Asset Sales to pay for nearly 1.5 years of roads

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 29th, 2012 - 8 comments
Categories: Gerry Brownlee, transport - Tags: ,

Tsar of Canterbury Gerry Brownlee had his transport hat on today as he announced $12.3 billion of road road road spending over the next 3 years.  It’s a 13% increase in the road budget as petrol hits record highs, and car usage declines.

We’ll be borrowing to pay for a lot of it, as the government pushes ahead with asset sales to reduce borrowing… or in other words those asset sales will be going straight on roads.

Key claims it’ll be schools and hospitals, but all the new spending seems to be roads and more roads.

So instead of getting billions in dividends from dams, we’ll be tarmacing our green and pleasant land so that Key & co can get to their holiday homes faster.

Fabulous.

8 comments on “Asset Sales to pay for nearly 1.5 years of roads ”

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  1. ghostwhowalksnz 1
    29 August 2012 at 4:11 pm

    You seem confused , road building is normally paid for by petrol tax etc , not borrowing all though there is some small borrowing to smooth out funding/cashflow- about $200 mill.

    • Lanthanide 1.1
      29 August 2012 at 5:09 pm

      I guess you missed the article the other day where National were considering changing the law to allow borrowing for “transport” projects (read: roads).

      • ghostwhowalksnz 1.1.1
        29 August 2012 at 5:42 pm

        I did, I guess you didnt read the bit where I said ‘all though there is some small borrowing to smooth out cashflow’

        Whether this will be all the borrowing they do after this 3 year period is up , we will see

  3. mouse 3
    29 August 2012 at 9:28 pm

    I will be de-commisioning my motor vehicle and sending the plates to Gerry Brownlee as a statement of protest.

    My “Brighter Future” does not involve subsidising National’s commitment to accelerating Climate Change.

  4. hellonearthis 4
    30 August 2012 at 5:20 am

    For that kind of money, NZ could build a high speed (300km/h) train link between Auckland and Hamilton. That would really boost jobs, boost the economy and biggest plus would be it would be a great think for New Zealand.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 4.1
      30 August 2012 at 7:20 am

      no it wouldnt .
      What about all the jobs around the country for the money built on roads, do they switch ?
      The money also includes $1.5 bill or so for public transport, which could be higher if RoNs were mostly junked

  5. Matthew 5
    31 August 2012 at 12:22 pm

    The average NZ’er can barely afford to gas up the car now, let alone with more levys on top of our record high petrol prices. There wont be anyone on the new roads at this rate. The last thing NZ needs to be doing in this much-blamed global financial crisis is new motorways. Making it 15 minutes faster to get from Whangarei to Auckland wont do diddly-squat for the economy.

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