Hon Darren Hughes
Transport Spokesperson

16 March 2009 Media Statement

Government transport plans unfair on most Kiwis

The Government’s plan to replace regional fuel taxes with increases in national fuel excise and road user charges is unfair on the vast majority of New Zealanders who now have to share the cost of electrifying Auckland’s rail system, says Labour transport spokesperson Darren Hughes.

“The huge irony is that it is also unfair on Aucklanders because they won’t see many of the benefits, including new rail stations and integrated ticketing, that would have come their way under the planned regional fuel tax to which they had agreed,” Darren Hughes said.

“This is a lose-lose idea for Auckland and for the rest of the country. The tragedy is that detailed plans, which had been worked through with Aucklanders and which would have seen Aucklanders taking control of their own transport destiny, are being tossed glibly out the window.

“There is another tragedy too. The Government is again showing its absolute preoccupation with roads at the expense of public transport, walkways and cycleways. National is blindly following an ideology rooted in tarseal.”

Darren Hughes said Southland, the West Coast and Taranaki people will never benefit from roads the Government intends building in Auckland and Waikato or from Auckland’s rail system. “Yet they are being asked to pay. That’s a complete travesty of natural and geographical justice. It would be different if equivalent spending was going to occur in smaller provinces, but that won’t happen.”

Darren Hughes said the Government’s pledge to spend an additional $1 billion in the state highway network over the next three years amounted to little more than “smoke and mirrors”.

“Projects like the Waikato Expressway, the Christchurch Southern Motorway and Victoria Park were all on the agenda anyway, and the Government is not saying it is going to build them in the next three years, but simply that it is going to progress them.

“What about Waterview and Transmission Gully? And what about creating an efficient public transport system in Auckland linking ferry, bus and train through integrated ticketing? Not only will people in the rest of the country now have to pay at the petrol pumps to subsidise Auckland, but Auckland will still not be the world-class city we all want it to become. This policy just doesn’t make sense.”

ENDS

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