National underlined its complete lack of intellectual grunt and its fascination with passing anxieties as well as its intent to forget what it did by recently releasing a pothole policy.
I admire their ability to ignore causes, forget history and absolve themselves of blame while at the same time blaming it all on Labour.
But to do this requires a particularly myopic view of reality, something that National is not unknown for.
The reality is that the plethora of potholes that the country is currently suffering from can be related to different causes, none of which Labour should be blamed for.
How about these:
In this series of tweets Michael Wood summarised the situation.
And what is the Government doing about it? Well quite a bit as these answers to oral questions given yesterday by David Parker in Parliament shows:
SHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote) to the Minister of Transport: What is the current State highway maintenance budget for 2021-24, and how does this compare to 2015-18?
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Transport): The Government is spending more on road maintenance, including on pothole repairs, than any previous Government. The current State highway maintenance budget is $2.8 billion for the period 2021-24, a 65 percent increase on the $1.7 billion from 2015-18. With the increased frequency of severe weather events, increasing the resilience of our roading networks is critical to our economy. Maintenance spending on all roads, including local roads, has increased by 54 percent since this Government took office. This has meant we have been able to fund huge increases in pothole repairs and road resurfacing.
Shanan Halbert: How many potholes did Waka Kotahi repair in 2022-23, and is this an increase?
Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, in 2022-23, Waka Kotahi repaired 60,989 potholes. This compares with just 12,739 pothole repairs in 2013-14. That’s an almost 500 percent increase in pothole repairs.
National is unable to feel shame about the hypocrisy of their attacks on the Government for a situation they have created. But the attacks are in one sense quite clever. They will raise ire and dissent amongst those who do not appreciate the background. And they add to a growing sense of malaise that National is busily cultivating.
It is not helped by a compliant media who too often report the headline without the analysis.
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