New leader Judith Collins announced the first chunk of National’s infrastructure policy yesterday – $30 billion to be spent over 10 years on roads, rail, buses and tunnels, with about half in the top of the North Island, particularly addressing congestion in Auckland, and including a full four lane highway from Whangerei to Auckland and to Hamilton and Tauranga.
They also plan on scrapping the currently dysfunctional RMA and replacing it with something that doesn’t restrict anmd slow down development so much.
National had been criticised for not having much policy, but after this announcement the pressure is now very much on Labour to respond.
While I have my doubts about some of what is in the policy I think there’s a lot of worth\while projects to consider.
Opponents were quick to criticise the emphasis on roads and car congestion, including Green Minister Julie Anne Genter, but the simple fact is that road congestion is a major problem in the north and cars won’t suddenly disappear.
A big problem with the Green led push to walk and bike is that it is happening slowly and is limited. In Dunedin most commuter cycle lanes are barely used. Recreational walking and biking is becoming more popular, but weekday congestion is still a huge problem and won’t be fixed by disrupting traffic flows with more cycleways and footpaths, especially when noot separated from cars and trucks.
A big point of difference with Labour is that instead of putting light rail lines down a busy road in Auckland they will branch the existing railway line to the airport. Seems a sensible option.
The National announcement won’t make me suddenly be a supporter of them this election, but it is a welcome bit of beef that should force Labour and other parties to front up with substantive policy of their own that we can then decide on.
The announcement (edited): Delivering Infrastructure – Upper North Island
Today’s infrastructure announcement is one part of National’s Plan to Get New Zealand Working that we released last week. Today I intend to focus on transport infrastructure.
In the coming weeks, you will hear more about our plans for schools, for hospitals, for water storage, and broadband. But today is all about transport.
There is a congestion and infrastructure crisis in Auckland. It is a crisis caused by decades of short-term thinking and expedience. And that same congestion and infrastructure crisis extends to much of the rest of country.
National’s approach to infrastructure is simple: Make decisions, get projects funded and commissioned, and then get them delivered, at least a couple of years before they are expected to be needed. That is the approach that transformed the economies of Asia from the 1960s.
Today, though, being in Auckland, my focus is on transport – including within Auckland City, and across the whole upper North Island.
This city is broken by congestion. Every Aucklander and every visitor to Auckland knows it. Congestion costs Aucklanders over $1 billion per year. That’s the strict economic loss. It represents lost production, lost productivity, lost opportunity.
But congestion is far worse than that. Congestion means unreliable journey times. It means frustration at sitting idle on the motorway. It means goods being delivered late to our ports. It means Mum being late to pick up the kids from rugby practice. It means a tradie only doing two, rather than four, cross-town trips per day. That’s fewer jobs for him; less income, and less economic activity.
Upper North Island Transport Package
First, National will build a four-lane expressway network from Whangarei in the north to Tauranga, connecting 50 per cent of the country with high-quality and safe expressways.
Second, we will complete the Auckland Rapid Transit network, including massive new investments in busways and our rail network.
Third, we will build a second crossing across the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland.
These things can’t all happen at once. But we will also begin immediately, by pumping $300 million into digger-ready projects in Auckland and throughout the country in 2021 – like fixing potholes, roundabouts, and crash corners.
Together, our plan, which you can find in detail on our website, is a 20-year vision for transport infrastructure in Auckland and the upper north. Our total funding for new transport projects across New Zealand will be $31 billion over the next decade. Around half of that – $17 billion – will go to today’s Upper North Island Transport Package for the half of the nation’s population who live here. To fund our overall $31 billion package, we have allocated $7 billion from the Government’s $20 billion Covid Fund.
In addition, National will change the way major transport projects are funded, from “pay-as-we-go” to an intergenerational approach. NZTA will be allowed to borrow significantly more on its own balance sheet, using the $4 billion it collects each year from fuel taxes and road user charges to service the debt. Initially, we will allow it to borrow up to $1 billion a year more.
Some of what I am announcing today will also be joint ventures with Auckland Council. The renegotiation of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) will begin with Phil Goff in our first two weeks in office. The first thing you’ll see, as previously announced, is that the Auckland regional fuel tax will be abolished.
Looking further ahead, if we and Auckland Council ever look at congestion charges in the future, my Government will insist they are only ever revenue neutral, with other fuel taxes reduced to compensate.
Upper North Island Expressway Network
The first project I am announcing today is to connect Auckland, Whangarei, Hamilton and Tauranga with four-lane expressways. This will also include Marsden Point. We will also build the Hamilton Southern Links project to connect the southern part of Hamilton to the Waikato Expressway. And we will build a four-lane expressway from Tauranga to Katikati. Desktop work to get the four-lane expressways underway will begin immediately upon us forming a Government.
National will seek also to improve the rail networks between Auckland, Whangarei, Hamilton and Tauranga. National will extend commuter rail to Pokeno, beginning in 2024. That will then allow the possibility of proper commuter rail to Hamilton to be considered.
Auckland Rapid Transit
The second project I am announcing today as part of National’s Delivering Infrastructure Plan is Auckland Rapid Transit. We will measure our progress against those goals, of 30 minutes to get to work and one hour to get across the city.
We don’t support light rail. National believes light rail will be to the 2020s what monorails were to the 1980s. We do support completing Auckland’s existing train and bus system.
I am announcing, therefore, that there will be rail to the airport from Puhinui, starting in 2026, and then up to Onehunga, to create a rail loop. This was the plan for Auckland for decades, as Mike Lee will tell you.
Rather than just doing a third main rail line Quay Park to Wiri, we will do the third and fourth at the same time. This will allow the separation of commuter and freight traffic, and for express commuter services and regional rail.
Additional Harbour Crossing
I am announcing today that National’s Plan is that the crossing should be a tunnel or tunnels. Our Plan is that it should be for both road, rail and new public transport technologies that come on line. And, yes, the new tunnel will be tolled – but the existing bridge never will be.
In terms of a timeline, I am announcing National’s Plan is to fast-track the consenting so that work can begin in 2028.
In terms of cyclist and pedestrian access across the harbour, National is sceptical of the $360 million Labour plans to spend on Skypath 2. Unlike the Dominion Road Ghost Train, I am not announcing today that Skypath 2 will certainly be cancelled. But, the likelihood is that we will want to work with the experts on a more cost-effective way for cyclists and pedestrians to get across the harbour.
Resource Management Act Repeal
Aucklanders, and all New Zealanders, are sick of:
- The diabolical processes and never-ending but insincere consultation.
- The endless cost and delays the RMA gifts to seemingly every development.
- Good projects falling-over in Court.
It has to stop.
…I am making a very firm commitment that the National Government I lead will repeal the RMA altogether. It won’t be “reformed” – it will go.
We will replace it with two new pieces of law: an Environment Standards Act, setting our environmental bottom lines; and an Urban Planning and Development Act, giving clarity and consistency. We will begin this work in our first 100 days. We will introduce new legislation by the end of next year.
That process, though, is too slow for the projects I have announced today – and those we will announce in the next few weeks. The RMA fast-track legislation passed in response to Covid-19 provides a useful interim framework.
National will make far more extensive use of the fast-track Act. New Zealand is facing an extraordinary jobs and economic crisis; and it demands a proportional response. We simply cannot let the RMA stand in the way of urgently needed infrastructure development. In Auckland and right around the country, we will work with local government to try to make existing RMA procedures more efficient.
But I want to tell you all right now, we will legislate for our projects if necessary. We will be respectful of local government and local stakeholders, most particularly mana whenua, and the likes of NZTA and the Infrastructure Commission.
More detail:
You can view National’s Auckland Transport Plan here
You can view National’s Transport Funding Summary here
You can view National’s Upper North Island Infrastructure Package Q & A here
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