Just like TDB warned you – here comes the privatization

This is simply about pushing poor people off roads and hoping no one notices.

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
25
774

Just like TDB warned you, here comes the privatisation…

Chris Bishop cites private sector spending for infrastructure funding and user-pays

The Infrastructure Minister wants more private sector financing, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs), to pay for major projects.

In a speech to Local Government New Zealand on Thursday night, Chris Bishopsaid he wanted Government grant funding to become a last resort for councils.

“My speech talks about some of the things we’ve been talking about as a Government for six months, and we’ve actually campaigned on – so making greater use of tolls, public private partnerships, things like value capture as well,” he told Morning Report on Friday.

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…this mutation of a road policy that National have trotted out slashes public transport infrastructure and is a naked attempt to push poor people off the roads!

This is user pays privatisation of our Roads, exactly as TDB warned you!

Bernard Hickey is scathing…

Simeon Brown’s road-taxing bait-and-switch
Govt unveils unmentioned $50m rego fee hike & fuel tax hike from 2027 to raise $650m and help build 15 new motorways; Funding for cycling, biking & walking slashed; Climate impact unmentioned

…he’s right!

Simeon only mentions Climate Change twice throughout  his 43 page ‘plan’.

NZ is one of the few countries that sold our public transport systems and the nonsense underfunding of our public transport system sees entire rail closures because it’s too hot…

Thousands affected as dozens of Auckland trains cancelled due to hot weather

…this heat that shuts down underfunded Rail networks is also eroding the ground with huge rainfall…

Discovery of 3m cavity closes part of state highway in Tauranga

Barely a year after the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle, we are seeing what catastrophic climate change looks like in real time as roads develop mass erosion caused by extreme rain dumps caused by climate change.

We don’t have the adaptation capacity because we refuse to tax the polluters more.

You appreciate things are only going to get worse from here on in right?

Despite the climate denial from the Right in NZ, it is real and it is here now.

The $14billion dollar damage of Cyclone Gabrielle and our inability to rebuild highlights how little resilience we have in our underfunded system…

National’s response to all these threats to our roading infrastructure is user pays.

When the Boomer King Wayne Brown is struck dumb by the Government destroying the hopes of public transport infrastructure in our groaning gridlocked city, you know shit just got real.

I kept asking questions to candidates about roading privatisation during the election debate series because the obviousness of where National’s roading platform led to seemed an important issue, but it never caught a wider focus.

Now we not only get the privatisation, but we get the pain of user pays inequality.

It’s all stick, no carrot.

What the petrol tax did was generate revenue from as wide a group as possible to fund infrastructure, National have dumped that in favour of privatisation of roads with tolling and congestion taxes that will burn the poor with no expansion in public transport infrastructure to provide alternatives.

Remember our subsidisation of public transport was supposed to be an emission reducing tactic as well, so by dumping them will not only make gridlock more likely, it will produce more emissions that are feeding the climate change extremes we are watching burn our country this Summer.

So we open the taps on immigration (250 000 in a year) and rather than build the infrastructure for that level of migration, we simply impose user pays as the solution???

Whatever decision is cooked up will be for the benefit of a Right wing donor somewhere.

We are in the age of consequences now and we will choke on our denial.

Look at these numbers…

…road crashes were 4% of GDP!!!!

Our roads should not be privatised and they should not by made user pays. Roads should be seen as a common good with huge state investment focused on climate change adaptation, better engineered for safety and vast upgrades for public transport.

Nothing National have planned here will solve anything in the short term, medium term or long term.

Indeed all they are doing by rising speed limits is playing to peoples impatience caused by the underfunded infrastructure.

This is simply about pushing poor people off roads and hoping no one notices.

 

25 COMMENTS

    • I’m old enough to remember the Jasper Carrot punchline “And now we’ve got a bunch of sharks selling us our water.”

  2. Rego’s
    Public transport
    Infrastructure
    Rates rises..etc, etc,etc.

    Hope those who voted for tax cuts realise that what you got instead was increased costs.
    You’d have to swallow a cup of sick if you believed Willis’s stone eyed lie that New Zealanders wanted tax cuts to ease the economic burden.
    Well guess what? This government is costing you far more than any other government imaginable. But those of us with enough common sense knew this would happen. National have history. Remember the last time we were bribed with a tax cut and the lie that “I will not raise GST” Well here we go again!

    • I’m still happy I voted National….they are doing as they campaigned on.
      2nd tick to ACT, and again…doing as they campaigned on.
      They inherited a fucking massive debt mountain from Robbo and Chippy, some hurt to be expected before things get back on track, and they will, have started well and long may it continue.

      • What utter rubbish. If the debt was that bad they wouldn’t give tax cuts and they are now effectively borrowing to give tax cuts so your logic is bollocks.

        Did they campaign on making smoking easier, no. Did they campaign on funding 13 cancer drugs, yes. Did they deliver no.

      • Utter bollocks. NZ’s Debt to GDP ratio remains well under the OECD average.
        There was no “debt mountain from Robbo”. Pushing the hate-filled lies from the election campaign is getting boring, and just displays your ignorance.

        BTW, if you are proud of voting for parties that lie to cancer patients, amongst all the other economic carnage wrought on thousands of Kiwi since taking office, then that speaks to what sort of individual you are.

      • You don’t get back on track of repaying debt by increasing it like this current government is & reducing government income by giving tax cuts to those who don’t need them. All you are proving is that you only have a keyhole view of the economy & think that if your circumstances improve, it must be good for everybody.
        You must be in real estate as your description of a “massive debt mountain” is so far from the truth that it sounds more like a house selling add.

  3. Road crashes cost 4% of GDP a year .Easy fix is dont build another single road ever then they will be that clogged that traffic wont be moving so no more accidents .Massive savings allround no money needed for new roads and 4% of gdp to spend on health and education which is where we should be spending that money

  4. Lifting speed restrictions will be widely supported.

    Roads such as the Otaki expressway is an example of where this could be safely done.

    The rest of it is just daff.

    It will add to inflationary pressure

    It’s regressive and will further drive inequality.

    It will see more profits being sent offshore

    As more struggle with the cost of living the last thing they will want is more fees and charges.

    • It’s absolute madness that the highways as far as Otaki don’t have 140kph speed limits at the very least.

      • While the roads might be safe the other drivers are not so reliable so I am happy that they are limited to 100 kph.

  5. After all the prattling on about people paying too much tax in this country ( which is bs) this government is going make sure you pay way more to get around. No initiative on public transport from this weasel like turd of a man. They are a f’ing joke. You could have government borrowing and tolling that would be cheaper than the return a sovereign wealth fund will look for.

    • Yes, Wheel your right and now that little weasel Bishop is talking about transferring some of our state housing to CHP another transfer of wealth and getting out of social responsibilities. I wonder if Blinglish is in the business of community housing.

  6. ” We can afford $2.9billion for rich landlords but can’t afford to feed our kids at school ”
    Well someone has to filter AO/NZ farmer earned money into the grasping claws of the four now foreign owned ( Australian owned therefor our primary industry competitors.) banks to make them the second most profitable banks in the world next only to Canada.
    The Press.
    https://www.thepress.co.nz/business/350094635/nz-banks-some-most-profitable-world
    Remember. If it doesn’t make sense it’s making money.

  8. I don’t know about public transport. It’s crap where I am pretty much. And I’ve experienced it in places where it is really, really brilliant – train or bus or minibus along every couple of minutes, lots of routes to get you where you need to go, free or very cheap pensioner transport. But all those have been in places with really high population densities and I wonder if we’ve got enough of that. Mind you, I think we’ve got enough to do better than we have so far.

    • NZ has too many small towns in remote areas for public transport to be feasible.

      And as inner city housing gets more expensive, more find they have to move further out where there are no busses to meet the train. And that’s if the train even goes out that far.

      On top of that, it’s slow, infrequent, dangerous and very inconvenient for most.

  9. Lux-one promised no assets sales, but then again, he also promised 13 cancer drugs and being a top negotiator CEO man, he named them.

  10. Pot Holes are getting fixed and Road Cone numbers are being cut. This is what the middle voter and soccer Mum will judge Govt on.

    • Potholes are always getting fixed & road cones are a sign of road work so if you expect our roads to be maintenance-free for the next 2.5 years you need to learn to engage your brain before the keyboard if you want anyone to respect what you write..

  11. My first thoughts exactly – lets just price the bottom-feeders out of society – then we can stigmatise them and throw them in jail for not paying their user pays charges – NZ is turning into a fucking orwellian nightmare as are the rest of the mob rule brown-eyes countries. Seriously thinking of selling up and fucking off to Asia or Eastern Europe where people can still go about their business without gangster wannabe’s running stand-overs on them. Luckily I can – many can’t.

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