What amazes me when the political Right scream about potholes are all the things they ignore when attempting to blame Labour.
They ignore that extreme weather events caused by climate change that create vast wet events followed by extreme heat are impacting our roads, that’s not too surprising I suppose because most Right wingers believe climate change is a communist hoax.
The second thing is far more difficult for them to pretend isn’t true because they did it! Back in 2010, it was Steven Joyce who increased the weight of trucks in a capitulation to the trucking industry…
Change lifts truck load limit to 53 tonnes
Up to 5000 trucks will be eligible to carry heavier loads on public highways from next month.
The change has raised concerns about motorists’ safety from the Automobile Association and the Green Party, which are also worried about damage to roads from the juggernauts.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce has announced that trucks carrying up to 53 tonnes will be allowed on specific routes from May 1, subject to the new permit system.
Even heavier rigs would be allowed “in very specific instances”.
The nine-tonne increase on the standard limit of 44 tonnes is the equivalent to the weight of nine small cars.
Green Party transport spokesman Gareth Hughes said trucks were already involved in 16 per cent of all road fatalities despite comprising only 4 per cent of the vehicle fleet.
“Bigger trucks have got more mass, more weight – that means worse accidents.”
…it was National who lifted the weights of Trucks which do so much damage to the roading network but the Right always like to pretend they didn’t do that!
The third thing the Right always love to ignore in regards to Potholes is that National froze upgrades when they were in power!
Wood went further, accusing Bennett himself of freezing funding for road maintenance when in Government.
“His assertions are baffling given when he was associate transport minister they froze road maintenance investment and ran our roads down,” he said.
“We’re boosting road maintenance after years of neglect, and stepped in to provide $2 billion of financing to keep our roads up to scratch.
This has been warmly welcomed by councils across the country, business groups, and Federated Farmers.”
So the Right deny global warming is even happening, they ignore the fact they put heavier trucks on the road and they hide the truth they froze roading maintenance.
Isn’t incredible how many lies the Political Right can spin to hide their involvement in creating the problem we see now?
How many lies must the political Right spin to pretend they weren’t the reason for the pothole problems we have and why do the voting public of NZ believe these fucking liars?
Why does the mainstream media allow National to get away with these lies?
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We look forward to the sheepshaggers and other assorted Natzos comments & squareoffs on this article…
The other salient point is that the Natzos and trucking industry contribution to the crap roads of NZ is down the memory hole substantially because of capitalist media channels–Mi Cockskin on ZB talk is hardly likely to lead with a story like Martyn has written here is he? No he is not for rather obvious reasons.
I mostly agree, Martyn. Any link to climate change is tenuous in the extreme, but it’s a fact that the Key government let our infrastructure run down. I didn’t know that Joyce raised the permissible tonnage of trucks, though coming from that bastard it doesn’t surprise me. BUT – has the Ardern government rectified Joyce’s mistake? They’ve had 5 years to do so.
While you are correct that they have had 5 years to change the truck weight limits that would have been 5 years of the MSM blaming any load reduction for increased freight rates so the Ardern government does not get much choice in the matter.
Spoken like a true political tribalist. If the Ardern government is good for anything, its PR, and they could have easily made political capital out of this issue. They haven’t addressed the problem because it wasn’t high on their agenda, which is focused primarily on ethnicity and gender.
Pope + Punctillious + II – Hear, hear!!
Pope and Nathan spoken like true right wing political tribalists.
Hear, hear, MHK!
You don’t know me very well then, I think it is a waste of time looking to any politician for hope & find that voting is a hold your nose & pick the best of a bad bunch exercise. While I do not have high expectations for our governments at least our system is better than many other countries.
@ Bonnie
Are you implying Labour had a choice and decided that National were right, hence felt they had no argument to counter the MSM?
We had ongoing repairs to SH 2 near us for 2 – 3 years. Because of unusual heat and a resealed section that fell apart due to poor workmanship or materials. So climate was part of that scenario (but that was back when it was hot a few years ago)
Ye gods Fanny. If annoying potholes are the resort of climate change (as opposed to using poor materials and a lack of road maintenance) then perhaps my present and very annoying toothache can conveniently be blamed on climate change rather than a lack of brushing? Not sure about the heat on SH2. I travel on SH2 a lot, and haven’t seen the sun for weeks with all this crap weather, so expected an immediate reduction in potholes but they keep on appearing.
Nationals roads of significance made by cheap Chinese bitumen. You get what you pay for. In this instance, potholes.
A mostly-collapsed rail network, a tramway and trolleybus network that has completely collapsed, no metro systems at all (not even one underground rail loop open yet!). Barely any divided highways, no modern interprovincial highway network to speak of. A freeway system that belongs in a museum map exhibit.
There were more ways to get around in the 1950s! Disgraceful!
I must say when I first came over someone said this is state highway one – no it’s not the M6 it’s a fuckin dual carraigeway
They’re complaining about all the broken infrastructure they broke.
who are ‘they’ mark there’s more than enough blame for BOTH sides
Fair enough on the weight of trucks, however on my residential road there are no large trucks, let alone the even larger trucks that National allows on the road. We have lots of potholes and subsistence. Aside from the wet winter, covid etc, I’ve also seen less preventative maintenance of the roads, so problems get worse and quicker than a few decades ago. We can blame the neoliberals for this one
Your regional and local road is the responsibility of your District council not NZTA. Talk to your mayor about your issues.
Go Boris – the hoary old chestnut and the Elixer of all evils – climate change and neoliberalism strike again. Ever heard of bitumen composites?
When will reflexive labour voters understand that this ‘left did not do this, or the right did not do this’ simply leads to not more being done. Both are not doing it. And you are giving both reasons today to not do something today by living in the past.
John Key blamed Helen Clark for the sun setting every time something went wrong, and those that complained about that – left and not left alike, were right to complain.
Labour and their supporters now blames John Key for the sun setting ever day. And still nothing gets done.
Fact is that heavy transport should be on rail where possible. Fact is that Labour could have removed the increased weight allowances. Fact is Labour could have made public transport free years ago. Fact is that both sides are shite beyond believe when it comes to decent public and heavy transport.
You can not tackle global warming, weather weirding, etc without actually addressing the elephant in the room full of china. We can ‘t all drive, we can’t build enough roads to accommodate all the cars/trucks/bikes, we can’t maintain all the roads that we would have to build, we don’t even produce our own bits n bobs to maintain roads, thanks Labour for closing Marsden Point. And we have no train system to speak of, heck you had better public transport in the 1940 – 60 s then now. Think of that.
The failure of a transport network that is worthy for these new and exiting times is bipartisan.
Both successive Labour Governments and National governments have failed the public for a long long time. So spare us with the bullshit that everyone who says something now must be a Natzo – hur hur – because many of us already said the same things under Shipley, Clark, Key and now Ardern. And many of us have never voted for National, not because we are reflexive Labour voters but we know a shite product when we see it.
The reason everyone speaks now about the roads is that it has become so bad that it is everywhere. And you can’t miss it. And that is due to neglect. And the neglect is Labors to own, they took over the house 2 terms ago, one term with a full albeit squandered majority. They could have done so much and did so little.
And when National neglects the roads next, we will be correct to call them out for their shite, no matter if we voted for them or not. Infrastructure is one reason we have a government and if they can’t organize the fixing of potholes while daydreaming about a cycling / walking way under the Auckland harbor bridge then yeah, people should be allowed to complain, irrespective of their voting behavior, after all they pay for that shit with their taxes.
Keep remembering that dear comrades. You pay people for not fixing potholes. On the left and on the right.
Once again Bratty – best comment of the lot.
Not really Jason. What sausage is saying is in the title of his name, he is reactionary, bottom of the cliff mentality. Where was he when National were using cheap Chinese bitumen on our roads and gave the Northland road contract to the cheapest bidder, where was he when National cut funding to major roading contracts where, where was he when Steven Joyce increased the tonnage trucks could carry on our roads that has lead to the potholes in our roads/new motorways? Nowhere, not a pip squeak from him, no lets blame the government of today, that’s reactionary!
Green Washn has killed off people’s interest in weather patterns aka global warming.
Human consumption is the cause of 99% of weather patterns changing.
98% of emissions come from the Northern hemisphere! So fuck’em. Ramp up the war in Ukraine and depopulate the northern hemisphere which will reduce consumption massively and hey presto! No more bad weather!
Or, get use to it because lil ole NZ can’t change a thing. Blame the nazi green wash’n greenies. They’re a bunch of duplicitous useless sellouts. Jeanette Fitzsimmons and that other fulla will be piss’n in their graves.
Joyce ,the man with no imagination, and let’s face it ,no idea, had this right wing wet dream of an idea that if you increase the population of a country by 10% in the space of just 8 eight years, then, and only then, will there be reason enough to build extra capacity for motorways and a tube system.
He didn’t factor in, that while rapidly increasing population into an already stretched transport system, you would very rapidly create gridlock, which in turn slows down productivity levels and the speed at which you can build new infrastructure. Thus costing significantly more. This is from the party that consistently tells all in sundry that they are the masters of business and the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth!!
No party can turn that level of stupidity around in 5 years especially with 2 of those 5years being crippled with a virus that has turned world infrastructure on its’ head.
I would love to have seen National in charge, or more to the point , not in charge. Can you imagine Luxon on the podium day after day, sweating profusely, answering all the media questions by talking his usual bullshit corporate talk about ‘looking for green shoots’ by ‘ picking the low hanging fruit’ ‘going forward’ etc etc
I don’t think people have got a clue about how clueless National are.
Joyce ,the man with no imagination, and let’s face it ,no idea, had this right wing wet dream of an idea that if you increase the population of a country by 10% in the space of just 8 eight years, then, and only then, will there be reason enough to build extra capacity for motorways and a tube system.
He didn’t factor in, that while rapidly increasing population into an already stretched transport system, you would very rapidly create gridlock, which in turn slows down productivity levels and the speed at which you can build new infrastructure. Thus costing significantly more. This is from the party that consistently tells all in sundry that they are the masters of business and the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth!!
No party can turn that level of stupidity around in 5 years especially with 2 of those 5years being crippled with a virus that has turned world infrastructure on its’ head.
I would love to have seen National in charge, or more to the point , not in charge. Can you imagine Luxon on the podium day after day, sweating profusely, answering all the media questions by talking his usual bullshit corporate talk about ‘looking for green shoots’ by ‘ picking the low hanging fruit’ ‘going forward’ etc etc
I don’t think people have got a clue about how clueless National are.
Because they’re hypocrites, although Labour won’t have much high ground either when the boot is on the other foot.
Do you actually want an argument or an echo-chamber like The Standard? I mean if this is about nothing more than stirring up despondent Lefty supporters to vote Labour or Green in 2023 then I get it. But I thought you wanted more from this blog?
Tom, I saw what you wrote about me on Kiwiblog and it was so defamatory and hateful that even the other Kiwiblog commentators warned you and criticised what you said, so you can go fuck yourself can’t you love? That you honestly think you can say that about me on Kiwiblog and then bitch about not having your comments published here is a level of arrogance that is truly National Party Cabinet level.
Tom Hunter, a true fucking idiot.
This story, like most stories here, is a two part thing.
Firstly, muldoon thought big and pulled up NZ Rail to give heavy haulage to his lobbyist buddies in heavy road transport. Then, while still thinking big he opened up agriculture to further exploitation which saw cockies suffer and the urban money cultist elite mysteriously and mystifyingly flourish despite common sense pointing us to a different story. Now, of course, there’s that there internettery thingamajig which can mean not only being able to easily find truths under a mountain of lies and logical fallacies but it can also be used to keep the truth from soiling the upholstery in the Herne Bay Ferrari’s.
The latest scam designed to bury the truth is tourism. And you wait until that falls flat on its arse.
AO/NZ has the grubbiest of laundry and see all those rugs piled up ? That’s where all the dirt’s swept. Aye Boys?
Farmers? If you don’t want potholes or are you sick of being exploited or are you freaking out now because the price of lamb, wool and beef is flat lining? Then strike. Take a year off. I bet some of those plump tourists are delicious. Farmers? The most potent, powerful thing you can do, is nothing. ( And employ a team of off-shore high-end forensic accountants and insist on a royal commission of inquiry into AO/NZ’s politics and its economy. You can do that too. )
One more thing. A little thing really…
Fletcher Challenge. All those big heavy pine trees growing on what should be food producing land? Them trees don’t float to Port ya know. They’re trucked by the millions of tonnes to wood-chip shipping then they disappear….
Aye? BOYS !?
Our beautiful Aotearoa / New Zealand has everything a person needs to survive and survive well except the truth. Without the Truth, and Honesty and Integrity we have the opposites. Lies, deviousness and a complete lack of morals, certainly within the urban business sectors. The rest of us live in broke-arse fear.
Nailed it.
What I have noticed on a regular basis by National and their Party Faithful is they have an inability to admit that they make mistakes.
To admit making mistakes makes one human but for National to be incapable of admitting that they make mistakes whilst in government renders them arrogant.
It is like they have some superiority complex that means they are incapable of making mistakes. Blame for National government mistakes is often passed onto someone else eg a faceless over-enthusiastic office worker in parliament.
Over too many decades National continue to beat an out-dated Blame-Game Mantra Drum that should have been consigned to the History Books once Muldoon was booted out. But to this day they still beat that out-dated Drum and now it is starting to sound childish.
National have over many decades made some huge and expensive to the NZ taxpayers blunders eg Think Big comes to mind. But they are too damned arrogant to admit being human.
With the Nats it’s not about blunders and mistakes – what they did over many years was their policy, supported and campaigned on by their adherents. It was on purpose, because it’s what they believe in.
Little Simeon Brown is also unaware of the fact that as climate change impacts the ..uh..um.. GLOBE… the incidence of Potholes is happening everywhere. In places where flash flooding occurs relatively frequently, drivers are wanted constantly, not to drive through floodwater as the roads can simply disappear. Sinkholes are more prevalent. But then, you can’t actually fix stupid.
Yes National didn’t see the housing crisis coming, true. They left the hospitals decaying, agreed. They most likely didn’t spend enough on roads. My recollection is that when they were voted out the roads needed more money but were in a way better state than now. What’s not talked about here is that labour simply don’t like roads. They didn’t want new highways but promised to keep what we had in good condition. That’s a fail. You can whine about what National didn’t do until the next election and hope the polls change. Does it matter. Are you happy with labour, if so vote for them end of story. If they happen to govern again I’m sure you will see their ideology and performance change. Not.
low/no taxes(and despite the rightwing whining NZ has relativly low taxes) no money for infrastructure investment hence potholes…it’s not rocket science
No; we have enough taxes, we simply want them spent in the right areas. That 50 million spent on the consultants for the Auckland cycle only harbour bridge would have filled a lot of pot holes.
Well that was the whining Kohimararma, Mission Bay, Herne Bay, Takapuna , Northcote, Birkenhead set ,all National party strongholds, that pushed for that …breaking through police barriers on their bikes with their Gucci gear to protest on the bridge about how me me me i i i want want want to have the ‘right ‘ to cycle to and from work and i i i me me me demand demand demand that the government do something is done about it !!!
More fools Labour. Why cave in to blue ribbon seat demands? Seats they were never going to win? Or were they feathering the Green seat of central Auckland? You know the cycle loving Greens that are not even in government (for all the good they are doing with the two portfolios they have).
Were the barrier breaking cyclist also the consultants that hovered up the $50M?
Labour simply cannot say “No More Irresponsible Spending”.
I agree some of the things we spend taxes on beggars belife but that doesn’t invalidate the principle gerrit
oh, we are a poor country, a small country and thus we can’t have the nice things like good roads, functioning healthcare and decent housing. But we can have the Americas Cup, some dumb international tennis and all that other jazz that we are throwing money at it. Maybe the problem is that we are electing spendthrifts on the left and the right and thus soon you will need a horse if you want to get from a to b or maybe a donkey cart.
The Egyptian river is alive and well here.