New Zealand's 50-100 Year Future: The Gap Between Vision and Reality

I've been thinking about where NZ is heading, or not and our and industries focus on short termism. Current (and past) government thinking and planning as well as industry (Fonterra) and the need to build resilience into thinking and planning. Below is the outcome of investigating what the lack or adoption of long term thinking and planning may look like:

The Harsh Truth About Long-Term Planning

Your question cuts to the heart of New Zealand's most fundamental challenge: we have virtually no coherent 50-100 year vision for the country. While there are scattered initiatives and aspirational documents, the reality is that New Zealand is drifting toward an uncertain future without the strategic resilience framework needed to thrive over the coming century.

The most telling evidence of this gap is that current government planning focuses primarily on 3-10 year horizons, with the longest formal planning documents extending only to 2050[1]. Even these medium-term plans lack the transformational thinking required for genuine long-term resilience.

What Exists Today: Fragmented and Inadequate

Current Long-Term Initiatives

The closest New Zealand comes to long-term thinking includes:

Auckland Plan 2050: Auckland's spatial plan addresses population growth and environmental challenges over a 30-year horizon, but focuses primarily on urban development rather than economic transformation[1].

National Disaster Resilience Strategy: A 10-year framework for emergency management that emphasizes crisis response rather than proactive resilience building[2][3].

Economic Plan (2019): Outlined "30-year thinking" about building a productive, sustainable economy, but implementation has devolved into short-term initiatives that fail to address structural vulnerabilities[4].

Going For Growth: The current government's economic strategy focuses on five pillars for growth but lacks the institutional mechanisms for sustained, long-term commitment[5][6].

The Missing Elements

What's conspicuously absent from all these initiatives is:

Intergenerational equity frameworks that consider the rights and needs of future generations[7]
Strategic resource management for New Zealand's limited natural assets over century-long timeframes
Institutional mechanisms that can maintain long-term focus across electoral cycles
Comprehensive resilience planning that integrates economic, social, and environmental systems

The Emerging Movement for Change

Future Generations Act Campaign

The most promising development is the growing movement for a Future Generations Act, led by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa[8]. This initiative, inspired by Wales' groundbreaking 2015 legislation, aims to "put future generations at the core of our government and public service decision making"[8].

The Welsh model demonstrates what's possible: seven connected wellbeing goals with "sustainable development" as the central organizing principle, overseen by a Future Generations Commissioner with promotional, advisory and monitoring responsibilities[8].

Indigenous Leadership in Long-Term Thinking

Tokona Te Raki, the Māori Futures Collective, has developed the "Mō Kā Uri" project exploring tribal direction to 2050, asking the fundamental question: "What is the world you want to leave behind for your mokopuna?"[9]. This approach embodies the Māori whakatauki: "Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: 'I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past'"[9].

This indigenous perspective offers a fundamentally different approach to long-term thinking—one that integrates past, present, and future as interconnected rather than treating them as separate timeframes[9].

What New Zealand Will Look Like in 50-100 Years: Current Trajectory

The Demographic Reality

By 2050, New Zealand's population will be dramatically concentrated, with 40% living in Auckland compared to 30% currently[10]. Significant population decline is projected for mid-sized towns throughout the regions, creating a stark urban-rural divide[10].

The population is also aging rapidly, fundamentally altering the social and economic structure[10]. Without strategic intervention, this demographic shift will strain public services and reduce economic dynamism.

Economic Vulnerability

Under current policies, New Zealand will likely become more dependent on global markets and trends, not less. The country faces "heightened uncertainty" from US-China trade tensions, with over 60% of firms already reporting weak sales as their primary constraint[11].

The Productivity Commission warns that New Zealand is "especially vulnerable to supply chain disruptions because of its small size, distance from markets and from its concentration of exports in relatively few products and in a few large markets"[11]. This vulnerability will only intensify without fundamental structural changes.

Environmental and Resource Constraints

Climate change impacts will accelerate, requiring massive adaptation investments that current fiscal frameworks cannot support[10]. New Zealand's limited natural resources—particularly coal, oil, and gas reserves—will face increasing pressure from both extraction demands and environmental constraints.

What's Actually Needed: A Transformation Framework

Institutional Revolution

Future Generations Commissioner: Establish an independent advocate with legal standing to challenge policies that harm long-term interests[8].

Constitutional Amendment: Enshrine the rights of future generations in New Zealand's constitutional framework, requiring all major decisions to consider 50-100 year impacts.

Intergenerational Equity Principle: Make it unconstitutional to pass costs to future generations without their consent[7].

Strategic Resource Management

100-Year Resource Strategy: Develop comprehensive plans for managing New Zealand's limited coal, oil, gas, and mineral resources over century-long timeframes, prioritizing value-added processing over raw exports.

Sovereign Wealth Fund: Create a massive fund that actively invests in strategic industries and long-term infrastructure, following Singapore's Temasek model.

Natural Resource Dividends: Establish citizen dividends from resource extraction, giving every New Zealander a direct stake in the country's long-term wealth.

Economic Transformation

Strategic Industry Selection: Abandon the "level playing field" approach and deliberately choose 3-5 industries where New Zealand will become a global leader over the next century.

Innovation System Overhaul: Commit "substantial long-term funding" and create "independent multistakeholder bodies" with governance authority over chosen focus areas[6].

Circular Economy Mandates: Require all products sold in New Zealand to meet strict circularity standards, positioning the country as a leader in sustainable production.

The Private Sector Example: Mainfreight's 100-Year Vision

Ironically, one of New Zealand's most successful companies demonstrates what long-term thinking looks like. Mainfreight operates under a 100-year vision established in 1979, where "all decisions are made on the basis that we will be here for another 100 years"[12].

This approach shapes their "recruitment and training of team members, customer and supplier relationships and growth strategies"[12]. The vision is "not simply a finite point, but rather something that starts afresh everyday—an evolving vision, a long-term view way of life"[12].

If a private company can maintain 100-year thinking, why can't the country?

The Stark Choice Ahead

New Zealand faces a fundamental choice: continue with incremental policies that increase global dependency while providing the illusion of progress, or embrace the institutional transformation necessary for genuine long-term strategic resilience.

Current evidence suggests the country is choosing the former. The Treasury acknowledges that "for the first time in recent history, the next generation will not be better off than current generations"[7]. This represents a complete failure of intergenerational stewardship.

What Success Would Look Like in 100 Years

A thriving New Zealand in 2125 would be:

Economically sovereign: Less dependent on global commodity cycles through strategic value-added industries
Environmentally regenerative: A net-positive contributor to global environmental health
Socially resilient: Strong communities with genuine intergenerational equity
Technologically advanced: A global leader in selected high-value sectors
Culturally integrated: Successfully blending indigenous and contemporary approaches to long-term thinking

Conclusion: The Window Is Closing

The brutal reality is that New Zealand is not doing nearly enough today to ensure a thriving country and community in 50-100 years. The current trajectory of short-term optimization and global dependency creation represents a fundamental strategic vulnerability that will only worsen with time.

The initiatives that do exist—while well-intentioned—lack the scale, institutional support, and transformational ambition needed for genuine long-term resilience. Without radical changes to how the country thinks about and plans for the future, New Zealand risks becoming increasingly marginal in a rapidly changing world.

The question isn't whether New Zealand can afford to invest in 100-year thinking—it's whether the country can afford not to. The window for building genuine strategic resilience is narrowing, and the choices made in the next decade will determine whether future generations inherit a thriving nation or a declining dependency.