It’s Political

THE NEW ZEALAND TRUCKING INDUSTRY FACES many challenges – many of them influenced by Government policy.

Apart from the many problems currently created by the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s the ongoing driver shortage, the worsening state of the nation’s roading network and looming emissions reduction legislation…

So, who among our political parties offers any salvation for the industry in these situations?

To have some insight into what politicians are thinking about issues impacting the road transport industry, NZ Truck & Driver has offered each of the major political parties the opportunity to voice their views on trucking matters each month.

This month ACT and the National Party have taken the opportunity to present their views. T&D

Wasted journey

By Simon Court, ACT Party spokesperson on transport

SOMETIMES YOU COME ACROSS Government initiatives that you swear must be satirical. Some of them would even be funny if they weren’t generally paid for by truckloads of taxpayer cash.

One of the most outlandish out there has to be the New Zealand Transport Agency’s ‘Journey Planner’ though – a poor rip-off of Google Maps funded by Kiwi taxpayers.

Yes that’s correct, seventeen years after Google released Google Maps, New Zealand’s transport agency has boldly decided to copy it with Journey Planner, a tool to map people’s journeys and alert them to possible disruptions, at great expense to New Zealand’s taxpayers.

Information obtained by ACT via parliamentary questions shows the Government’s ill thought out venture into online route planning sunk $1m into development, a further $700k on website maintenance and improvements, and almost half a million on marketing their clunky map. These are just the costs so far with marketing expected to cost another million bucks over the next two years.

I asked the Minister of Transport what the point of this was and he steadfastly stood by his department’s product.

This is the sort of waste and poor prioritisation that Kiwis can’t stand. The New Zealand Transport Agency should stop wasting taxpayers’ money trying to create their own bargain bin Google Maps and worry about fixing roads instead.

What’s even worse is that Journey Planner is only accessible via phone or laptop. That’s not very helpful when you’re driving and it is illegal to use either device. When I asked the Minister in Parliament about this his solution was to get a passenger to use it for you. I suspect people will just use the vastly superior versions that can be used on their vehicle’s monitor or via handsfree instead.

This is yet another reminder of why the Government shouldn’t waste taxpayers’ money trying to compete with the private sector. More often than not they fail miserably and they’re wasting Kiwis’ money during a cost of living crisis. It is truly baffling that at no point the Minister asked the question - why are we trying to create something that already exists?

The failed Journey Planner experiment needs to be scrapped and not another cent should be spent on it. People are just going to use Google Maps or Apple Maps anyway. With inflation pressuring Kiwis from the pump to the checkout, we cannot afford this kind of waste.

This disaster might be at the small end of the scale when compared to things like the light rail saga, but it speaks to why we need to get politicians out of transport and infrastructure decision-making to get better long-term outcomes.

ACT would take the politics out of transport and infrastructure and get central and local government working together through 30-year infrastructure partnerships, devolving revenue and responsibility to regional governments and the private sector, while strengthening accountability and oversight from central government.

The focus would be on creating infrastructure where it is needed, not where votes are and not mucking around with pet projects that aren’t providing a good return on investment. And yes, that means not trying to create our own version of Google Maps. T&D

Simon Court

By Simeon Brown, National Party Spokesperson for Transport and Public Service

on holiday, to run businesses and to connect communities and regions together. Our roads and state highways are vital pieces of infrastructure which keep our economy moving. More than 90% of our domestic freight is moved by trucks.1

The previous National Government invested in our roading infrastructure through the Roads of National Significance Programme. The century-old dream of Transmission Gully was recently opened because National had the vision to start building it in 2014.

Under Labour a new high bar for new roads is being proposed however. This is quite concerning at a time when many transport projects have been delayed and the country is crying out for better roading infrastructure.

Labour’s first emissions reduction plan, published in May 2022, states that:

“New highways and road expansion projects are sometimes needed to support urban and housing development and the efficient movement of freight, but they can increase emissions by inducing more private vehicle travel. Further investment that expands roads and highways needs to be consistent with transport targets and avoid inducing further travel by private vehicles.”2

To give effect to this sentiment, Labour wants to take action by establishing a “high threshold for new investment to expand roads, including new highway projects, if the expansion is inconsistent with emissions-reduction objectives.”3

National supports the emissions reduction targets, and we are committed to meeting net zero emissions by 2050. However we disagree with certain aspects of the emissions reduction plan, as there are a number of ways to reach the targets.

If Labour implements their new high bar for new highways and road expansions this will mean that we see fewer roads built and upgraded. The criteria for the threshold are so vague that it could be used against almost any roading project.

An example of things to come is the work on Mill Road in Auckland as part of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme. National had this project lined up as a four-lane upgrade, but Labour has shrunk it down to two lanes and minor safety improvements. This has effectively cancelled most of the project. And the reason for the changes was to meet housing and emission reduction objectives.4

It is likely that Mill Road has been largely axed because it would “increase emissions by inducing more private vehicle travel”, just like the emissions reduction plan says, despite all the people stuck in traffic on this road who are trying to get to work and back home.

Ultimately this shift in policy from Labour will mean fewer new roads being built, leaving New Zealanders driving on more dangerous roads, spending more time stuck in traffic, and emitting more emissions due to increasing congestion.

When I travel around New Zealand I know that while people are committed to our climate change goals, they also know how important our regional connections and roads are to getting people around New Zealand, moving our goods to ports so they can be sold to the world, and supporting our Tourism industry which has suffered significantly through COVID.

We can meet our climate change goals by supporting sensible measures which reduce the emissions of the vehicles we drive on our roads, not by simply stopping the building of new roads, which is where Labour is trying to take New Zealand. T&D

1https://www.transporting.nz/our-news/nicks-blog/detail/ ignoring-investment-in-roading-wont-help-the-environmentsafety-or-the-economy 2Te hau mārohi ki anamata, Towards a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy: Aotearoa New Zealand’s First Emissions Reduction Plan, page 180, https://environment. govt.nz/assets/publications/Aotearoa-New-Zealands-firstemissions-reduction-plan.pdf 3Te hau mārohi ki anamata, Towards a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy: Aotearoa New Zealand’s First Emissions Reduction Plan, page 180, https://environment. govt.nz/assets/publications/Aotearoa-New-Zealands-firstemissions-reduction-plan.pdf 4Mill Road and Drury infrastructure investment, https://www. nzta.govt.nz/planning-and-investment/nz-upgrade/aucklandpackage/mill-road/