Two opinion pieces in the Weekend Herald made for interesting reading. One from Fran O’Sullivan, the other from Michael Cullen. In respect of Fran, I find myself disagreeing with her a little more often than I used to. As for Michael Cullen, pretty much permanent disagreement there folks.
Both opinion pieces mentioned the loopy bike bridge. Fran, quite rightly, was pretty scathing about it. In her words, the $785m bridge for walkers and cyclists to cross the Waitemata cannot in any respect be described as a loss-leader to pave the way for future benefits. It is just a sump hole for taxpayer dollars and an extraordinarily expensive sop for a handful of Auckland Central voters.
Michael Cullen says the real issue is the question of what the future cycling and walking use of the bridge will be and how many cars that will take off the existing bridge. He suspects not a very large number. He also pointed out that the small but vociferous cycling community has a tendency to react to any cycleway proposals with demands for improvements which see the final cost double or triple compared with the initial estimate.
Fran is advising Ardern that a better choice is to back the boat and dump the bridge. She says at the very least, $200m invested in the next regatta would have secured the opportunity to leverage the existing Harbourside assets built for the 36th America’s Cup; showcased New Zealand as a vital yachting innovation hub; and leveraged that positioning to attract additional high-net worth technology investors to underwrite further investment into this country. Fran added that there would still have been more than half a billion dollars left over to invest in something really valuable to the New Zealand economy, such as new environmental technologies to mitigate methane emissions on farms.
Michael wrote about the hard choices the government has to make when it comes to spending priorities. The bridge versus nurses’ pay increases versus subsidies for electric vehicles and implementing other recommendations in the Climate Commission’s report. He pointed out that if you spend on one thing you haven’t got that money to spend on another. Well, there’s a eureka moment!
He then went on to say that National in opposition have reverted to their standard position that we can afford to do whatever we want. What a load of absolute bollocks! How many times over the years have we heard Labour whinge and moan over the economic austerity of National governments.
Michael said that under National we can have subsidies for electric vehicles without any need to tax heavy polluting vehicles to pay for it; we can meet the nurses’ demands and still have large tax cuts; and we can fully address our climate change obligations without anybody having to face extra costs as a consequence.
Okay Michael, with all due respect to you as a former Finance Minister, where to start? Probably the easiest place to start is by binning the climate report. Billions saved simply by a walk to the nearest rubbish receptacle.
National would fire up oil and gas exploration so we would not be spending billions importing smelly low-grade Indonesian coal. Huntly needs it because we are short of electricity Michael. How about mining coal locally and risk losing the odd snail in the process? We would at least be reducing our carbon footprint.
Here are a few more ideas Michael that National wouldn’t waste money on; the stupid bike bridge which even you appear to think is not a very good economic proposition, the idiotic tram up Dominion Road and that diesel contraption masquerading as a commuter train between Hamilton and Auckland increasing our carbon footprint twice daily.
How about reducing the hypocrisy and the carbon footprint further by getting the fisherman out of his sponsored ute. I’m afraid I don’t buy into the explanation of his wife-to-be that because it’s sponsored, it’s somehow different. I suppose what she’s really trying to say is it’s exempt. God help me. If the international press only knew the true mental capacity of this woman.
Billions and billions saved right there Michael and more money in people’s pockets through generous tax cuts. Michael’s side of the political spectrum knows nothing about innovative economic thinking. His side’s economic thinking leads to bad economic policies based on tax, borrow and spend. Those three words comprise their entire economic vocabulary.
Michael, how much you have to rob Peter to pay Paul comes down to good economic management, having priorities, avoiding wasteful spending, setting targets, and having systems in place to ensure the monies being spent are having the desired effect. I’m sorry to say Michael, but on all the aforementioned your current government scores a big fat zero.
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