Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, July 3rd, 2008 - 100 comments
Categories: same old national, slippery, transport -
Tags: hollow men
So, let’s get this straight the Government has increased road user charges for diesel vehicles by half the amount recommended by the Ministry of Transport to cover the roading costs of those vehicles. The increase is 7-8%. Road user chargers account for 10% of trucking costs. So, we’re talking a less than 1% increase in trucking costs, about $198 a year for a 23-tonne truck, every cent of which will be used for building our transport infrastructure.
Crude oil prices mean diesel has doubled in price in the last year but this 1% is the end of the world? For $198 a truck a year, they’re going to blockade our motorways during rush-hour? Hell, half a day wasted blocking the motorway would be worth more than $198 a truck, let alone the cost to the rest of the economy.
Give me a break. The road user charges are just the excuse; the protest is the objective. Tony Friedlander, head of the Road Transport Forum, former National Minister, secret major National donor, and star of the Hollow Men is behind the protest. He told Transport Minister Annette King the protest would be happening weeks ago, before the road user charge changes were announced.
This has nothing to with with a 1% increase in trucking costs, it is simply an attempt to make the Government look bad - a long-planned hollow attack from a core National backer.
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j
everyone is feeling the increase in prices, they are not alone, they have the ability to pass on costs most workers don’t.
Plus being businesses like all others they must meet the market or go broke I see no difference to any other business. My boss has to factor in the increased cost of running company cars and the increase in rego for ACC, same, same!
There is a cognitive dissonance here, while protesting they are wasting valuable earning time, fuel, paying RUC’s and if successful pissing off other professional drivers (taxis, couriers and stopping other hard working kiwis on hourly wage earning money and paying tax). Then they will not be productive while stuck in traffic trying to go to jobs in gridlock that they caused.
Good luck to them…
another thought, If a corporate has advertising on a contractors truck will they want to be associated with the ensuing chaos? The same people they need to call them for work.
The Govt.buys a railroad.The Govt.wipes out the OPOSITION.Would National repeal this legislation?
So who is going to be there in their trucks tomorrow, is it going to be owner drivers, or wage slave drivers sent along by their bosses?
Will be interesting to see.
I think they should be paying for their road use, and on top of that let the market decide. Maybe rail will win out big.
You say “Tony Friedlander, head of the Road Transport Forum, former National Minister, secret major National donor, and star of the Hollow Men is behind the protest.” You forgot to add that he has probably made every trucker and their familes staunch National supporters as well.
I suspect your objection to this protest is that it is a very bad look for the government and as it has grown bigger and become a National wide protest, support in some of the previously Labour seats may be looking very shakey indeed.
So who is going to be there in their trucks tomorrow, is it going to be owner drivers, or wage slave drivers sent along by their bosses?
Owner drivers as my freight company doesn’t have any so isnt involved, NEXT
I have a feeling that this protest is about a number of things which have snowballed and that the $198 levy and the way it was imposed is simply the straw the broke the camels back.
The bizare thing about it is that Clark has not come down on King and stopped this. She’s smarter than this and they’re getting fuck all from the levy so why risk it.
I’ve just come back from Thailand where there has been a similar protests with truckers and rice farmers blocking roads creating chaos and it’s not been pretty
you are kidding… C/T are behind the truckers strike…I see how this could work… they got to King (who for some strange reason was not in question time today?) and made sure that she would not keep her word about giving one months notice, and then they got all the truckies together…logical right?
j
can’t find the link, but am sure King has said she will try to change the law (may not be able to before parliament rests) to give notice in future. As it stands the don’t have to, but I think it is not a surprise to most so there is some manufactured outrage..
Also beware of protests in Asia as they tend to have subsidies for fuel and import tariffs for rice and as we know these distort markets, so protests may have different objectives i.e higher subsidies/protectionism.
It’s a pity that there isn’t a vast right wing conspiracy because I need some sort of summer clerkship.
JR:
The legislation on road user charges? It is unlikely. It has been in place for at least a couple of decades.
A couple of things
Are you saying that because TF is ex nat minister he can’t be an independent advocate for his members or on an issue?
So what about Mike WIlliams – is he a puppet of govt or an independent director on all those boards he’s on? Did he play a role in the non renewal of Genesis CEO’s contract? What about Peter Neilson of NZBCSD? How reliable are his reports on climate change?
Also it is interesting the Govt’s double standard on this. It justified no warning of a price change because of lost income through people stocking up, yet it is floating that the oil industry MUST warn about price changes 24 hours ahead so that people can fill up and deny those companies income.
Good point. Jim Bolger and Kiwirail. Explain that.
Amusing to see Cactus Kate in full Anne Coulter mode over this outrage.
Ah, I listened to the story (lost link) and Annette King said $170m.
What I find interesting is that there appears to be trucking strikes happening around the world and that this protest seems to be in solidarity with those. It just seems that the RUC increases gave them something to shout about at the same time.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/multimedia/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10519742&gallery_id=1365
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200807031610/3e69fa06
Contemporary economics holds that costs for running a need to be paid for by that business and not be subsidised by the government so as to promote the greatest efficiency in resource use. Further, the costs need to be set by the market and not by government for the same reason. I find it amusing that the right (National, ACT, RWNJ etc) who promote these types of policy start squealing like a stuck pig when the inevitable results of such policies (higher costs, lower profitability) start to bite. “If your business is no longer profitable then go get another one” has been the mantra of the right since Rogernomics. Well, it seems that this time it’s some capitalists that will have to go get another business.
“Contemporary economics holds that costs for running a need to be paid for by that business and not be subsidised by the government so as to promote the greatest efficiency in resource use.”
So I gather you do not support the rail buyback since it was reliant upon govent subsidies to keep it profitable.
J – You’ve got to be kidding repeat after me
government good private enterprise bad
employees good employers (owner operators) bad
Labour good National bad
Rail good trucks bad
You got that backwards. I support the rail buy-back because it required government subsidies and is required infra-structure.
HS:
You’re getting very close to winning the RWNJ appellation.
Draco
Ha.
I expect you already have the LWNJ appelation , from your comments you seem to think that NZ can survive without a trucking industry and that everything can get to its destination by rail.
Draco said “Ah, I listened to the story (lost link) and Annette King said $170m.”
Just saw and heard King on Campbell Live – I even watched her lips move – $17.5m was DEFINITELY what she said.
yes Draco – she said $170m previously – but she lied – or at best misled (or attempted to mislead) the public until she was corrected. Sort of becoming a habit for Labour to do this – taking their que from Clark I expect.
Not a good tactic at the moment – Labour (and their friends) are going to get pulled up on every lie they tell between now and the election. Such lies can only continue to harm your already very marginal support.
However this gaffe / mis-speak by King is only what we have come to expect from a party that is literally on their knees – where is the good political management gone – is the stress causing so many mistakes?
Never said that, never implied it either. All I’ve said is that I expect private businesses to pay their full costs.
Never said that, never implied it either. All I’ve said is that I expect private businesses to pay their full costs.
Unless, of course, they are in a risky industry for employee injury – an industry which would not survive if it were made to pay the true costs of insurance. Then they should be cross-subsidised by others. right Draco TB?
Well were back to the same old story.
If this Labour government wants to govern next time it needs to take the most regressive tax, GST, off food and fuel. Get rid of the most iniquitous, nontransparent, punishing tax that has no justification except to shift the burden of taxation off the rich onto the poor.
Labour can get the truckies back to work, make everyone pay their fair share of roading, and reclaim their long lost soul as the party of the working class with one move.
But will they do it? No, because they wouldnt dare tax the rich to collect the lost GST revenue. Because if they did they would face a massive capital strike that wouldnt just close down the cities for a few hours but threaten to close down the whole country.
I say bring they should try it and see what happens. They might be surprised to find a lot of support, and Key’s greedies all leaving the country.
We need Think Big back and for a start nationalise energy. NZ could be self sufficient in energy. Take it over. If big oil objects tell them where to go. If Rio Tinto walks off there’s a smelter up for grabs. If all the Aussie banks rush off in a huff, weve still got Kiwi bank. If the big truckies go back to Aussie too, then theres lots of small truckies who can form cooperatives.
One thing can be guaranteed, there will be hordes of happy Labour supporters looking to get involved not just in voting Labour back in but rolling up their sleeves to take over the running of the country.
Go Rave.
I’d be interested in the breakdown of trucking firms as opposed to owner drivers. What profit did the big firms make in the previous year? How many trucking firms are foreign owned?
It’s okay, guys, they’re “doing it for the people of New Zealand”.
Allow me to go throw up violently. It’s a reflex I have when someone acting out of nothing more than petty, anti-Labour self-interest (because seriously, people, “straw that broke the camel’s back” arguments are just so ridiculous in this case – the price of diesel DOUBLES and it’s a 7.5% average increase that’s mean and unfair?) claims a bullshit higher purpose.
“If all the Aussie banks rush off in a huff, weve still got Kiwi bank.”
Considering that NZ are importers of capital not exporters i.e. we spend more than we earn I fear your plan may not come to fruition.
At least there is one true socialist on this site in the form of Rave and his neo Muldoonism as opposed to the third way chardonney labourites mmasquarading as socialists.
Nothwithstanding constant wildcat union strikes, only being able to drive your car every other day due to petrol shortage and dawn raids on Islanders let go back to the good o’l days.
Can the NZ owner/drivers be assisted by Government with small business subsidised accounting i.e. tax and gst paperwork, done by IRD and saving owner/drivers extra costs and time spent not driving. If small business is such a large part of our NZ business community we should be helping them with their paper trails.
To me the ideal scenario is running an efficient rail system down the two Islands with small business trucking firms acting as product conduits into the towns. There would be less motorway congestion and better targeting of transport options to suit the buyers and sellers.
PLUS – a decent passenger system with night travel back in harness. I found it useful to travel by train at night to Wellington, spend the day and travel back overnight, saving huge accommodation bills. I tried it on the overnight bus – you cannot sleep on the bus, trust me.
Civilized train travel with a dining car and sleeping berths as opposed to cramped seats and air fares rising with the planes – priceless.
“because seriously, people, “straw that broke the camel’s back’ arguments are just so ridiculous in this case – the price of diesel DOUBLES and it’s a 7.5% average increase that’s mean and unfair?) claims a bullshit higher purpose.”
Whats more idiotic, the camel argument or that truckies are being manipulated borg style by ex-national minister operating as an agent provotuer as part of a wider right wing conspiracy co-ordinated by australian pollsters.
Well it is true, all the truckers have been planning this for ages.
They plotted this in separate cells all over the country, called transport cafeterias.
Along with their dastardly hypnotic leader
“Tony Friedlander, head of the Road Transport Forum, former National Minister, secret major National donor, and star of the Hollow Men is behind the protest.”
Would have happened without Annette ‘Full Moon’ King stuffing the RUC on the whole country in the blink of an eye.
Yeah Right!
The cost is to everyone not just the Logistics Industry. And at a time when fuel prices are maxxed out.
Like this couldn’t have waited? What is going to happen, all roads to be repaired before polling day?
She repeatedly stated to Paul Holmes that This totally equitable tax has only been increased twice in 19 years.
No matter that it was way too onerous in the beginning. Statistics, lies and Damned Statistics.
But it is trucks that do all the damage, she bleated. Well rattled in knowing that this will likely drop the Labour vote to under 19% in the forthcoming election.
I would prefer us all to take to the streets in Wellington, and storm the 9th Floor, to show our disgust at their contempt of us all.
For sure lobbying, blogging, and petitions don’t work.
Direct Action is the best way. Viva la Revolucion!!
j Re July 3, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Like files that suddenly appear in the street, embarrassing the Corrections dept and the Government, a few months after a CD in Britain with confidential names and addresses went missing, embarrassing the UK Labour Government.
All in an election year.
Friedlander vowing to make Labour’s life miserable, telling Annette King he intended for the truckies to go on strike weeks ago but suddenly the rhetoric is all about the RUC and racing to Auckland and Wellington to protest, and the people of NZ think it’s all an impromptu act of despair.
If the big trucking firms say they are losing thousands of dollars just in new RUC charges, I shudder to think what they are making in profits that make the trucking business worthwhile.
So far it’s looking very much like an orchestrated radical right attack. If you are desperate enough to engage a push polling firm that despicably and wrongfully accused an Australian political candidate of approving abortion of a full term (about to be born) baby, then they are capable of much worse. And no doubt we will see that in the next two or three months.
“So far it’s looking very much like an orchestrated radical right attack. If you are desperate enough to engage a push polling firm that despicably and wrongfully accused an Australian political candidate of approving abortion of a full term (about to be born) baby, then they are capable of much worse.”
A remarkable demonstration of the siege mentality. But for god’s sake grow up. Although I support national I don’t subscribe to the extremist mindset that you and D4J seem to, that key will sell your children to an investment bank or that clark wants us enslaved by lesbian communists or whatever.
Maybe its just the impersonal nature of blogsphere but it does inhibit political moderation.
Two errors in this post:
1. The RUC increase for large trucks is not $198 a year, it’s $198 per 10,000km. Large trucks do 70,000km or so a year.
2. King did not say that Friedlander told her there was going to be a protest anyway, she claims that she heard there was going to be a protest. I call BS.
Well, I’m pleased that someone’s discouraging people from bringing cars into the CBD… I’m not so pleased that it’s to protest extra costs that they could simply pass onto their customers if they were so damaging. The government has just agreed to pay above and beyond fair funding for extra roading, I think they’re entitled to increase their take from truckers, who stand to benefit the most from certain projects like Transmission Gully.
I’m almost tempted to counter-protest with a sign asking who’s going to be paying for their new roads while climate change gets worse if not them
That said, I don’t care two bicycles (which you’re going to want tomorrow, fyi) that the person behind the strike is a National supporter. That he also organised this in advance is not suspicious- he probably had a leak passed onto him by his good friends in Parliament. If you find a story like that, THEN that’s when you should run it.
Until you’ve got something a little bigger, this looks pretty partisan to me, Standardistas. The Right deserves to protest too, even if it does so in its usual corrupt, top-down manner.
Bryan Spondre
I thought you might enjoy this very entertaining lecture by a gentleman named Michael Parenti.
It is Titled: Terrorism, Globalisation and Conspiracy
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6573660441809242121
And no, it’s not about 911.
Is the information about Tony Friedlander’s involvement confirmed?
I would like to do something on my blog with this.
Captcha: 100 cameras
[lprent: I think so - someone with that name was just on morning report. Could be someone else with the same name? But have a look on radionz in about an hour - that is usually the delay before they post the audio]
Weird, I think Stuff must be editing comments here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4606712a10.html
Because annoyed that Friedlander’s connections weren’t being mentioned I posted a comment (#28) repeating your 3 points above, but now that it’s up its been cut down to:
“He’s a former National Minister.”