Surveyor and company director Daniel Williams will chair Auckland’s new Regional Transport Committee, the body that will write a 30-year transport plan for the city and prepare its regional land transport plan. Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown confirmed the appointments on Friday 11 September, the same day the Prime Minister officially opened the City Rail Link.
Williams and the three members picked by the Government start on Monday 14 September. That is one day after the City Rail Link stations open to passengers on Sunday and a new rail timetable begins, ending a build that has taken about a decade.
The committee has three members appointed by the Minister of Transport, three councillors appointed by the mayor and a chair chosen jointly by both. The ministerial appointees are Carl Blanchard, Bronwyn Coomer-Smit and Stuart Shepherd. The council side is Franklin councillor Andy Baker, Waitākere councillor Shane Henderson and Brown himself. The mayor will sit on the committee for its first three months before handing his seat to Howick councillor Maurice Williamson, who was Pakuranga’s MP for 30 years and a former Minister of Transport.
According to the biographies released with the announcement, Williams has been a director of surveying and land development firm Woods for more than 30 years, over 20 of them as managing director, and has chaired Survey and Spatial New Zealand. The release also notes he is the independent chair of Auckland Council’s Regulatory Review Committee. Blanchard is a corporate finance adviser who previously led PwC’s infrastructure advisory practice and chaired the Takeovers Panel. Coomer-Smit is a civil engineer and a founder of Flow Transportation Specialists with more than 45 years in transport planning and traffic engineering. Shepherd sat on the Auckland Unitary Plan Hearings Panel and is a director of Crown Infrastructure Delivery.
“For too long, Auckland’s transport system has suffered from fragmented decision-making and a lack of clear long-term direction,” Bishop said. Of the new chair, he said “His extensive experience will be of significant value to the ARTC as it takes on its strategic role.”
Brown described the committee as his own idea. “The ARTC is a unique committee, established through transport reform that formed one of my cornerstone policies to fix Auckland’s transport system and improve how major transport decisions are made,” he said.
The committee was created by the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Act 2026, which passed its third reading on 30 April, received royal assent on 6 May and came into force on 7 May. The Act says the committee exists to set a long-term direction for land transport in Auckland that both the council and the Government share. Its jobs are to prepare the 30-year plan, monitor how it is delivered and prepare the regional land transport plan, along with anything else the council delegates to it or the Government adds by regulation.
The 30-year plan does not take effect until both the Transport Minister and Auckland Council approve it. The law requires it to promote productivity and economic growth, the safe and rapid movement of people and goods, and efficient asset management.
The voting rules are worth knowing. Under the Act the chair and each of the six appointees get one vote, and the chair also gets a casting vote if the votes are tied. In practice, if the three ministerial appointees and the three councillors ever split along those lines, the jointly chosen chair would settle it. The New Zealand Transport Agency, KiwiRail and Auckland’s public transport organisation each get a seat without a vote, and the chair’s pay is split equally between the Crown and the council.
The law allows members to serve for up to three years. Williams and the ministerial appointees have been appointed for one year, from 14 September 2026 to 13 September 2027. That means those four seats come up for appointment again about ten months after the general election on 7 November. The announcement does not say why the shorter term was chosen.
The committee is one piece of a larger change to how Auckland runs its roads and public transport. When the reform passed, the Government said most transport functions would move from Auckland Transport to Auckland Council, including all policy and planning work, and the council would become the road controlling authority. Local boards will decide matters on local and collector roads such as speed limits, road closures for events, parking and cycleways. Auckland Transport says on its transport reform page that it will become a smaller organisation focused on public transport, with the handover due to be finished by the end of October 2026.
At the time of the third reading on 30 April, Brown said “I was elected to take back control of Auckland Transport, and today we have delivered.” He said the slimmed-down organisation would have one main task. “Their job will be to make sure the buses and ferries show up on time, and to make the most of the City Rail Link.”
The reform was backed beyond the governing parties when it was introduced. Labour deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni spoke for her party at the bill’s first reading on 16 September 2025. “We did not support the way that Auckland Transport was set up back in 2009, and now what you’ll find is that we will be supporting this legislation in the House,” Sepuloni told Parliament. Green MP Julie Anne Genter was more cautious in the same debate. “We will support this bill to at least the select committee. I don’t think it’s perfect by a long shot,” she said.
The new committee takes charge of long-term planning just as Auckland’s rail network changes shape. Newswire reported last month on the final emergency drill in the City Rail Link tunnels, and you can watch the city’s trains and ferries on our Auckland Moves map.
Transport is one of many areas where parties will be asking for votes before 7 November. If you are still weighing them up, take our voting tool to find out which party best matches your views.
Will a committee shared between the Government and Auckland Council get the city moving faster, or add another layer of decision-making? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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