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A Well Deserved
Honour
Michael “Iceman” Jones was an
outstanding flanker and World Cup winning All Black. More
recently he’s thrown his weight behind Partnership
Schools, specifically the Pacific Advance Senior School in
South Auckland. PASS is innovative and making fantastic
progress with kids who, in many cases, felt the Government
had left them out. Sir Michael is the Second Partnership
School sponsor to receive an honour after the legendary Sita
Selupe who has been Next Magazine woman of the year, a Sir
Peter Blake Leader, and was recognized by the Queen as a
Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Phil “Godfather” Goff
The
Auckland Mayor has been compared with a mafia boss for the
way he managed to get the hotel tax passed last week. It is
terrible policy, comparable to the Australian Government’s
Budget Day raid on the country’s banks last month. The
only principle behind such ad hoc taxes is “does the
victim have money?”
ACT’s
Solution
ACT acknowledges that councils have a
revenue problem. For every dollar that councils spend,
central government spends nine. The shortage of
infrastructure funding is feeding the housing shortage, not
to mention the congestion disaster. There needs to be a
non-politicised way of getting revenue to councils that
creates the right incentives. ACT, of course, supports
giving councils half the GST on construction they consent.
If you have ever faced delays getting resource consent,
imagine if the council was offered 7.5 per cent of the
construction cost.
Phil’s at it
Again
Now Phil has leaked that the Government
will announce road pricing in Auckland. Free Press
hopes this is true. The congestion problem is dire, it is
the biggest issue that people bring up with us on the door
step. People with mobile jobs required to visit multiple
addresses are reporting massive productivity costs. They
used to visit five locations but now they can only visit
three. Better technology and accurate road pricing are a
critical part of the answer.
About
Time
Airlines, hotels, and the produce section
of supermarkets all vary their prices to manage demand. The
policy of taxing road use through petrol taxes is like
saying that if you buy jet fuel you can fly anywhere you
like at any time. The result would be chaos and that’s
what happens on Auckland and, increasingly, Wellington and
Christchurch roads twice a day.
Some
Conditions
Proper road pricing should not be a
cash grab. Revenues raised should be offset by reductions in
petrol tax. The revenues should be used to build and
maintain roads, people making one choice should not be
forced to subsidise another. Road pricing should be world
leading and comprehensive, it should involve GPS tracking of
all roads so it doesn’t just move bottle necks around.
Most importantly, it should be done within the next
parliamentary term, not a plan to do something in ten years
as Simon Bridges has previously mused.
Incidentally
MP for Epsom David
Seymour is hosting a public meeting on June 12 at 7:30 at
the Somervell Church in Remuera. Three guest speakers from
Transport Blog, the AA, and Uber will tackle congestion from
their respective angles.