Rail and bus: just one’s doing well

Green Party regional councillor Paul Bruce writes ‘‘patronage increased dramatically on the new Matangi trains’’. Labour’s funding of new trains and double tracking the railway line to Waikanae gets the credit for that. Running new trains on old lines would have achieved nothing.

Bruce says buses haven’t attracted patronage because of congestion, ‘‘with 14 buses often stacked up’’. I’ve caught the bus for should return to a rerun of Governance 101. One of the ‘‘essential’’ principles of effective governance is that directors, board members (including the chair/ mayor) should not/do not approach operational staff. Any approach must be through the CEO. While some have commented that this means that ‘‘things’’ may take a longer time to obtain a response, so be it.

Take it up with the CEO, never with the staff.

There are sound, tried, tested and valid reasons for following this essential practice. 20 years and do not find myself, morning and night, sitting in his weirdly exact number of 14 buses.

Bus patronage is not increasing in Wellington because fares are ridiculously expensive and because he is not doing his job to reduce them. He expects us to be pathetically grateful that they are held at their current exorbitant level.

He bangs on about light rail and Melbourne. Does he know that Melbourne is pancake flat with debacle could have been better spent on. However, the argument that some worthy cause missed out in order for that money to be spent on the flag is hard to prove.

Not so with the funding of charter schools.

The budget allocation for seven new charters (and a support group to help these private interests not make the same disastrous mistakes as happened in Whangaruru) does come from somewhere – the education budget.

Meanwhile, special education is underfunded. The operations grants to schools are insufficient and have actually fallen this year, while the tap for accessible and relevant professional learning for teachers is about to be turned off (for most) by the Ministry of Education.

Establishing charters in the massive wide streets.

In a time of many people struggling with high rents or mortgages he wants to extract more money from them and rip our city apart for this utopian nonsense.

Once the Greens had their feet on the ground while reaching for the stars; now their feet never touch the ground – they are firmly glued into their bicycle pedals. Island Bay same communities as state schools means those schools lose funding, including operational funding, and their staffing entitlement which can mean they will struggle to offer curriculum and other critical educational resources to the students left behind.

Despite all this, the clamour of professionals and educators who know where the money could be better spent appears to be being ignored – again. Why?