Like King Can-ute, the PM’s ignoring our needs
My name is Dave, and I am part of an oppressed minority. I live in the city and own a ute. I am part of the proletari-ute – ordinary working people stiffed by this socialist, climate-changeobsessed government. I love my cute ute. It’s beaut. As for the government telling me that it causes too many emissions and that I don’t need it, how in the hell does it know?
Like tradies and farmers, I have a highpressure job which often requires a ute. In fact, many people who work in inner-city law firms have utes. They are a necessary part of our job. How would we have all got to the corporate paintball teambuilding exercise in the Hutt with all our gear if it wasn’t for my ute?
How would my law firm have got all that discount booze from the Porirua wholesaler into the CBD for last year’s Christmas party without my ute? (Legal disclaimer: the unfortunate incident that occurred that night had nothing to do, technically, with the large amount of alcohol consumed that evening and we wish to advise that those involved no longer work at the firm.)
The ute is indispensable to my work. How else would I get to the office when the SUV is in for a service, the wife needs the Audi to get to the gym and the eldest son is borrowing the station-wagon to get half his first XV to the annual game against Silverstream? Harps don’t get to the daughter’s lessons all by themselves and how else are the family going to get to see the seals at Red Rocks once a year every August?
Without the dear Navara I wouldn’t be able to install the new fridge for the students in one of my rental properties. This government tax is an assault on the ordinary, hard-working corporate lawyer and part-time landlord. I told the students that if they kept turning the fridge to maximum to keep their beer super-cold it would stuff the motor.
And let’s face it, these new fridges are nothing like the old Fisher & Paykels we had when I was a kid before all the Samsungy, Smegy, Daewooey save-the-planet what-have-you fridges came on the market. Those old Fisher & Paykels were the Ford Ranger of fridges.
In the weekends, the ute is the waka du jour in our family for using on the lifestyle block in Wairarapa, and there’s no better way to bring home a few cases of discount pinot noir from a Martinborough cellar door.
A ute is also an essential vehicle for the urban community activist. Come election time, my Triton is indispensable for putting up hoardings. Every three years, when the party puts out the call, I’m there in the ute with my hammer, nails and timber in the back. I mean, do you think Nicola Willis owns a ute? She’s probably got a European EV – a Golf or some Renault named after a girl. You can’t get timber into that. Can you imagine Chris Bishop driving a ute and knocking up his own hoarding? He can’t even grow his own mullet.
People think that just because I’m an urban ute-owner that I’m anti-cycling. No way. I’m a cyclist myself, I just don’t think they should be allowed anywhere on the roads near my Mazda BT-50. Utes are an essential part of cycling. Just last weekend the wife and I were riding to Pencarrow Lighthouse on our e-bikes. Being Wellington in June, it suddenly persists down with rain. A quick call to the son had the Colorado out there in 20 minutes. Throw the e-bikes in the back and we were back in Wadestown within half an hour.
If it wasn’t for the ute, our family could never go cycling. Who wants to actually ride a mountainbike all the way to Makara Peak when you can just shove it in the Hilux and only ride the last good part? By my reckoning, being an indispensable part of cycling makes the humble ute a leader in the fight against climate change. Think of a ute as a cargo bike with a small but grunty diesel engine.
Many people ask, if I’m so into saving the planet why I don’t buy an electric ute? They haven’t made one yet but when they do, I’m dubious it will have any grunt. It’ll be like showering in a raincoat.
In the meantime, this incompetent and ute-less government has decided to oppress me and all other honest Hilux owners with an unfair tax should we buy a new one. It’s Toyotatalitarianism.
Like King Can-ute our prime minister is ignoring the tide of ordinary people like me who wish to continue using our utes for our everyday business. Labour is using its legislative nudge bars to whack us into the mud.
I call on the government to make a Ute-turn, and grant me my humans rights, otherwise I’m packing my bags for a truly car-friendly city in Nevada, Wyoming or Ute-tah.
If it wasn’t for the ute, our family could never go cycling.