Pork barrel road

Having presided over an extended period of increased carbon emissions, fresh water pollution, over-fishing, a housing disaster, growing inequalities and increasing health and social problems, this Government resorts to overt pork barrel politics. Roads will fix everything and of course paid for by us. Nick, your cabinet portfolios have mostly been a disaster.

Can we not choose what our $120 million should be spent onhealth, education or affordable housing come to mind?

The very comfortable residents of Rocks Road can move their environmental problems to a poor area and make challenging living worse. Three schools - Victory Primary, Nelson Intermediate and Auckland Point disrupted. All so that we can keep doing what we must learn to stop doing – commuting as individuals with a ton or two of car around us.

For a further insult we have yet to see the NZTA review. PM Bill English’s progressive National Government.

Nelson’s Southern Link is going ahead and briskly too. Rock-solid evidence, sound thinking, diligent study, and the deep yearning of the wide electorate will finally see this four-for-the-price-of-one gift a completed transport-corridor doing its job at last.

In one stroke, the Southern Link delivers the shining renaissance of Nelsons stunning waterfront.

It will actively facilitate safe walking and cycling into and out of the city via dedicated paths built into it.

It releases Tahunanui Beach into the seaside village future that was always her destiny. And for the first time ever allows the Victory community to plan its own new path.

What a joy to witness that which was always going to happen, finally come to pass.

But National needs to be the Government. For Nelson and Tasman, the vote is crystal clear.

After 50 years of sacrifice and relentless effort, todays voters right across the political spectrum must step-up now and party-vote National back into the Beehive for our region.

Read this letter again, lay away the partisanship, step into the booth, and do this now for your community. Link as a good return on investment. That’s all we need to know: Nelson needs smart measures like traffic management, demand management, highquality urban planning – measures that qualified, 21st-century transportation experts will advise on if we listen.

And you’d get a good dose of clever ideas for $135m. your childhood turning down very reasonable requests for a new bike with all the bells and whistles.

And then, just when you’ve given up all hope, he whips out a top of the range model. You feel happy, grateful, and, weirdly, slightly let down. You think, how come he always said we couldn’t afford a new bike? Your confidence in good old Dad is a little dented.

Labour’s confidence has soared. However Ahern, bright shining star that she is, is a little like sunny natured Olive Hooper in the 2006 comedy/drama, Little Miss Sunshine.

Reality trumps hope at the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant when 10-year-old Olive finds the lycra-clad and hypersexualised preteens who are her competition way out of her league.

Her supporting family is well meaning but troubled: granddad has been kicked out of his nursing home for taking drugs, her teenage brother won’t speak, her father’s business as a motivational coach is failing to fire. In the end it all works out for Olive and her family, but not without drama. And she doesn’t win the pageant.

Then there’s Winston Peters, yet again testing how far outraged harrumphing can get him. The revelation that he’d been overpaid National Super has helped him because first, he’s been able to throw serious shade at uppity young reporters, second, money refunded, he can perch on his favourite real estate, the moral high ground, and third, he can stoke a conspiracy theory re who leaked the information to Newshub.

And poor old James Shaw of the Greens. He looks like a man whose wife has suddenly left and he has no idea how to put milk on his Weetbix, wash his smalls or pay the power bill. and who knows how his latest announcement on the Southern Link will fly with voters. He may not be quite so comfortably placed this September.

Smith’s opposition has an uphill battle. Matt Lawrey has a high public profile as a NCC councillor. His journalist’s skills show in his campaign – a slick combination of articulate positivity and appealingly pitched policy.

He must have felt sick when the Turei strategy imploded and took a big chunk of Green credibility with it. Moreover, Lawrey must be wondering why Labour stood a candidate in Nelson, effectively dividing the leftish vote and undermining his chance of toppling Smith.

And what about Labour candidate Rachel Boyack? I went to one of her early campaign meetings. Boyack speaks clearly and enthusiastically and is keen on ending Nelson’s sunshine wages. What struck me about this particular meeting, centered on Phil Twyford presenting Labour’s housing policies, was the ‘preaching to the choir’ factor.

The audience was all diehard Labour supporters – affirming for Boyack, but not a very effective way to deliver new votes. Buoyed up by the Jacinda effect, Boyack has a good chance – not of winning, but of knocking the Green Party vote for six.

One hundred days ago I was hoping politicians would address inequality and the environment.

So many lollies have showered down on voters it’s hard to tell who’s promising what. Although I’m entertained I’m still undecided. You can get some help comparing policies at the Electoral Commission’s website, elections.org.nz, where there are links to some nifty online tools. Good luck.