The question catches most of us off guard at dinner parties. “If you were Prime Minister, what would you do first?” People usually mumble something about tax reform or housing policy. Sensible, practical answers.
Not me. I’d pass three laws that would fundamentally transform New Zealand society.
Law One: Children are forbidden from dying before their parents.
Law Two: Cancer is hereby outlawed.
Law Three: State Highway 1 must be four lanes from Cape Reinga to Bluff. And as a corollary, all first-term MPs are banned from flying anywhere in New Zealand for their entire three-year term. They drive everywhere, just like the rest of us.
Absurd? The first two, obviously – you can’t legislate against death and disease. But the sentiment behind all three is deadly serious. And that four-lane highway? That’s not fantasy at all. It’s long overdue.
Stay with me, because there’s a point to this exercise.
Every parent knows the cold terror that grips you when your child is late home, when the phone rings unexpectedly. It’s primal, this fear. And for too many families, that terror becomes reality.
In New Zealand, we lose approximately 500 children and young people under the age of 24 every year. Medical conditions, accidents, and suicide. Each one leaves behind parents who will never fully recover.
Of course, no law can prevent death. But my Law One isn’t about preventing every tragedy. It’s about how we’ve structured a society where bereaved families navigate grief support systems held together with string and good intentions.
If we truly believed children should never die before their parents, wouldn’t we fund mental health services properly? Wouldn’t we address the social conditions that lead to youth suicide?
Law Two feels equally futile. Cancer doesn’t care about parliamentary majorities.
Yet around 10,500 New Zealanders die from cancer every year. That’s 29 people every single day. Nearly 30,000 new diagnoses annually. The Cancer Society estimates up to half of all cases could be prevented through lifestyle changes and reduced exposure to known risk factors.
Half. Preventable.
Alcohol causes over 600 cancer deaths annually in this country – more than double our road toll. Our melanoma death rates are among the world’s highest. Survival rates for many cancers lag behind those of comparable countries like Australia.
Outlawing cancer is beyond any parliament’s power. But dramatically reducing its toll isn’t. It requires investment, prevention programmes, better treatment access, and political will to confront industries that profit from products we know cause cancer.
We should be treating this like the national emergency it is.
Now, Law Three. Unlike the first two, this one is entirely achievable. Expensive, yes. But achievable. And in my view, necessary.
State Highway 1 stretches approximately 2,000 kilometres from Cape Reinga in the far north to Bluff at the bottom of the South Island, making it the longest highway in New Zealand. Currently, only about 315 kilometres, roughly 16 per cent, meet motorway or expressway standards with four or more lanes. The vast majority remains a two-lane road with standard intersections.
To four-lane the remaining 1,695 kilometres, what would it cost?
Recent projects provide sobering benchmarks. Transmission Gully near Wellington cost around $1.25 billion for 27 kilometres, roughly $46 million per kilometre. The Puhoi to Warkworth section came in at approximately $1.05 billion for 18.5 kilometres, nearly $57 million per kilometre. The proposed Warkworth to Te Hana section has been estimated at potentially $154 million per kilometre due to challenging terrain.
Taking a conservative average of $50 million per kilometre, we’re looking at approximately $84.5 billion. That’s more than three and a half times the value of the entire state highway network.
NZTA advice leaked last year suggested the government’s proposed 17 road projects could collectively cost between $30 billion and $46 billion, for targeted sections only, not the entire highway.
The more challenging terrain in places like the Brynderwyn Hills, the Kaikōura coast, and central Northland would significantly increase costs. A realistic estimate likely falls between $80 billion and $120 billion, depending on route choices and construction standards.
Big numbers. But spread over 20 or 30 years? Entirely manageable for a country serious about its infrastructure.
And you wouldn’t need to do it all at once. Start with the sections that are genuinely dangerous or embarrassing.
The Desert Road, for instance. This 63-kilometre stretch between Turangi and Waiouru sits at an elevation of over 1,000 metres and is regularly closed due to snow in winter. NZTA itself describes it as being in “one of the worst conditions in the Waikato region.” The road surface is so degraded that sections need to be completely rebuilt in 2025, requiring a two-month closure of the country’s main highway during the summer. Two months. On State Highway 1.
Then there’s the Brynderwyn Hills north of Auckland, where fatal crashes are depressingly regular. Just in the past few months, two young people died in a truck-versus-car collision, and four more were hospitalised after another crash. The hills are slip-prone, regularly closed by weather events, and have been “talked about for decades”, according to frustrated local authorities. The government has finally committed to a new expressway, but it has made similar promises before.
The Kaikōura coast road presents its own challenges. This narrow, winding section was closed for over a year after the 2016 earthquake and remains vulnerable to rockfall, flooding, and slips. Night closures are routine. NZTA’s own assessment rates it poorly for safety, with “numerous out of context curves, narrow shoulders and roadside hazards.”
These aren’t obscure back roads. This is State Highway 1, the backbone of New Zealand’s transport network.
And that corollary about politicians driving everywhere? There’s method in that madness. If every new MP had to experience those roads firsthand, in winter, behind a logging truck, they might actually understand why this matters. Make them drive from Auckland to Wellington for Parliament. Make them drive to constituency meetings in Northland or Southland. Three years of that and I guarantee you’d see infrastructure funding priorities shift dramatically.
Politicians who fly everywhere and get chauffeured the rest of the time have no idea what ordinary New Zealanders put up with. It’s time they found out.
Here’s the thing: we don’t have to choose between these priorities. A wealthy, developed nation should be able to fund grief support, invest seriously in cancer prevention, and build proper infrastructure. All of them.
The 102-kilometre Waikato Expressway transformed Hamilton’s economy and eliminated notorious accident blackspots. Imagine that repeated the length of the country. Safer roads, better freight movement, stronger regional economies, and an end to the frustration millions of New Zealanders experience every time they travel any distance.
If I were genuinely Prime Minister, I couldn’t literally forbid death or disease. But I could commit to all three priorities with equal seriousness.
Fund grief support so no parent faces the worst moment of their life alone. Attack cancer with the urgency of an emergency. And commit to a genuine, long-term programme to four-lane State Highway 1, starting with the sections that are killing people.
The question isn’t which of these goals matters most. They all matter. The question is whether we have the ambition to pursue them all.
Steve Baron is a New Zealand-based political commentator and author. He holds a BA with a double major in Economics and Political Science from the University of Waikato and an Honours Degree in Political Science from Victoria University of Wellington. A former businessman in the advertising industry, he founded the political lobby group Better Democracy NZ. https://stevebaron.co.nz
Murray says:
Steve, your rhetorical device here reminds me of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” and using absurdity to highlight serious policy failures. In my experience teaching civics, students often struggled to understand why we couldn’t simply “fix” obvious problems through legislation, until they began to grasp the complexity of implementation and resource allocation.
Your point about properly funding mental health services resonates strongly. During my years in secondary education, I witnessed firsthand how underfunded support systems failed young people at critical moments. My students used to ask why politicians promised changes that never seemed to materialise – perhaps your suggestion about MPs driving State Highway 1 would indeed provide some much-needed perspective on the infrastructure challenges facing ordinary New Zealanders. The distance between Wellington and the lived reality of citizens has always been a barrier to effective governance.
Val Gardiner says:
These are inspirational goals – but we forget we are an island nation of 5 million people – we have to be objective as to what is achievable, especially it would seem we don’t like paying tax – don’t like spending tax wisely – immigration.
Don says:
Steve, I’ll give you this – at least someone’s finally talking sense about that bloody highway. Been saying for years that four lanes from top to bottom would save more lives and livelihoods than half the feel-good policies coming out of Wellington. And making those MPs drive everywhere? Pure gold – might actually learn what it’s like trying to get stock to market or kids to hospital when you’re stuck behind a logging truck for 50km. The rest of your laws might be wishful thinking, but fix the roads and you’ve got my vote.
Domingo Barón says:
Very astute, Steve, and very well argued in clear language. I would definitely vote for you as our PM. The bee in my bonnet would seek to add a corollary to your third law: aim to make all NZ cars self-drive EVs by 2040.
Steve Baron says:
EV’s will have to go down the list. I would need to build 10 new power stations to have enough power to drive them!
Davo says:
Finally someone talking sense about that bloody highway. Been driving that route for 15 years and it’s a joke with narrow bits, trucks backed up for kilometres, and don’t get me started on the Kapiti coast section. Mike Hosking was banging on about this just last week on the radio, saying the same thing about getting these MPs out of their taxpayer-funded flights so they can see what real Kiwis deal with every day. You want to fix youth suicide and mental health? Start with giving families decent jobs they can drive to safely.
Hemi says:
Kia ora Steve, your point about the highway really makes sense from a business perspective. We see the impact daily in Rotorua. Visitors frustrated by travel times, freight costs eating into margins, and our people spending hours on dangerous roads just to get to opportunities. The reality is that proper infrastructure investment would unlock economic potential right across our regions, creating jobs and keeping whānau connected to their whenua while still accessing work. Your point about backing our priorities with real funding is spot on too. Whether it’s youth mental health or cancer treatment, we can’t keep expecting miracles from underfunded services.