagement framework
Support for people to gain their licenses and improve access to driver education is a core part of our land transport regulator role. We work closely with local providers, iwi trusts, the police and other government agencies to make sure everyone, including people living in rural communities, have equitable opportunities to education and training to help them get a drivers licence.
Driver licensing improvement programme (DLIP)
We also support local safety promotion campaigns, including education in schools and community-based courses, events and demonstrations on topics like drug driving, distraction and ‘bikeready’ basics. We also work closely with commercial transport providers to help support driver safety programmes.
Commercial transport safety and harm prevention
We support community-based initiatives in partnership with other organisations through the Community Road Safety Fund - funded by the revenue from the sale of personalised licence plates which is generated through our partnership with KiwiPlates and license plate manufacturer Licensys.
The Community Road Safety Fund is managed by Waka Kotahi, with investment proposals reviewed by an advisory group made up of representatives from Waka Kotahi, ACC, NZ Police, the Safe and Sustainable Transport Association, and the AA.
Waka Kotahi engages daily with neighbours, iwi, community members, stakeholders and the wider travelling public to help develop new infrastructure projects, mitigate construction impacts, and ensure people are able to travel safely around our state highway maintenance activities.
This engagement ranges from involving groups in early business cases and project design and decision-making, to reducing physical works disruption for residents and businesses during construction or raising public awareness about road closures and incidents. Formal public consultation periods on our projects are often just one part of our continuous engagement programmes that aim to help people keep moving.
Traffic and travel information
Waka Kotahi State Highway public engagement guidelines
We work with many other agencies and organisations, both in New Zealand and internationally, to meet New Zealanders’ daily transport needs. We partner with other government agencies, local government and road controlling authorities to deliver projects and maintain the transport network, and are members of the locally-led Regional Transport Committees. We jointly run a wide range of safety programmes with the NZ Police under our road safety partnership, and partner with our service delivery agents and suppliers around the country to deliver our services and design and build our projects.
We’re also committed to engaging and working collaboratively with key stakeholder groups to understand our shared challenges and collectively improve the transport system, and are members of a wide range of transport user forums around the country.
