A Changing World Conference 2023 The country’s main political parties stood up and delivered their take on the critical issues for the transport sector at this year’s Transporting New Zealand conference. Economist Cameron Bagrie and advisor Phil O’Reily also gave their two cents on the challenges.
Shane Jones New Zealand First New Zealand First’s Shane Jones says the transport sector shouldn’t write off Labour and the Greens when it comes to the election. “There are now so many Kiwis who are in receipt of government revenue – welfare, other types of assistance – that Kiwis sadly look to Wellington and look to politics as a massive redistributive machine,” he says. “The next election should be about politicians that want to grow the size of the pie, not argue incessantly about how to redistribute the pie.” Jones says there is much bureaucracy in New Zealand but no accountability. “We shouldn’t be surprised that we are a compliance-riddled, inflexible, petty society given the huge number of rules and regulations besetting our industries.
98 New Zealand Trucking August 2023
“We have allowed shrill, untested, un-costed voices to drive an agenda in New Zealand that threatens the solvency of our industries. It’s going to be hard to turn that around.” Regarding decarbonisation, Jones says there should be one broad policy statement. “There should be an expectation that if truckies are buying brand-new gear, and it only generates a fraction of the negative emissions as our historic trucks did, then you should be able to do that – it shouldn’t be some single totalitarian edict, that all of a sudden you all have to go methane, hydrogen, or electric… It should be a simple policy statement that lets the market, owners, firms and investors decide how they are going to use their own capital to achieve an outcome of decarbonisation.”
Simon Court ACT Simon Court says getting the maximum efficiency from investments and transport equipment is as essential to this industry now as it was 25 years ago. “In the past 25 years, productivity in the transport network has dropped right off. And more trucks just add to congestion and add more costs. We’ve seen the failure to invest in the roading transportation network lead us to where we are now – higher cost, inflation for transport and infrastructure projects, lower productivity and everything costing more for the consumer.” Court says Transporting New Zealand’s policies outlined in its 2023 election platform identify what can be done to
