Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 17th, 2026 - 30 comments
“True resilience will not come from stockpiling more finite, fossil fuels, but from reducing our reliance on fossil fuels altogether.” – Greenpeace
Written By: - Date published: 3:01 pm, January 15th, 2026 - 4 comments
The merger of many functions of the central public sector concerned with cities, the environment, housing and urban development, and transport, was announced in the week before Christmas and is now underway. There’s plenty of good on the face of it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, December 20th, 2025 - 13 comments
The plan ignores standard traffic planning practice, takes no account of predicted sea level rise and will be obsolete before the last stone is turned.
Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, November 19th, 2025 - 14 comments
The Government has reversed the clean car standard and by doing this has ensured that the country’s car fleet will be less efficient and produce more greenhouse gasses.
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, November 8th, 2025 - 18 comments
If you thought that your contempt for the current administration had peaked let me disappoint you. This week they have taken steps to undermine the Climate Change Commission and the ability of the public to influence future emission reduction plans.
Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, October 25th, 2025 - 23 comments
National has announced it will be spending nearly three times as much on Roads of National Significance as it campaigned on and has justified dubious investment decisions by changing how benefits are calculated.
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, August 18th, 2025 - 23 comments
The Government is trying to spin that cancellation of the ferry contract will cost the country $144 million when the actual figure is at least $671 million.
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, December 12th, 2024 - 46 comments
Yesterday’s replacement ferry announcement by Nicola Willis suggests that very little progress has been made in securing replacement Cook Island ferries.
Written By: - Date published: 6:35 pm, December 4th, 2024 - 3 comments
The Government announced reform of AT, effectively conceding that the behemouth National created in 2010 was the wrong structure.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, December 2nd, 2024 - 29 comments
New Zealand is one of the slowest countries in the developed world to transition from combustion to electric vehicles. The shocks we are seeing in Europe to car makers and car buyers herald more trouble ahead.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, November 17th, 2024 - 33 comments
There has been a major blowout in the cost of the Roads of National Significance with the cost being potentially $10 billion more than National claimed during last year’s campaign.
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, October 17th, 2024 - 21 comments
The Cook Strait Ferry issue is getting to a critical point. An announcement was expected in July. But it appears that NZ First is digging its heels in about the need tor the replacement ferries being rail capable.
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, September 3rd, 2024 - 39 comments
The year is 2035 and after the McAnaulty-Sepuloni Government is removed from power new National Prime Minister Simeon Brown makes his first new announcement. Guess what it is?
Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, August 7th, 2024 - 49 comments
National’s decision to cancel the replacement Cook Strait ferry project is developing into a full blown political crisis for the Government with estimates that it could cost the Crown up to a billion dollars and with further costs to come.
Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, July 11th, 2024 - 15 comments
My ire was raised this morning when I read a pile of PR drivel from acting PM Winston Peters about the Interislander. If he wanted to be useful looking at “critical part of our infrastructure” – then there are number of better things he could usefully do – rather than chasing headlines.
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, July 11th, 2024 - 40 comments
Nicola Willis’s decision to cancel the Kiwirail i-Rex contract without a back up plan is coming back to bite. As costs pile up for the taxpayer, we have already lost half a billion dollars, but that won’t be the final bill. And there are still no ferries.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, June 27th, 2024 - 45 comments
The Government is in a rather precarious position relating to the contract to replace the ageing Cook Straight ferries, which clearly need replacing.
Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, June 22nd, 2024 - 67 comments
The grounding of the ferry Aratere is potentially a political gift to National.
Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, June 16th, 2024 - 18 comments
The Government is planning to reverse Labour’s previous policy relating to permanent safe speeds around schools. The change will decrease safety and walking and cycling and increase car use. And the upside is?
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, May 10th, 2024 - 60 comments
Powercuts in a wealthy country like New Zealand don’t make us third world. It’s bog standard neoliberalism which has both impeded upkeep of our infrastructure and blocked meaningful climate transition. Third world is when you can’t afford to fix, maintain and futureproof society. Neoliberalism is when you do that by choice.
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 pm, May 2nd, 2024 - 203 comments
Yesterday in Parliament Julie Anne Genter lost her cool when Matt Doocey misrepresented what the last Government’s NLTP priorities were. Should she be sanctioned? Or should she get a medal for pointing out that Doocey was totally wrong?
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, March 16th, 2024 - 11 comments
Government members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have managed to vote to support a Labour amendment that would make electric vehicles more attractive but submit a report to Parliament that suggested that the amendment had been lost.
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, February 10th, 2024 - 6 comments
This week we have seen National confirm it will cancel the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax and this will cause the cancellation or suspension of many projects designed to address congestion. And it has been confirmed that axing the clean car discount has seen sales of electric vehicles plummet. And that electric vehicles will shortly pay more to use the road than petrol vehicles.
Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, January 22nd, 2024 - 99 comments
New Zealand is one of the most car-reliant and petroleum-reliant countries on earth. So how we are taxed to travel on land has huge equity implications.
Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, January 17th, 2024 - 71 comments
At a time when we need cool heads and leaders who understand the enormity of the problem that is climate change and the consequences of getting our response right we are getting this retrograde culture war from people who should know better.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, December 2nd, 2023 - 74 comments
There is every reason to believe National will be chucked out in 2026.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, November 25th, 2023 - 73 comments
Some of the more unusual policies from the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, September 11th, 2023 - 21 comments
What happens if the Green Party gets 10% of the vote and the top 9 get in. And say they get to form a government. What would Greens in Cabinet look like?
Written By: - Date published: 2:40 am, September 9th, 2023 - 5 comments
Back with family in London after Covid’s four years, much has changed. Most notably, the air in Walthamstow is breathable. Thanks to Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan’s emission zone tax, the change is remarkable.
Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, September 7th, 2023 - 18 comments
National’s proposal to increase the number of electric car charging stations is something that should be considered but not at the expense of the extraordinarily successful clean car discount.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, August 8th, 2023 - 16 comments
Nation building projects always take multiple terms, and the risk of Labour losing puts at risk some of the largest and most important we’ve seen in generations.
Recent Comments