I want to see a detailed infrastructure plan that will take us out of the third world and future-proof the people and the economy.
We can’t guarantee clean water, our roads are shambolic, our Kaikoura earthquake fix is moribund and five years on we haven’t fixed Christchurch.
We need a detailed infrastructure plan that includes present and future transport needs incorporating road, rail and sea. It must also factor in earthquakes and extreme weather.
The productive rural economy relies on efficient transport, now mainly on roads.
The economy has changed over the last 20 years and that change has been totally ignored by the bureaucracy.
For example, when we bought our property 20 years ago we were on a quiet country road. It is now an extremely busy road with a myriad of trucks. The road isn’t coping. There are no planned upgrades or changes.
Our road transport network is anything but efficient.
I recently drove from Christchurch to Timaru and back and that was shambolic.
There are many more vehicles on the road than there used to be but the problem is greater than that, camper vans for instance. There are hundreds of them, they drive at 80-90 kmh and their preferred position on the road is as near to centre as possible.
There isn’t a solution other than making State Highway 1four lanes.
I realise we’re meant to be having a tourism boom but that so-called boom has considerable costs, certainly when it comes to efficient rural transport.
There’s also the shambles of SH1 north and south of Kaikoura, which, despite protestations to the contrary from both the Transport Agency and KiwiRail, I remain unconvinced either organisation is remotely competent to handle the issues.
Local Marlborough mates are desperately unhappy with the progress, attitude and commitment of either organisation.
I accept earthquakes are unpredictable and devastating but in NZ they’re a fact of life.
For example, in a long, thin, earthquake-prone country is it smart to have your main highway and your only railway line running side by side?
When both those routes are out should a country with rural-based exports have to rely on a narrow, meandering tourist road that is almost 50% longer in distance as its only way of transporting goods between north and south?
Putting the inefficiencies aside, the extra cost to the primary sector is crippling.
We need to think outside the square.
There is a shingle road from Blenheim to Hanmer through Molesworth. Should we seal that as an alternative route?
Also, until our so-called economic reforms of the 1980s we had a good, viable coastal shipping service.
Should we investigate reinvigorating that?
I agree with Federated Farmers president William Rolleston that we need roads, not ships, but I would suggest that shipping has a place supporting our road network.
I’d like to see a viable terminal at Lyttelton. Disembarking trucks in Picton to drive 480km through a tortuous road to Christchurch doesn’t seem smart when those same trucks could be unloaded in Christchurch.
South Island aside, we have the continual problem of the Manawatu Gorge, the one good road linking the southern North Island from east to west.
Each year the gorge road is out and you have the tortuous alternatives of the Saddle Road or the Pahiatua Track. A permanent solution is needed but there seems no political will to achieve one.
We also have a rail infrastructure we keep running down and the Taumaranui-Stratford link and the Napier-Gisborne line are witness to that.
Add to that the rundown of services in other areas such as Northland.
It isn’t as if we don’t have the money to do it. The Government announced in 2015 there was $13.9 billion to spend on land transport programmes between 2015 and 2018.
In addition there is $19 billion earmarked for transport in Auckland.
To reiterate my point: Our infrastructure isn’t adequately functioning and must be fixed.
We’ll always have earthquakes and extreme weather events – they need to be factored in.
I know we’re in election year and the talk is all about tax cuts. I don’t want tax cuts I want a future-proofed country with a credible transport network capable of withstanding earthquakes and extreme climate events.
We insist that happens with our buildings, why not with our infrastructure.
I don’t want bluff and bluster from Simon, nine bridges, Bridges. I want to see credible leadership from the likes of Jerry Brownlee and a detailed plan.
It is an absolutely vital investment for our future prosperity and infinitely more important than the short-term electoral bribe of tax cuts.
