Transmission Gully Legislative Go-Ahead Will Not Happen This Year

Ohariu Belmont MP and United Future leader, Hon Peter Dunne, says he was shocked to learn at a private meeting this afternoon between Wellington Regional Councillors and Wellington MPs that the Government will not pass legislation enabling the Transmission Gully highway to proceed this year.

Mr Dunne says that the Government has been saying for months that it will be introducing legislation shortly that will enable Transmission Gully to go ahead more quickly than presently planned.

"Indeed, that was the main argument they used to defeat my own legislation seeking to fast-track the highway's construction."

"Yet now we are told that the legislation is still some months away, and even then will not be passed this year."

"The timetable keeps slipping, and what is more alarming is that the Wellington Regional Council now seems happy to accept these fresh delays to getting on with Transmission Gully."

"Surely, we have a right to expect the Regional Council to be fighting for the region's interests, not acquiescing in the Government's dithering and lack of commitment?"

"After all, the Regional Council has for years protested its impatience at delays in getting on with Transmission Gully, and I am stunned that it now seems to have given up the fight," Mr Dunne says.

Mr Dunne says that waiting until next year for the legislative authority for Transmission Gully sadly means that it would 2008-2009 at the earliest before the project could be completed, making a mockery of claims yesterday by the Regional Council chairman Stuart Macaskill that Transmission Gully could be just 5 years away.

"If the Council really wants Transmission Gully in five years, as I certainly do, it will not get there by following the government's ever slipping timetable."

"Wellington people are impatient, and are sick and tired of the constant petty game-playing by politicians - they just want us to work together to get on with it, and I am at a loss to understand why my political colleagues will not heed the public's message," Mr Dunne says.

Ends

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