Luxon's election roading proposals unpacked.
An act of sabotage, a threat to sovereignty and the environment and a wanton destruction of recent public investment.
This digression on Luxon’s promises on roading started in Substack Chats.
An example; Northland proposals
Given the low population density north of Auckland, the only possible excuse for new motorways in the region can be to carry the 30,000 containers that leave Northland every year, not to mention logs that might be transported. However, rail infrastructure improvements north of Auckland entirely for this purpose are at an advanced stage, with improvements between Swanson and Whangarei already completed to allow the largest containers and heaviest loads to be carried. Furthermore, scheduled for opening late 2024, track has been renewed and bridges strengthened between Whangarei and Otiria 50km to the north, with a road-rail transfer yard at Otiria to eliminate the necessity for log-trucks to pass through Whangarei City. The 19km rail corridor from Whangarei to Northport was designated in 2012 and land acquisitions are well underway.
Given the advanced stage of these infrastructure improvements, there has never been greater urgency for an act of ideologically driven industrial sabotage- indeed the announced Whangarei to Northport “road of national significance” makes no sense whatsoever except to occupy the designated rail corridor thus making sure no log ever travels from the forests of Otiria to Northport by rail, and to create “inefficiency by design”- forcing continued trans-shipment of containers by road to Whangarei in order to gain access to the rail network- in the hope that they will thus complete their entire journey by road. Neither would the proposed Warkworth to Wellsford section even require a new motorway if logs and containers were removed from the roads. Anyone who has any doubt of this only needs to speak to those that use and live along the SH3 route between Napier and Wairoa to understand the improvement in road-safety and utility derived from the re-opening of that section of the railway to log traffic.
In short, what we see here is the throwing-away of hundreds of millions of dollars of public investment already made in return for a few hundred thousand dollars of political donations from the grubby hand of the road haulage lobby and an opportunity to diminish the role of elected government in a core obligation- infrastructure provision.
Who is to pay?
..."and we also make sure that we don't give the taxpayer a huge amount of debt to deal with." So how does Luxon propose to pay the capital and interest if not at the expense of the NZ taxpayer? Since user pays is the only viable alternative to taxpayer pays, he almost certainly intends toll roads.
Notwithstanding ACT’s hatred of government’s role in infrastructure provision, what’s the likelihood of Luxon’s suggested choice of provider being popular with his coalition partner? Act Party MP Simon Court says he was deported from Fiji in 2017 for raising issues about work done by Chinese Communist party contractors. Court, a civil and environmental engineer, was working for global engineering consultancy MWH Global at the time to help upgrade the roading network.
While it could be funded by the usual means of selling bonds, or the unusual means of direct funding through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, both the proposal itself and its likely source of funding are a mechanism for the strangulation of democracy.
Entering into binding arrangements with foreign governments is a core Neolib way of limiting the capacity of future governments to exercise sovereign choices; think TPPA and all the controversy that surrounded that. Luxon clearly hasn't worked out that, after he's been to his weekly meeting with the New Zealand Initiative or wherever it is that he takes his instructions, he's meant to work out how to subtly sell it to his party membership and electorate- not just blurt it out at the earliest opportunity, though I guess being called-out by Labour over his implausible costings meant a statement was needed quickly.