Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: If you want to cut taxes, accept the bad roads

Now listen, if you're one of the people celebrating Chris Hipkins for promising to cancel fuel tax rises if he wins the election, can I just warn you about the implications of him doing that?

And to be fair, it's not just him, okay?

Ryan Bridge: Are we about to witness the return of the pothole?

Are we about to witness the return of the pothole?

Both Labour and National want to freeze increases to the petrol tax.

Labour would stop 22c a litre over three years. The Nats probably won't, coalition willing, go ahead with the 12c hike pencilled in for January.

Mike's Minute: National took a credibility hit on roads

What's working for the Government at the moment is the economy.

The economy looks like it's coming right, in time to milk it all the way to the election.

So the Roads of National Significance reset is what you would loosely call a setback, if not a dead rat.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: National's roading announcement was a massive letdown

Let's not pretend that this roading announcement is not a massive letdown for anyone who voted for the National Party believing it would deliver the roads it promised. It is a huge letdown.

Of the 15 Roads of National Significance promised following the last election, only six have construction dates: Takitimu North Link Stage 1 in Tauranga, Ōtaki to north of Levin, the Hawke's Bay Expressway, Warkworth to Te Hana, Cambridge to Piarere and the Ōmanawa Bridge. I don't even know where that is.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 4/10/24

Casey Costello (at long last) shows the information which she regarded as superior to the advice which Treasury gave her

Point of Order waited patiently for it to be posted on the Beehive website.

But no. Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has released her “independent advice” on heated tobacco products, but – at time of writing – she has not yet posted it on the official government website.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 11/9/23

Better protection of native wildlife is on the legislative agenda and an unstated sum is being spent on revitalising te reo

A few days ahead of the opening of the Government’s books, when we learn what’s in the kitty to help the parties pay for their plethora of election promises and how much must be borrowed, two ministerial statements provide a measure of how public money is being spent on Hipkins’ watch.

The government is spending a few million on making Top of the North roads in the South Island more resilient (and pitching for the votes of people who live in the Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough regions that have been affected by recent extreme weather).

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 1/8/23

Parker performs as a party propagandist, as he exposes the potholes in Nats’ transport proposals

Point of Order hopes to find the answers to questions about what ministers are up to, when our staff monitors the government’s official website.

How are they spending our money, who are they appointing, where are they going…that sort of thing.

Kerre Woodham: Effective roads are the arteries of this country

Timely indeed for National to release its transport policy, given that infrastructure groups are tearing their hair out, growing increasingly frustrated by the months-long delay in the Government publishing its direction for land transport.

We have been hearing about this for some time, the Government said yes, yes, yes, yes, it's coming.

Cam Slater: So What Do You Propose to Replace Roads With?

Politicians really give me the screaming dabdabs sometimes. The latest fool to utter foolish words is Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who has declared that NZ needs to “get real” about its vulnerable roading network.

Say what?

Mike Hosking: Somehow our roading dilemma is new to Chris Hipkins

Quick question for you - do you laugh or cry?

Newly-minted Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has had some sort of road, excuse the pun, to Damascus experience by announcing we need to "get real" about our roading

He says some of them will need to be moved to be more resilient. No kidding Chris, you road-hater from the political party of road-hating.

The political party that killed any number of significant roading projects that would see major state highway improvements. They jettisoned them so we could have bus lanes, cycleways and light rail that is $70 million deep on consultants without a millimetre of track laid two years after it was supposed to finish.

Kerre Woodham: A road map for success prioritises fixing our roads

Now some of you when we were talking about roading last year and the potholes and the damage being done to cars and trucks, the state of the roads, some of you might have been wondering what on Earth were banging on about? Most of us don't drive far. Short car trips under 2kms make up nearly a third of all car trips. So, listening to people talking about the appalling state of our roading infrastructure was probably not something directly affecting you.

But perhaps over Christmas, if you managed to get away, you got the dubious pleasure of experiencing our roads for yourselves. And driving to the conditions on occasion, the appalling conditions, means you may well have a greater appreciation for the concerns of the National Road Carriers Association, who say the biggest issue for the road transport industry is the shocking state of New Zealand roads.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm swinging behind the Wellington businesses

 

This news has made my day, it is game on over transport issues in the capital.

And if you’re frustrated in your part of New Zealand, this might be the template for how to get action.

So what’s happened is a group of Wellington businesses and industry groups have taken out a full page ad in the dominion post, slamming the latest stupid roading idea in the capital.

This idea is to drop the speed limit, put in traffic lights and erect a raised pedestrian crossing on Cobham drive, the road to the airport.