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Light rail in Auckland and Let’s Get Wellington Moving: gone.
Light rail in Auckland and Let’s Get Wellington Moving: gone.

The BulletinAugust 1, 2023

Uncertain future for country’s biggest rapid transit projects

Light rail in Auckland and Let’s Get Wellington Moving: gone.
Light rail in Auckland and Let’s Get Wellington Moving: gone.
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National revealed it would “absolutely” kill Let’s Get Wellington Moving and Auckland light rail while Chris Hipkins danced with reporters on the difference between government and party policy on both, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

‘Sounds like they’re still going to deliver on those big-ticket items’

Picking up where Catherine left off yesterday, National’s full transport policy was revealed in Hamilton yesterday where it was confirmed they would “absolutely” (but not positively) kill the region’s big transport plan, Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM). Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said National’s plan would do nothing to grow the city. “We need to unlock investment in the city, not dampen it with a flaccid vision,” she said. The chairperson of Greater Wellington Regional Council, Daran Ponter, said that while it might sound dramatic to say the party is going to get rid of the plan, “it sounds like they’re still going to deliver on those big-ticket items the administration committed to six-and-a-half-years ago.”

Hipkins’ hat swapping

As The Post’s Andrea Vance reports this morning (paywalled), neither prime minister Chris Hipkins nor transport minister David Parker would commit to backing LGWM yesterday. The scheme is 60% central government funded. Hipkins said it was being reassessed as Labour developed its transport policy ahead of October’s election. Tellingly, Vance writes, “he did refer to it in the past tense – and said he was unhappy with progress.” Yesterday’s post-cabinet press conference descended into a round of Hipkins refusing to rule transport plans in or out as he finds himself increasingly swapping his prime ministerial hat for the “Hutt-issue headgear” of Labour leader. Newsroom’s Jo Moir writes that Hipkins is stuck in “limbo land”, both governing and being called on to answer questions about Labour’s election campaign, as other parties kick into campaign mode.

National confirms Auckland light rail to be scrapped 

In the least surprising transport announcement of the campaign, National confirmed they would scrap the Auckland light rail project, favouring the building of seven new roads and public transport projects in the country’s largest city. When asked whether the government’s “close look” at transport policy included Auckland light rail yesterday, the prime minister said “the government’s been looking closely at light rail in Auckland for some time”, “government policy on that has not changed” and when asked if it was “Labour party policy to complete light rail to the airport in Auckland?”, he repeated that he was not “announcing Labour party policy for the next election today.” Government policy on transport is due in the form of the long-awaited government policy statement (GPS). As Newsroom’s Emma Hatton reports, the transport and infrastructure sector is getting increasingly frustrated by the delay. Parker has said it will be done by the end of this month. It was meant to be published in draft form for consultation earlier this year but then-transport minister Michael Wood was sent back to the drawing board.

(Image: Getty Images, The Spinoff)

Road costing spat, no climate impact assessement

As Stewart Sowman-Lund reports from Wellington, the National party’s $24b transport policy unlocked a spat over costings. Parker says National was using outdated costings that don’t take increased construction costs into account. National’s Simeon Brown issued a clarification yesterday evening saying that the party’s vision of a four-lane highway from Tauranga to Northland wouldn’t be achieved for another three terms, at least. As the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan details (paywalled), National’s leader Christopher Luxon could not answer a question about the cost of the second Mt Victoria Tunnel on Newstalk ZB yesterday. “For someone whose pitch is bringing C-suite rigour to the podgy lackadaisical world of government, the flub was deeply embarrassing,” he writes. Both parties came under fire from Coughlan who notes they’ve both ended up similarly committed to roads and that in 2020 Labour decided not to attach a cost to the Auckland light rail project in its manifesto. Coughlan also notes that it’s “iffy that Labour’s main attack on National comes from the fact it had silently engaged public servants to re-cost some of the policies itself for the draft GPS”. Addressing the issue of big road energy on the climate, Stuff’s Bridie Witton cites the University of Canterbury’s Bronwyn Hayward who says National’s plans came without a roadmap on how it would drive down carbon emissions.

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The BulletinJuly 31, 2023

Let’s Get Wellington Moving? Let’s can it, says National

Contributing writer
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The controversial transport project will be cancelled entirely if there’s a change of government – and the capital will get more roads instead, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Let’s Get Wellington Moving hits a big blue bump in the road

For Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s supporters – who just weeks ago were celebrating a vote that appeared to put them on a glide path to completion – today’s announcement will come as a blow. For the project’s vocal opponents, the news that National plans to cancel the entire project offers the prospect of a last-minute reprieve. The cancellation of LGWM, reported by Andrea Vance at The Post (paywalled), is a key plank of National’s transport policy, to be released in full later today. The $7.4b LGWM package is a “toxic mess of a programme” says National’s Chris Bishop, who developed the transport policy alongside colleague Simeon Brown. Two of LGWM’s most significant individual projects are the introduction of light rail to the capital and the pedestrianisation of the Golden Mile precinct, which is due to begin in September.

We’ll build a second Mt Victoria road tunnel, National promises

Despite promising to abandon LGWM, National still has big plans for Wellington transport – namely, roads. It is committing to building a second road tunnel under Mt Victoria, and will revive the mothballed Petone to Grenada highway project. National says it “will open up land for more than 5000 homes, and a cross valley link to ease congestion across the harbourside suburb and Lower Hutt”, writes Vance. The new Mt Vic tunnel will be built beside the existing one, carrying two lanes travelling east; the original tunnel would carry two lanes of traffic towards the city. “A pedestrian and cycleway will be built above the road, separated from traffic in the new underpass,” Vance adds.

Doubts raised over stated cost of Whangārei to Tauranga highways

The plan for LGWM follows National’s announcement yesterday that it plans to build four, four-lane highways linking Whangārei and Tauranga. National says the cost of the whole project will be $6 billion, and will not require raising excise taxes. Transport minister David Parker calls that “laughable” and “breathtakingly misleading”, and says “the cost will be many hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more than they are admitting”. Official figures obtained by 1 News appear to back Parker up. “For example,” Jessica Mutch McKay reports, “National says Warkworth to Wellsford will cost 2.2 billion, and officials say it could be up to 4 billion.”

More Reading

Who’s to blame for our pothole problem?

Part of National’s transport policy that has already been announced is its plan for a “pothole repair fund” to double the current rate of roading renewals, halve the pothole response rate from two days to 24 hours, and give local authorities and Waka Kotahi $500m over three years to address road damage. That announcement a fortnight ago was accompanied with a lot of finger pointing, with National blaming Labour for the current state of the roads and Labour arguing it was still trying to recover from major maintenance funding cuts under the previous National government. Greater Auckland’s Matt Lowrie has done a deep, deep dive into the data in an attempt to come up with the true culprit. Spoiler: “Both Simeon Brown and David Parker are correct, each picking numbers to suit their narrative.”