National will reject Auckland Council and Aucklanders’ view on what their future city should look like. Instead they propose One ever more sprawling city, with ever more sprawling motorways, ever more cars clogging its veins, ever less community, and ever less government money.
The government’s hoping-to-be-ignored Christmas announcements continue. They’re shockingly cancelling payouts to care-giving relatives of disabled adults, diverting the dodgy PEDA funding and investigating the Auckland central rail tunnel. Look over there – there’s Santa!
3 under the radar stories yesterday. All linked by ideology. Kiwirail to buy 300 wagons from China because its cheaper than building them here. Not allowed to consider wider economic gains. Collins outsources her new prison to a multi-national with a history of prisoner abuse. English wants more ‘value’ from public assets. Value for whom? The likes of Serco?
It’s official: the Auckland CBD rail loop would bring more benefit to the country for its cost than any of National’s ‘Roads of National Significance’. And that’s even before we talk about peak oil. Any rational government would put the money into the project that gets most benefit for the taxpayer buck. Not this one.
Different voice, same message: instead of Stephen Joyce or John Key, we now have Bill English saying that they don’t have any money for Public Transport. Just money for roads. They’ve been forced to commit to $1.5 billion of ongoing Auckland rail projects, and that’s all it’s going to get, thank-you.
Russel Norman asked Bill English about the economic impacts of coming oil shocks and how transport infrastructure planning takes them into account. I’m not sure which was more surprising: English’s matter-of-fact acknowledgment that peak oil is coming, or his attitude that the government doesn’t need to act because the market will sort things out.
Steven Joyce has virtually ruled out Kiwirail building its new trains here in New Zealand. The Aussies have a completely different view about government purchasing, as I learnt from my years on the Industrial Supplies Office management committee in the 1990’s. They believe in Australian jobs for Australian money.
A new report says that building the half a billion worth of new rail rolling stock for Auckland in New Zealand would boost GDP by $250 million, improve our current account deficit by over $100 million, add $70 million to government revenue, and create 1200 skilled jobs. But the Government just want the cheapest price for the rail cars, and that means going overseas.
European air travel has been grounded for four days and there is no end in sight. What will be the effect of further prolonged disruption? What if the eruption lasts a year or more? Can the current crisis be turned into a constructive opportunity for rail?
Day 7 of the bus strike by Infratil The idiotic employers at NZ Bus owned by Infratil have dragged their lockout into a […]
Day 6 of Infratil’s strike Brian Rudman had a column yesterday that clearly articulated how Aucklanders view the bus strike by Infratil management […]
ARC chairman Mike Lee has delivered a blunt ultimatum to NZ Bus as its lockout of drivers reaches day five. “We have had […]
Well the intransigent owners and managers of Infratil / NZ Bus finally went on strike this morning in their quest for higher profits. […]
Yesterday, around 1,000 bus drivers and support staff issued noticed to their employer, NZ Bus owned by Infratil, that from Thursday they would […]
Yesterday Infratil got their NZ Bus hand-puppets to announce that they will be going on strike. On Wednesday, if the bus-drivers refuse to […]
Auckland bus drivers have been in negotiations with NZ Bus (which is owned by Infratil) for a 70 cent an hour pay rise. […]
The government’s 3-year transport spending plan is out. Where’s all the cash going? Surprise, surpise it’s state highways. We’re going to spend $1.5 […]
