NRT: Highways and fiscal responsibility

Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, May 18th, 2012 - 12 comments
Categories: budget2012, transport - Tags:

Highways and fiscal responsibility

This week the government is pre-announcing the Budget, softening us up for higher prescription charges, fewer teachers, and a further assault on beneficiaries. Meanwhile, they’re spending billions on “Roads of National Significance” that do not meet basic cost-benefit tests, to service a declining demand for road transport.

The Greens are right: this is not “fiscally responsible”. It is waste, pure and simple. And if we cut it, we wouldn’t be needing to cut the education, health and welfare services that ordinary kiwis depend on.

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And it gets worse. There is a shortfall in revenue from the road taxes that are meant to pay for the reckless RoNS, which would need to be made up with more money from the general taxation pool, at the cost of public services that are, you know, actually worthwhile. Gerry Brownlee, however, don’t give a fuck.

This is the attitude to $14 billion of spending, from the same government that is squeezing every million dollar cut it can from education, health, and welfare.

12 comments on “NRT: Highways and fiscal responsibility ”

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  1. Lynn Caseres 1
    18 May 2012 at 12:03 pm

    Thx for information.

  2. Bored 2
    18 May 2012 at 12:13 pm

    Where the hell is Gosman when you need him to defend the indefensible, to run cover for Jabba and the motley crew?

  3. Bored 3
    18 May 2012 at 12:34 pm

    An interesting thought on protest against such things as highway construction etc was posed today by Greer on http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/

    The contention is that you dont get change unless you actively change your own behavoir to match your principles. In the case of highways if we protest their cost benefits we should all be driving much less if not at all! By driving our cars in our standard addicted way to the dairy and to the Wharewhare we commit the behavoir that allows Jabba and crew to build roads. To the bicycles (as opposed to barricades) citizens.

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      18 May 2012 at 4:02 pm

      Actual Link

      I don’t own a car, have no plans to get one and see no reason to renew my licence next year.

      • Bored 3.1.1
        18 May 2012 at 4:42 pm

        I got rid of my car which was sitting by the road doing bugger all, the reason being I can walk to work and scoot if I am in hurry (which is rare). The wife (my lovely lady love of my life in case she is reading) drives to work but its two different bus trips so makes sense economically. What I am working on now is how to get out of town fishing without recourse to car.

        The reason I do not want to drive to fishing is to prove the point that when oil gets to expensive etc that I can still get there, pedal power / train or what ever.

        Round the house I have taken to wearing more and not using electricity to heat, there is a wood fire which is good and costs much the same. May have a higher carbon footprint by the time the wood is transported and cut, who knows. And turning off lights…..

        My veges and fruit come from the garden except some bulk onions and spuds. I have egg beasties
        cleaning up the food scraps.

        What really galls me about the above is there is absolutley nothing there which was not normal when I was a teenager back in the Jurassic. Shows how we let oil pamper us and our expectations.

        The good thing is that because I wont use the roads for high speed motoring to some other carbon based paradise I dont really care if the roads dont get built.

    • ChrisH 3.2
      18 May 2012 at 10:31 pm

      No you’ve got it back to front Archdruid. If the govt provides decent public transport, and roads where cycling is not suicide, then people will use those modes (as in Wellington, courtesy of the First Labour Government). While superficially plausible, arguments about how we must individually mend our ways are really a kind of victim blaming, a bit more subtle than most varieties of victim blaming but essentially the same. No criticism, it’s rife. Even I am not going to martyr myself using Auckland public transport as opposed to Wellington public transport where, due to a history of under-investment, it doesn’t do the job, and I did not replace my bicycle after it was stolen 20 years ago. Yet I wish I could use these modes, in a different kind of Auckland. But first we have to get rid of this government….

  4. mickysavage 4
    18 May 2012 at 12:40 pm

    The really sad thing about this stupidity is that every time you build a motorway you have to budget each year hence about 5% of the construction cost for repairs and maintenance.
     
    With a decreasing income flow because fuel will become too expensive to burn an ever decreasing National Land Transport Fund the discretionary spending part of the fund will get smaller.  This is the bit required for what will be the really important part of the spend, the part spent on public transport.
     
    This Government is locking us into a straight jacket …

    • Ad 4.1
      18 May 2012 at 7:13 pm

      Mickey you need to get to Julia Ann Genter the next Minister of Transport. She has no clue about this stuff. In fact all she understands is cycling and changing the Government Policy Statement. Get in there before those guys in MoT have her for breakfast. She’s absolutely lovely up close.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1
        18 May 2012 at 11:43 pm

        So, a person who’s a professional transport planner has no clue about transport?

  5. Jeremy 5
    18 May 2012 at 7:57 pm

    Some of the BCRs for these roads are hideous.

    Joyce was an economic vandal in the Transport job. The Only difference between the parties is the Nats want to waste money on roads and the Greens on railways.

    • mike e 5.1
      18 May 2012 at 10:22 pm

      the government is on a highway to economic hell!
      Using antique methods to grow our economy
      old fossils {Nactional united}keeping us dependant on fossil fuels will just speed up our economic decline accelerated by bean brained bean counters.

  6. mouse 6
    19 May 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Did anybody spot this in NZTA’s (Jenny Chetwynd) stated response to a request to contribute to keep the Capital Connection commuter train running between Palmerston North and Wellington …

    “Given that there is not a congestion problem between Palmerston North and Waikanae, we believe the focus should be on identifying a cost-effective way to move people between these locations to make the best use of the existing subsidised rail services from Waikanae.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wairarapa/6939470/Axe-hovers-over-Capital-Connection#comments

    So clearly, if there is not congestion problem between Palmerston North and Waikanae… why is NZTA commited to spending 251 Million on the Otaki to Peka Peka portion of the of the Wellington to Levin Road of National Significance?

    Aparently we have 251 Million to blow on a road to fix a problem which NZTA admit’s does not exist.