30 March 2001

Press Release

PETERS CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO PLAY FAIR WITH PROVINCIAL NEW ZEALAND

The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First and MP for Tauranga, today called on the Government to play fair with provincial New Zealand.

“Whilst it was positive that the Government was stepping in to buy the lease for the Auckland Rail Network, sold nation-wide by the National Party on 20 July 1993 for the paltry sum of one dollar, the question has to be asked as to why the Government would do that for Auckland yet provide no help whatsoever to the Tauranga City Council on its roading infrastructure?

“Here is a government prepared to spend up to one hundred million dollars to help out Auckland whilst doing nothing whatsoever to help Tauranga.

“Worse still the Attorney General has submitted to the Tauranga District Council that it should cease the bridge tolls now and yet she has no idea how the over $5 million shortfall, created by this move, is to be made up.

“I am calling upon central government to, as with Auckland, step in now and pick up that shortfall. Anything less will prove that provincial New Zealand is getting a raw deal from central government, prepared as it is, to have one law for Auckland and a different one for the rest of New Zealand,” said Mr Peters.

ENDS

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