Taupō visit for NZ First with roads the big focus
Winston Peters also talks up party’s record of regional support last time it was in govt
State Highway 1 at Lake Taupō's Bulli Pt should have been fixed years ago, says New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. Peters’ campaign train stopped off in Taupō on Tuesday, where he made several local visits before addressing a full house of enthusiastic supporters at the Taupō Women’s Club.
He said it was “tragic” to see the Ruapehu skifields in financial strife and Chateau Tongariro lying empty because of earthquake-strengthening requirements, and promised to help sort it out if he got into Parliament.
“Now this magnificent facility and mountains and the gift that was given by Tū wharetoa’s chief all those years ago, lying there idle. How could that possibly have happened? I’ll come back after the election and try and sort it out all right.”
He also turned his glare on Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.
“On the road, Waka Kotahi is not concerned about your potholes but changing the name of how you get there.
“And please don’t tell me that any Polynesian or any Māori can even conceive of a waka on the road. Go to rural New Zealand, go to provincial New Zealand, go to the back roads.
“No, they are not concerned about that. They are more concerned about their woke signalling so they can get more money for a purpose they are not meant to be doing in the first place.
“It doesn’t stop there. I hop on Air New Zealand and they are now telling me it’s a waka in the sky. It’s more ludicrous than the one on the road.
“Why don’t they focus on cutting your fares from here to Auckland? Because your fares from here to Auckland can get you to Australia on
I hop on Air New Zealand and they are now telling me it’s a waka in the sky. It’s more ludicrous than the one on the road. NZ First leader Winston Peters
some airlines. You are being ripped off.”
He then took aim at Waka Kotahi’s Road to Zero road safety campaign.
“When you make a statement about Road to Zero, you have got to be in la-la land . . . or zero smoking by 2025. They’re in la-la land. Why can’t they just be honest about those things? I tell you right here, you have got Bulli Pt, one of the most dangerous pieces of road in New Zealand and that should have been fixed up a long time ago. It’s only about four or five kilometres. Fix that first.”
He also highlighted local projects like the Taupō Town Centre Transformation Project, which was funded by the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) that NZ First supported as a Covid19 resurgence measure, and the Taupō Airport, which was heavily subsidised by the PGF, along with local company Geo40, which got PGF funding for its project to extract silica from geothermal steam.