Media Advisory
27 August 2019

Auckland Mayoral Campaign Coverage

We would like your cooperation. It is important to our campaign that we get the facts of our policies across to the media, the public and even our opponents. In a number of instances we have failed to do that.

John Tamihere’s proposed harbour bridge replacement has been described in the media as having 18 lanes because it has 4 foot and cycle paths, 4 rail tracks and 10 lanes. We believe that even the Mayor was misled by such reporting into thinking and saying that John’s proposal is to build an 18 lane bridge. That is the same as thinking and saying that Queen Street has six lanes because it has two footpaths and four lanes.

16 August 2019 Press Release Mayor Phil Goff:
“The 18 lane harbour bridge that John Tamihere is proposing is going to cost over $10 billion to build.

Widening the motorway at either end to match the 18 lanes would see massive demolition of buildings and destruction of homes and neighbourhoods. This will cost further billions of dollars that Auckland doesn’t have and the Government won’t pay for.

This is total fantasy stuff and fundamentally dishonest to promise."

There have been numerous similar statements in media reports from journalists who we believe were similarly misled. It seems no journalist asked Mr Goff to back up his $10 billion claim or at least ask both Goff and us to justify our costings.

We request that in the future you refer to the bridge as a 10 lane bridge.

Please see at right, and to follow, for your information: the letter from John published in today’s New Zealand Herald, an email from New Zealand’s leading structural steel engineer confirming that the bridge proposal is feasible, images of the proposal, the costing of the bridge proposal on page 1 of the Harbour Bridge Q&A from our policy page jtformayor.co.nz/pages/policy, and the details of a similar length bridge replacement carried out in the United States in 2014.

[addition material in attachment: Media_Advisory_270819.pdf]

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