Bruce Cotterill: NZ roads vs Australia - Why better highways could boost tourism

I’ve spent the last week travelling. A good old-fashioned road trip, to be exact. We’ve been driving from Queensland’s Noosa to Port Douglas, along the aptly named Bruce Highway. About 1900km over five days. It got me thinking about our roads.

Our roads fell apart on the last Government’s watch. Most of us will remember how the lockdown-enforced neglect turned our favourite roads into potholes quicker than many of us could imagine. Wheels and even axles fell victim to the highway damage.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 12/7/24

An OECD report shows why Seymour is intent on shredding red tape

Our daily monitor of ministerial machinations and Beehive braying has been on the blink for the past week, alas. No, not a technical problem. Rather, a matter of ill-health.

Today we are catching up and herewith record the headlines posted on the government’s official website since we last buzzed on July 4.

Garrick Tremain: Potholes

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the condition of NZ's roads! 

Kate Hawkesby: We need to build more roads

I’ve decided we need to build more roads.

I don’t know why we don’t just build roads everywhere all the time. The most transformational thing this government –who said they’d be transformational– could have done was build more roads. I don’t know why they hate them so much and cancelled so many of them.

Mike Hosking: We love roads, so let's get on with building them

I know if you are south of Auckland, you might not care.

But yet again Friday and over the weekend we were reminded of the value of roads, new roads, good roads, and roads that add to the value of the country and economy.

The Puhoi motorway extension was opened, ironically by the Prime Minister, who had the good grace to admit calling it the holiday highway had been a mistake.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Puhoi to Warkworth highway opens

Well, very good news today that the Puhoi to Warkworth highway has finally officially been opened.

Only about a year and a half late, but we’ll take what we can get.

You can’t drive on it yet — you have to wait until early next week, and they won’t tell us exactly when because it’ll cause disruptions with everyone flocking to use the road all at once.

That is how much we love a new road in this country. 

Cam Slater: Can We Have a New Transport Minister Please

I don’t really know why Michael “Napoleon” Wood is the Transport Minister. Everything he announces or does just ends in a complete mess. It isn’t surprising really, because his sole qualification and work experience was in measuring the inside seams of bankers buying cheap suits at Hugh Wright.

Where’s the second harbour crossing? What about the light rail to the airport? Not a single millimetre of track has been built on his watch. Then there is the ‘rapid’ rail to Hamilton, which is neither rapid nor a service and didn’t even get to Auckland, pegging out at Papakura. That result shouldn’t have been at all surprising after the ‘service’ was named after an extinct bird.

Point of Order: Budget 2023 sluice-gates are opened.....

.....$1bn will flow into cyclone recovery

Whoa there. Did Budget Day arrive several days earlier than Point of Order had been led to believe?

Five press statements from the Beehive landed in our email this morning, embargoed for release at 10.30 am.

The PM led the charge, announcing a billion-dollar flood and cyclone recovery package as part of Budget 2023 that covers the basics of rebuilding roads, rail and schools while preparing for future events with a big investment in flood protection measures.

Here’s how the dosh is being distributed.

Point of Order: Govt’s finances worsen as the economy slows....

.....but ministers aren’t slowing down with their spending announcements

Revenue growth is slowing, we learned from our Minister of Finance today.

But that’s not going to stop his ministerial colleagues from pitching for public plaudits with their spending pronouncements.

Grant Robertson’s latest cheering comments on the state of the public accounts can be found alongside four announcements that may well call for more borrowing.

Point of Order: Hobbling the lobbyists – the PM calls it “transparency”....

.....but what is being done to make ministers comply with the OIA?

The Prime Minister’s proposals to hobble political lobbyists were the big headline-grabbing announcement on the Beehive website when we checked this morning.

Chris Hipkins yesterday announced four measures to put lobbyists on the same footing as any other citizen who might want to contact the inhabitants of the Beehive.

But one of those measures is a call for advice which he won’t receive until next year and two of the others are requests for someone else to take the action he wants taken.

Karl du Fresne: Traffic cones and the precautionary principle

Driving between Eketahuna and Masterton recently, I came across some road works.
The road was reduced to one lane each way. There were the usual Stop/Go controls at either end, but this time there was a new twist.

I was at the head of a queue that was stopped at one end. A line of vehicles coming the other way was led through by a white ute with flashing lights.

As they reached my end of the road works, the ute pulled over to the verge. Then it did a U-turn and positioned itself at the head of the line of traffic waiting to go the other way.

Garrick Tremain: Light Rail vs Roads

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the condition of our roads and the light rail project! 

Mike Butler: A new look at old roads, bridges, swamps

The biggest story of 19th century New Zealand is not missionaries, muskets, and the sovereignty wars, according to historian John McLean, it was the physical building of the country.

Sweat and toil – the building of New Zealand, tells the story of the building of New Zealand’s roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, viaducts, wharves, docks, lighthouses, tramways, telegraph, as well as massive reclamations as well as the draining of swamps.

Mclean did his Master’s thesis in history on the building of the Otira tunnel through the Southern Alps.