Southern Link fuels division
Nelson election candidates got revved up over the city’s transport issues during a robust election debate.
Already a hot topic with many Nelson residents, more fuel was added by Prime Minister Bill English just a day earlier when he announced that a re-elected National-led Government would start construction on the Southern Link route in the next parliamentary term.
The Government would commit up to $135 million to the controversial project.
Unsurprisingly, the National Party pledge featured strongly in the discussion at the election forum that was hosted by Nelsust Inc and Progress Nelson Tasman on Wednesday evening.
It was standing room only at The Boathouse as candidates for New Zealand First, Sue Sara; Labour, Rachel Boyack; the Green Party, Matt Lawrey and National, incumbent electorate MP Nick Smith took to the stage.
Smith has been a strong advocate of the Southern Link and was delighted by the announcement.
The candidates from the other three parties were less impressed and called for the release of a New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) report on its investigation into the route, which the agency confirmed had been completed.
Lawrey said it was ‘‘ludicrous’’ the National Party had made the announcement ‘‘without releasing the report that the decision is largely based on’’.
‘‘What’s in the report that Nick Smith and the National Party don’t want us to read?’’
Lawrey, a Nelson city councillor, said the report was due to go to the council before Christmas, then there was talk of it coming out in February and then in the second half of the year.
‘‘It really is quite unreal,’’ he said. ‘‘It sounds like blatant manipulation of a government agency to achieve a political result.’’
Boyack accused National of ‘‘riding roughshod’’ over the NZTA process. ‘‘I think, it looks like there has been some signifi- cant political interference in the NZTA process,’’ she said. ‘‘They [NZTA] should release it.’’
Sara said the NZTA report needed to go out to the people. ‘‘We can’t make a judgment until NZTA says: ‘This is where it’s going in, this is where it’s coming out, this is who it’s going to affect’,’’ she said.
Smith rejected claims of political interference. NZTA was responsible for the report but the ‘‘normal convention’’ was that agencies such as NZTA did not release controversial reports during an election campaign.
NZTA on Wednesday said it had completed work on the Programme Business Case for the Southern Link investigation and the project would now move to the development of a Detailed Business Case. It expected ‘‘to publish the Programme Business Case report and further information on next steps for the project next month’’.
Calls for the report also came at the forum, firstly from Lawrey and then from some members of the audience, who called out: ‘‘Where’s the report.’’
Smith told the crowd NZTA was responsible for developing the report. ‘‘I have not seen it,’’ he said.
Lawrey argued the Southern Link, over time, would increase congestion and pushed for public transport.
A Green Party policy of making it free to youngsters up to the age of 19 would help encourage a change in culture towards public transport use, he said.
Boyack said she wanted to be ‘‘relentlessly positive’’ about the use of public transport to help ease congestion.
The ‘‘sticking point’’ for her on the Southern Link was the health impact from vehicle fumes.
‘‘I could not sleep at night knowing that I was going to support a decision that could be detrimental to the health of the people in that community,’’ Boyack said.
Sara asked whether a park and ride system could be an option and suggested children should walk to school.
Lawrey, Sara and Boyack all raised coastal shipping as an option for moving freight.