National Party Beltway Bollocks – shock horror a Green MP wanted public transport over a tunnel

1. Total anti climax and a big nothing, so much so I have no idea why the letter wasn’t released?
   More the worry though is the appearance to hide this nothing turned a molehill into a mountain for no reason. That seems to be motivated by some idiot with very poor judgement in the Transport portfolio. I cannot imagine who that smarmy idiot is.

2. Transparent Govt Jacinda said – yeah right!

   Hidden letter – Julie Ann Genter
   Lying to Parliament – Phil Twyford

3. Julie Anne Genter is a zealot: God defend us from zealots. We in Wellington need the extra tunnels and the undergrounding. Where does Genter think her poxy public transport system is going to run, if we don’t get substantive improvements to our roading system? Including those tunnels…. Along the waterfront to the airport? Yeah, good luck with that, when sea level rise is staring us in the face. I hope that lot are tipped out of Parliament at the next election; they’ll be no loss.

   • who is we d esterer not all of us want that 2nd tunnel. If you want to talk about zealots refer to the zealot party = national

     • Michelle who can’t or won’t spell correctly my nom de guerre: “….not all of us want that 2nd tunnel….”

       Do you live in Wellington? You do not. Do you have the slightest knowledge of the difficulties involved in getting around this city? Evidently, you do not.

       Note: those of us who live here don’t give a good goddamn what people like you – who don’t live here – think. About extra tunnels, or about any other damn thing. We know well – who better? – how urgently that infrastructure is needed. Keep out of it, and keep your ill-informed opinions to yourself.

4. The letter was a nothing and should have been just that except but Genter, a zealot as D’Eserre correctly points out, thought her superiority and arrogance (which she has no shortage of) allowed her to lie with impunity. The news isn’t the letter it’s about yet another Government minister proving when they say they are a open and transparent government that is only another lie.

   • Peter Barry: “….allowed her to lie with impunity. The news isn’t the letter….”

     We aren’t privy to the entire letter. As Nicola Willis has pointed out:

     ” The Ombudsman gave Genter a “pretty severe telling off” for the withholding of information, which led to confusion, disquiet, and speculation, she said.

     Willis welcomed the Ombudsman’s decision but wanted to see the full content of the letter.”

     https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117030100/ombudsman-says-julie-anne-genter-correct-in-withholding-letter-on-lets-get-wellington-moving

     If you’re a Wellingtonian, you’ll be aware of the rumour doing the rounds about the content of this letter, beyond what’s been released.

5. I read daily blog daily and over the last six months have been heartened that more and more comments show people are starting to see through the fairy dust sprinkled by Jacinda and ko and this group of lying amateurs are exposed

   • Look at our poverty and hardship numbers. Hate to say it but our most vulnerable were better off when National were in power, how truly sad is that? So much for a kind and caring government eh. I just think that many people are starting to realize that transformational and the politics of kindness were just a load of Ardern nonsense. Neoliberalism is the problem and what is our darling Jacinda doing about that?, like everything else, not much. Expectations were high, delivery is low.

6. Oh dear ; what’s happening Martyn? All the Natbots are coming out. You see what we are up against eh.

   • You can whine as much as you’d like Darion, but are these “natbots” actually wrong? We allow this by not delivering for those brothers and sisters who were relying on our side to deliver what we promised.

   • Darien Fenton: ” All the Natbots are coming out. You see what we are up against eh.”

     Natbots my foot! In my case – except for the dark years of Rogernomics – I’ve been a Labour voter since I came of age a lot of years ago. Possibly before most commenters here were born.

     With regard to Wellington, we’re stuck with our topography, as those of us who live here know all too well. Genter’s “mass public transit” scheme is a pipe dream. Trackless trams? Yup, we used to have them: they were called trolley buses. And the GWRC took them away, remember? Then it was to be Wrightspeed buses: they turned out to be a mirage. In my view – and that of many citizens here – people such as Genter have no idea what system would be feasible here: they just talk hot air and hope that we poor mugs believe them. Well: we don’t.

     Reality check, for those of you who don’t live here: most of Wellington is vertiginous. Since the idiots in the GWRC took away our trolley buses, we’ll be depending upon mostly diesel buses for the foreseeable; and we need a decent roading system to accommodate them. Furthermore – given the wreckage of a bus system we’ve been left with by said idiots in the GWRC – we need cars to fill in the gaps. And we need somewhere to park ’em. And while we’re at it: electric cars? Right: battery range falls victim to our steep streets (one in our area to which I refer as Heart Attack Hill). It takes so much horse power to get up many of our hills, that battery range is all shot to buggery; not much point in going to the supermarket and doing a few errands, then finding that you don’t have the juice to get home again.

     Many of us are older; I’m well aware that most policy wonks in their forties and younger earnestly believe that when they get to my age, they’ll be as spry as they are now, but with more wrinkles and grey hair. I used to think that too: until I got here. I have news for them, and it’s all bad. Many of us can’t walk as far, or for as long, as we used to. Some people can’t walk any distance at all, without extreme pain. And good luck with getting on a bike in this area, even for the young, let alone the elderly. Cloud cuckoo land…

     Getting back to that natbot business: We elect a Labour government, we get National lite. What’s the point? I won’t be voting Labour, certainly next election, possibly ever again. Might as well vote National, if we’re just going to be foisted with their policies.

     I’d hoped for substantive hikes in benefit levels, as one of the very first things the current government would do. But no…. Maori would be better-served by raising benefits than renaming streets and putting up signs in Maori, as has been proposed for Wellington. Poor people generally would be much better off, were they to have the dignity of a decent income.

7. It’s not surprising to see the pave-it, tunnel-it, you won’t take my car from my cold dead hands zealots can’t get their heads around a politician with a relevant professional qualification wanting to set logical priorities. No doubt they formulate their venom while sitting in traffic, 30% of which is made up of people who are commuting to and from the airport with its profitable revenue generating car parking and taxi hosting. Meanwhile, hundreds of apartments designed for the 21st century in that they don’t have parking are coming to the market. The developers, planners, purchasers and investors realistically expect that priority will be given to the development of fast efficient public transport systems rather than Council and Government pandering to those who are wedded to 20th century transport concepts.

   • aom: “… the pave-it, tunnel-it…”

     Where do you think the public transport will run, people will bike, other people will walk? Paved roads, that’s where. And through tunnels, which enable transport that wouldn’t be possible if the roads had to be built up and over some of our hills here.

     “…30% of which is made up of people who are commuting to and from the airport…”

     And 70% isn’t: it’s local people trying to get to and from places that our munted public bus system can’t manage. In any event, it makes sense to expedite people driving through the city from the airport on the way to somewhere else. Or vice versa.

     “….hundreds of apartments designed for the 21st century in that they don’t have parking….”

     Right. So tradies – along with all the self-employed who must use their own vehicles – won’t be living in any of these places. Note that our economy is geared to vehicular transport, much of it used by owner-drivers. That won’t change quickly; if it did, I suspect that you’d not like the alternative too much.

8. Let’s hope that our public transport system – both what we have now and what may yet come – doesn’t end up like this:

   https://mobile.twitter.com/HometownVenus/status/1189023827554193418

9. It would have cost the government $16 million to buy out the contract for dismantling the trolleybus network. This may have saved the Labour mayor in Wellington who seems to have received much of the vitriol that should have been directed at the GWRC. The whole fiasco was caused by having to can the trolleybuses to allow competitive tendering for the Nats PTOM. Lets hope you get a better PT system restored there soon.

   • Alan: “The whole fiasco was caused by having to can the trolleybuses to allow competitive tendering for the Nats PTOM.”

     Yeah, most of us know how we got here, and who’s to blame for the godawful mess that masquerades as a bus system here. Stephen Joyce has a lot to answer for. Lest anyone think that my serve at Genter means that I’ve got it in for the Greens in general, I note that Sue Kedgley was – if not the lone, almost the lone – voice and vote raised against the offing of the trolley buses. She deserves respect for that, farsighted woman that she is.

     And Lester’s paid the price for being a cheerleader for the rejig. Right up until it went so horribly wrong. And it’s still not fixed.

     I’d add that it wasn’t the bustastrophe (as Dave Armstrong characterises it) that lost Lester support in this neck of the woods; it was a bunch of other things. I hope that he loses the recount; I’d have urged him to accept defeat gracefully, rather than follow this path.

10. Julie Anne is 100% right that public transport should, nay, must take precedence over more roading projects. No amount of name calling can alter sensible analysis.

    • Philj: “Julie Anne is 100% right that public transport should, nay, must take precedence over more roading projects.”

      In the Wellington area, we’re fortunate to have the train system; we ourselves use it if at all possible, when we need to get into the cbd. And – because the Council has taken away most of the carparking there – we use Uber a fair bit.

      We also used to have a pretty well-found bus transport network. Until it fell victim to the requirements of PTOM, and “planners” who apparently knew nothing about the Wellington topography.

      Note that Wellington is irredeemably hilly, with steep, narrow, winding streets in much of the old city. That cannot change. Therefore the most practicable form of public transport will continue to be buses; the train system cannot feasibly be extended beyond what it now is, much as many of us would like it to run to the airport. That will never happen.

      So: given that for the foreseeable, we’re dependent upon buses and taxis of various sorts, we need roading upgrades, so as to make the system run more efficiently than it does now. We need the tunnels and the undergrounding: it’s our best hope for a properly-functioning transport system.

      Genter has absolutely no idea what sort of mass transit system, over and above what we now have, would be feasible here in Wellington. If she did, we’d have heard about it by now. She needs to get off her environmental high horse and accept the realities of our situation.

    • Yes agree Phil. I travel daily from the Hutt Valley and the traffic and the driving is bad and the public transport infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the rate of immigration ( national let how many people in to lower wages and create a false economy) interfering with the market when they say the market will provide.

11. Chris Bishop is the last person who should be starting a fire when there is nothing to burn.
    His government have covered up and concealed far worse than this piddly issue and has never faced the scrutiny that this letter has.
    They are called the NASTY NATZ for a reason and i thought Bishop was one of the more intelligent reasonable ones if that is at all possible with this bunch.

    • Mosa: “His government have covered up and concealed far worse than this piddly issue and has never faced the scrutiny that this letter has.”

      I agree. And we expected much better of the current government. I’m really irritated that Genter would pull a stunt of that sort. Really, the Greens don’t have either the political experience or the expertise to play political games like this. Or so it seems to me.

12. chris bishop is intelligent nah!

13. Really trev I read it daily and can’t see that, lying amatuers maybe as national are profs at lying they don’t call them the nasty rodent party for nothing they were nasty for 9 years they were also greedy, selfish, spiteful and divisive to name a few.

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