The Last Mile

HERE WE GO AGAIN

We were appalled at the tragic loss of life on SH1, south of Picton. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives and all of those involved with the crash. Eventually, we will hear the underlying cause of this tragedy, but could it have been avoided?

Yes. From what I understand, this piece of road has been long recognised as particularly nasty. But it does not appear to figure highly on the agenda of those who decide where to spend the dollars they get from RUC. Cycleways have a greater priority, so does subsidising people who buy electric cars. The recent revelation of the overspending on many cycleway projects should be a wake-up call to us all. The NZTA has a bucket of money – our money – and is happy to spend it, knowing the government is right behind it.

This is immoral. Try running a business by continuing to overspend and see how far you get. But, of course, being a government agency, there will be no accountability, and no heads will roll – the spin doctors will see to that. Yes, the minister has reportedly written to the NZTA setting out his expectations for spending public money. But the framework the NZTA follows is set by the government, and where is the oversight ministry, the Ministry of Transport, in all this?

It must (should) have been aware of what was going on, but its record of controlling public expenditure is also suspect. Many of the policies the NZTA is working on were set in place by the previous Associate Minister of Transport, Julie Anne Genter. This is the same person who recently said there was no need for a second tunnel through Mt Victoria in Wellington to improve access to/from the airport because, for the same amount of money, the government could give everybody in Wellington an e-bike.

The government can refocus the NZTA on things that really matter, such as bringing our state highway system up to a safe standard. However, this is unlikely, given it doesn’t want to upset the Green Party, whose support it might need after the 2023 election.

The people who decide our roading priorities need some hard lessons in reality and should not blindly follow the ideology of a few. We need roads to move goods. Coastal shipping and rail just won’t cut it, yet the ideologists are convinced that is the answer, and they have the ear of the government more than the people who earn their living using the roads to keep the goods moving.

Another restructure within the NZTA was revealed by Phil Pennington, a reporter for Radio New Zealand, in late June. Waka Kotahi unit facing restructure deemed ‘no longer effective’, documents reveal. It appears a core unit within the agency has been deemed so ineffective, it is being pulled apart. This comes four years after the NZTA came under fire for not doing its job of keeping our roads safe. As one reads through this sorry story, you cannot help but conclude that these people have been made scapegoats for an organisation that has failed; failings that have been pointed out for many years, including by our industry representatives.

One must hope that included in the people who have lost their jobs are those senior managers within the organisation that have been leading the agency during this time, but somehow I doubt it. We can only wonder how many years of knowledge and experience will leave the agency when these people go. I guess, though, we will see more spray-and-walkaway consultants popping up as it tries to fill the knowledge gap. Nice work if they can get it.

I have just finished the book The Hunter & the Hill. This summarises the political career of Norman Kirk. Elected Prime Minister in 1972, he died while in office in 1974. Shortly after his election, he said his government’s priorities would centre on health, education, housing, crime and infrastructure. Fifty years on, what are we still grappling with? Perhaps it is an indictment of our political system that successive governments cannot solve the underlying issues, despite spending billions of our dollars.

French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr coined the saying, ‘The more things change, the more they remain the same.’ How right he was.

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