Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Take the Auckland Harbour crossing talk with a grain of salt

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m taking this latest talk of a second Auckland Harbour crossing with a gigantic grain of salt.

The development today is that Chris Bishop has revealed the Government will announce its preferred option for a second crossing by mid-year - so I suppose you could say June-ish or July-ish - and they will decide between a tunnel or a bridge.

And while I really want to get excited about it, because Auckland needs this crossing and has been waiting decades for it, I cannot get excited.

That’s because I can see what’s going on here. It’s an election year and National is in danger of losing Auckland, which means potentially coming quite close in the election - as in, potentially losing it. Unlikely, but possible.

So the easiest way to win favour in Auckland is to promise something big and shiny, like a bridge.

Have we been here before? Yes, we have.

Do you remember Michael Wood’s boomer bike bridge to Birkenhead? Where are we with that? We spent $51 million-plus on consultants, and in the end it got ditched.

Now, I have a strong suspicion that whatever Chris Bishop announces mid-year will go exactly the same way because we cannot afford it. I want us to be able to afford it, because we need it, but Chris Bishop is already scaling back on the Roads of National Significance that he announced before the last election.

That’s because we don’t have the funding for those roads - because we haven’t increased the fuel excise tax in what will shortly be seven years.

So if we don’t have the funding for those roads, why would we have the funding for this bridge?

Now, unless there is committed funding and an absolutely rock-solid commitment from Labour to continue with the project if they were to win the election - or subsequent elections - I think we can see this for what it is: the cheapest and easiest pre-election trick to play on Aucklanders.

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and radio broadcaster who hosts Newstalk ZB's weekday Drive-Time Show – where this article was sourced.