What does your government actually buy with your money?

The answer, buried in procurement data, is blunter than you might expect: we're building things. Lots of things. (Source: MBIE, procurement)

Of the 12,636 government contracts tendered this year, 6,241 went to building and facility construction. That's nearly half of all government spending flowing to one sector. Roads got another 603 contracts. Structures and building components: 1,106 more.

Add it up and you get a simple picture: for every dollar the government spends through formal procurement, roughly 63 cents goes to something you can see from the street.

But here's what you can't see: what's not being bought.

Information technology, broadcasting, and telecommunications — the infrastructure that runs a modern government — secured just 597 contracts. Management and administrative services, the work that keeps agencies functioning: 665. Environmental services, in a country supposedly committed to climate action: 652.

The imbalance isn't subtle. We're spending ten times more on construction than on the technology that delivers government services. We're pouring concrete while the digital backbone of public service runs on scraps.

Some of this makes sense. New Zealand has infrastructure deficits. We need houses, we need roads, we need hospitals. Physical construction creates visible jobs and measurable output. It's politically defensible.

But it also reveals what we're choosing not to prioritise. Every contract is a decision. Every tender is a statement of what matters most.

The farming, fishing, forestry and wildlife contracting category — essentially primary sector support — pulled in 592 contracts. That's our largest export sector receiving roughly the same procurement attention as IT services for the entire government.

Engineering and research services managed 744 contracts. In a knowledge economy, in a country that claims to value innovation, that's the number we're putting behind actually building expertise.

Public utilities and public sector services — water, waste, essential services — got 668 contracts. Land, buildings, structures and thoroughfares: 725. These are the foundations of liveable communities, and they're being outspent five-to-one by building maintenance.

None of these numbers are inherently wrong. But together they sketch a government that's investing heavily in maintaining and expanding physical assets while running lean everywhere else. It's a choice with consequences.

When your IT infrastructure is underfunded, services fail. When environmental services get less than a tenth of construction spending, climate commitments become words on paper. When research and engineering barely register, you're not building the capability to solve tomorrow's problems.

This is where your taxes went this year. Roads, buildings, facilities. Over and over again. The question isn't whether we need those things. The question is whether that's all we need.