The New Zealand Ministry of Works (MOW), formerly the Department of Public Works and sometimes referred to as the Public Works Department or PWD, was founded in 1876 and disestablished and privatised in 1988. The Ministry had its own Cabinet-level responsible minister, the Minister of Works or Minister of Public Works.
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The Head Office of the Ministry was based in the Vogel Building in Wellington, named after former Premier Sir Julius Vogel, who helped create the Public Works Department during his term in office. This building held the Vogel Computer, one of the largest in New Zealand and used by several government departments for engineering work. The Ministry moved to the Vogel Building about 1965.
Prior to that it was located in the Old Government Building on Lambton Quay. During the latter years of the Ministry of Works and Development there were seven District Offices (Auckland, Hamilton, Wanganui, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin) headed by a District Commissioner of Works and in each District there were a number of Residency Offices (headed by a Resident Engineer) and each had a number of Depots. In addition there were Project Offices set up for a particular purpose - mainly to build a power project but also for an airport or tunnel or irrigation scheme.
While the policy functions were either disestablished or passed on to other Government departments, the commercial operations were set up as Works and Development Services Corporation (a Government owned trading enterprise) and the computing bureau and the buildings maintenance units were sold. Later Works and Development Services Corporation set up two main companies Works Consultancy Services and Works Civil Construction. These two companies were sold in 1996 and became Opus International Consultants and Works Infrastructure and the holding company was disestablished.
Under the Public Works Act of 1876, the then Department of Public Works was responsible for the operation of New Zealand's railway network from 1876 until 1880, when operations were transferred to the New Zealand Railways Department. This did not cause the conclusion of the PWD's railway operations, as it still operated railway lines when under construction, sometimes providing revenue services for customers prior to the official transfer of the line to the Railways Department. The PWD owned its own locomotives and rolling stock, although some of it was second-hand equipment no longer required by the Railways Department, and it operated some small railway lines that were never transferred to the Railways Department. One example is a 6.4km branch line built in 1928 from near the terminus of the Railways Department's Kurow Branch to a hydro-electric dam project on the Waitaki River. This branch was not solely used to service the dam project; the PWD used its own rolling stock to provide an unofficial service for school children who lived along the line and attended school in Kurow, and occasionally special Railways Department trains operated on the line with PWD motive power, including a 1931 passenger sightseeing excursion to view the under-construction dam. This line was removed in April 1937 as the PWD no longer required it.