Cam Slater: They Think We Won’t Notice

The Labour party are launching insane policies and making out like we are dolts and can’t see what they are doing. Ryan Bridge calls them out:

Labour is pulling a massive U-turn on roading and I think they think we are not going to notice.

But like when someone does an actual U-turn on the motorway, we do notice.

They’ve spent six years telling us petrol is bad, cars are naughty, motorways are mostly evil, climate change emergency blah blah blah and then yesterday this.

“The proposed road tunnels alongside the bridge are 5km long each. They’re similar in concept to the Waterview Tunnels – that’s also two three-lane tunnels,” Transport Minister David Parker said on Sunday when announcing the Government’s plans for a second Auckland harbour crossing.

Yes, roads. Six new car lanes baby they’re coming and they’re doing rail as well but guess which one they are building first – the road tunnels.

Right, roads first, cars first, trains second. The Greens are upset and Labour is trying to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds on transport in my view.

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Ryan is dead right. They really do think that we won’t notice. They think we are stupid and will take their promises at face value, despite a legacy of six years of announcing hundreds of ideas, policies and platforms without delivering anything – other than a screaming baby which couldn’t hide the lacklustre performance of this most inept of Governments.

Listen to their transport guy just two years ago, cancelling the Mill Road highway through south Auckland.

“If we keep doing things as we have done them in the past, we will get the same results,” former Transport Minister Michael Wood said.

So to get different results, he [Wood] announced a gold-plated stand-alone cycle bridge across Auckland’s Harbour, no extra car lanes and the price tag was three-quarters of a billion bucks.

“Recognising the need to de-carbonise transport, we’ve rebalanced the New Zealand upgrade program to increase investment in rail, public transport, walking and cycling,” Wood said.

Walking and cycling were so election 2020 when Labour didn’t have to really understand voters, just COVID-19 fear and loathing. 

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All that died with Michael Wood’s political career. Remember when the motorway north of Auckland was an awful ”holiday highway” designed so Steven Joyce and John Key could get to their holiday places faster? Remember when we needed a bike bridge?

They were slogans, just like their promises.

Remember the light rail to Mt Roskill by 2021? Remember light rail to the airport? Remember rapid rail to Tauranga?

It’s all lies, hollow promises and worse delivery on promises than any other politician, including Winston Peters.

But they really think you won’t notice, and for around 30% of the population that is sadly true.

It’s quite open, honest and transparent to me that this is a Government realising how too far in one direction it took itself while forgetting its backseat passengers – the hard-working Kiwis stuck in traffic who actually vote them into power. 

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Ryan Bridge is dead right. Don’t believe a word these confidence tricksters have to say.

Vote for one of the three parties that stand opposed to this nonsense. They are National, Act and NZ First. A vote for any of them will rid us of this tragic and horrible shell game.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE