National MP Simeon Brown has lashed out at climate activists after they stopped traffic in Wellington for hours to protest for a better rail network.
Police were forced to close the southbound lane of State Highway 1 on Monday after protesters climbed a gantry near the Bolton Street overbridge.
The protesters were accompanied by a large banner reading: Restore Passenger Rail. The Restore Passenger Rail is a climate action group demanding the Government restore passenger rail to the extent it was in 2000 by reopening now freight-only lines and introducing new lines.
Speaking with AM on Tuesday National MP Simeon Brown lashed out at the group, calling them “reckless idiots”.
“They’re disrupting thousands of commuters trying to get to work, trying to go about their daily lives, trying to make a living and pay the bills and they’re getting stuck in traffic,” Brown told AM.
“The reality is emissions would have gone up in Wellington yesterday because all those cars would have been stuck in traffic emitting more and more gas so this is just absolutely reckless idiots and it puts their cause back a long way.”
TDBs John Minto was up against right wing shit stain Simeon Brown on The AM Show yesterday debating the climate protest that inconvenienced people in Wellington.
The AM Show is increasingly sounding with each passing week more and more like a National Party Glee Club for people living on the North Shore.
It drips with privilege like a junior ZB.
Simeon was calling the protestors reckless idiots, when the reality is that Simeon is the fucking reckless idiot!
The argument by The AM Show and Simeon was that the protestors might have held up an ambulance, and that those stuck in traffic would have released more exhaust fumes into the atmosphere so not only were the protestors dangerous to hamper ambulances but their protest was counter productive.
BULLSHIT!
What that smartly smug little shit stain Simeon and his AM Show toadies refuse to accept, alongside a large chunk of NZ, is that the climate crisis is here and the ramifications for our planet are grim.
This is a mother fucking existential crisis and protest action will simply get more and more radical from here on in BECAUSE IT HAS TO.
The claims of emergency vehicles being hampered or the counter productive nature of the extra exhaust fumes from cars pale into insignificance compared to the mass death and extinction level damage the climate crisis will cause.
The problem from Simeon and The AM Show is that Global Warming isn’t stopping and won’t stop.
Radical action and protest that is prepared to damage the infrastructure of the polluters is the only move left for protestors.
I applaud these protestors and implore them to go further.
It is Simeon and the AM Show who are the reckless idiots here and history will note their acquiesce to climate denial.
Protests in this country on the climate are only going to get far, far, far more disruptive.
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I’ve scrolled through countless media platforms and can’t see where Brown castigated Brian Tamaki anywhere for shutting down traffic on Auckland’s Southern Motorway.
A wet stain hypocrite if we’ve ever seen one.
Nothing wrong with this protest but it’s so sad it had to reach this point. And apparently there’s this climate change thing Jacinda talks about. So passionately too!
This government is SO vacant and SO lacking in confidence in it’s ability to fix anything that it takes protests of this nature to tell our moronic politicians and government ministers there are basic things they can do to mitigate climate change.
Intercity rail. Yes, I know, I know, Grant being the one track neolib acolyte means he can’t move past fiscal imperatives first, everything else last mindset, but a well set up modern passenger rail system connecting cities is a no brainer. And yes it will bleed red ink for years but the bigger picture is if it gets our CO2 emissions down and means we don’t have to return to feudal village systems as some think, well that’s a good thing isn’t it?
I just have my head in my hands with Labour, they are so fucking hopeless. But where, might one ask, are the Greens?
Rail travel is a good fun think to do but not cheap and not efficient for business travel. Look at the poor performance of the Hamilton to Auckland link. It is good for some freight but by no means the answer to getting veh9off the road.zWe are a long skinny country divided by mountain range liable to slips so difficult and expensive to build and maintain tracks .This group is typical of many climate activists who have so called easy answers but not taking in minds the pit falls as that is beyond their thinking.
The aim of protest is to garner awareness and support of the population for your cause and to bring about change predominately by government.
Pissing off and inconveniencing the very people you need to bring on board to acheive your aims is counterproductive, ill thought out and plays into the hands of the very authorities you need to enact change.
Simeon Brown has a brown tongue I didn’t hear him or his ilk complaining about those feral protesters we had to put up with for months in Wellington he was too gutless and him and his party were too busy blaming Jacinda yet did they give the mob an audience nah! Hey but NZ first were keen to talk to them let us hope they are gone for good we have enough hand brakes at the moment namely the right people and numbers to do the mahi. I listened to 50% Pakeha Ron Marks the new mayor in Carterton he had a lot to say yet his mandate is smaller than some of the Hutt Valley still growing suburbs like Wainuiomata and Stokes Vegas. If Marks had his way he would have sent our troops to Ukraine, not a good idea maybe he could lead the charge.
There won’t be intercity passenger rail or a significant increase of freight from road to rail because the road building and road using lobbies have KiwiFail to do their bidding for them. Plenty of Government largesse to support National voting consultants and contractors to build under designed track infrastructure that simply doesn’t have the reliability needed.
The Government recently concluded to retain KiwiRail as an SOE. This keeps the Ministers removed from responsibility but also allows the fiefdom free rein to do as they please. Which is continued managed decline in spite the optics around rebuilding rail.
The rail track needs to be bought up to a proven foreign railway network standard. It doesn’t matter if this is Cape gauge or Standard gauge or even Russian gauge. It’s weight of rail, quality of sleepers and strength and drainage characteristics of the ballast that are the issues. Extremely routine and prosaic in many countries but KiwiRail are accountable to no one who has a clue about efficient railway operation.
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