The Road Ahead for Transport
IT WAS ENCOURAGING TO SEE SO MANY FAMILIAR FACES AT Invercargill for the Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand conference in September, as well as meeting many new ones. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference, and getting a sense of what matters most to people at the moment.
Getting out of Wellington and into the regions is essential for staying grounded in our communities where real people are doing real life. The feedback I heard loud and clear from you is that your businesses and families are doing it tough right now as the cost of living crisis drives up the cost of doing business. Your businesses need more staff, more drivers, and better roads for those drivers to drive on.
There’s a lot of frustration out there that the Labour Government doesn’t seem to be listening to the industry. If they were, they would actually be creating a better environment for businesses. But instead of easing immigration settings to allow more workers into the country, they’re more concerned with an immigration “reset” and raising the threshold needed to build new roads.
The NZ Transport Agency seems more interested in building bureaucracy rather than roads. Since 2017, NZTA has added 1,000 extra staff to its ranks, including a doubling of its managers. And yet it can’t manage to get more projects completed. Of the 19 roading projects for the New Zealand Upgrade Programme, four have been rescoped or cancelled, two are running on schedule, and 13 are delayed. Maybe that’s why they needed to triple their comms staff to 97 since 2017: they need more press releases to downplay the dismal delivery.
The declining delivery is partly due to the diverting of National Land Transport Funds to other purposes. Our petrol taxes and road users chargers are meant to be reinvested into the maintenance and building of roads so that users pay. Under Labour the fund is being diluted and used for a variety of other purposes meaning Kiwis aren’t seeing the benefit from their road user charges and petrol taxes.
Kiwis deserve better transport infrastructure, and better maintenance of what we have already got. While Government representatives talked a lot at the conference about how much more money is being spent, the Government continues to confuse spending with delivery. The state of our roads speaks volumes that despite the Government’s spin, the reality is quite different on the ground.
Our businesses need safe, reliable, and efficient connections, as well as a Government who works with them on emissions rather than telling them how it’s going to be. National looks forward to continuing to work with you, listening to you, and taking policies to the next election which will practically help you take New Zealand forwards, not backwards. T&D