“National Roading Programme – Disappointing for Auckland”

22 June 2001

Auckland Regional Council Chairman, Philip Warren has expressed disappointment with the National Roading Programme issued by Transfund New Zealand yesterday. The programme which sets out Transfund’s expenditure for the 2001/02 year contains “precious little” for Auckland.

While welcoming the increased allocation for public transport, Councillor Warren is disappointed with the lack of any significant new road construction expenditure for the region. “Most of the activity in the Auckland region appears to be on investigation and design, with precious little funds committed to construction”.

“Ministers have made a big song and dance about the fact that funding has been increased for the Auckland region, but much of this appears to be going on maintenance of the existing network rather than advancing the major new projects that Auckland desperately needs”.

Mr Warren says that the focus on investigation expenditure highlights a major problem with the processes that we need to follow in this region to implement our transport strategies. “We seem to take forever to work through funding and consent approvals and are not able to get these processes streamlined. Its about time the Government addressed the need to put some real focus into driving these projects forward.

“What is also worrying is the apparent shift in the benefit cost ratio hurdle from 3.0 to 4.0 which highlights the lack of funding that is going into transport in the country. It is essential that we get the funding in place to allow us to implement our regionally agreed transport strategies”.

“The Government came to office with a promise to take action to sort out Auckland’s transport problems. The Government is going to get to another election in November next year, and we’ll have seen minimal construction work on Auckland’s roads”.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>