Today's satire post is by AJ Macfarlane
Infrastructure. The
sexiest of all government spending. We all need it, we all want it in some
form, and lately, the promises of strong, curvaceous roads and rail have been
oozing out of the major parties.
Infrastructure is unlike
other policy promises. You can’t kick the tyres on free tuition. You can’t
drive across a tax break. Those policies are theoretical mumbo-jumbo invented
by office-dwelling intellectuals. A train, a road, a land bridge, is real. You
can dig your feet into it, smash a coffee cup on it, get run over by one if you don’t take it seriously. In short,
infrastructure is to other policies, as gold is to bitcoin. Yes, theoretically
you might have more dollars worth of ones and zeros on that hard drive, but my
pimp daddy necklace looks much more impressive.
Promises of
infrastructure are rarely as sturdy and tangible as a land bridge or a train,
often marred by vague phrases such as “committing more funding” or “investigate
options regarding” or “we’ll do our best ae”.
But, both major parties have put forward big promises for new transport
infrastructure, with hard dollar figures, and definite deadlines.
In the red corner,
Jacinda Ardern and Labour have come out strongly on the side of rail, notably with a plan for rapid rail in The
Golden Triangle (apparently not a three-player sex position), connecting Auckland,
Hamilton, and Tauranga. Labour has committed $20 million to build the rail connections, and Ardern has
argued that as the area is projected to grow in population by 800,000 in the
next the next 25 year, this part of the country will be the most in need of
connections.
Coming out swinging
from the blue corner, National is standing firm on its “Roads out the Wazoo”
policy, pledging to build 10 new roads of
significance at the cost of $10.5 billion. Rather than focusing their efforts
on the Auckland end of the country, National’s plan is spread across the length
of New Zealand, intending to encourage transport connections to foster growth
in smaller regions.
Focusing on the
Auckland region, National is dipping its toe into the possibility of rail, with
a $267 million-dollar plan to upgrade
commuter rail in Auckland and Wellington, mostly building on and improving
already existing infrastructure. However, they are sticking to their roots,
promising $955 million for a new highway running next to the Southern Motorway,
and $835 million for a new Northwestern busway. Bill English has justified
National’s “it’s roads all the way down” policy by stating that “New Zealanders
mostly drive” and “trains are loud and scary” [Editor: trains are hella cool].
Labour’s Auckland
transport policy also focuses on roads
and having less of them, specifically, the scaling back of the construction of
the East-West link motorway which is currently underway. Their reason for this
is that the money which would have been spent on the link can instead be
directed towards establishing a light rail connection between the city and the
airport. The cost of which “would be $2.1 billion after accounting for $1.2
billion in savings from scaling back the East-West link”, which is an elusive
way of saying it will cost $3.3 billion. Labour intends to make up the deficit
through the sale of Time-Travelling-Train-Tickets, or TTTTs, whereby you buy
part of your ticket years in advance via a regional 10c per litre fuel tax, and
pay for the remainder of the ticket when the train actually comes into
existence.
The choice
presented by each party’s transport infrastructure plan is this: Do you want to
gamble on a hopeful future where rail becomes a larger part of the way kiwis get around their city and country, or do
you want to stick with the situation as it is, where kiwis are comfortable using a car on tarmac as their default means
of transportation?
Recent comments
from Bill English on the topic have included “the typical New Zealander is a
sedentary, car dwelling organism, and it is the main transport policy of the
National Party to focus on building buttloads of roads. I mean, who doesn’t
love a long sturdy road or land bridge?”
The land bridge
English has referred to many times throughout the last few weeks is, of course, the long-delayed
China-Wellington land bridge, which is finally gaining traction on both sides.
The controversial
plan, involving the construction of a record-breaking 10,000km long land bridge
stretching from Wellington to Shanghai, would set taxpayers back an estimated
$90billion and require the annexation of Papua
New Guinea to close the gap. As New Zealand’s largest potential infrastructure
investment, both Labour and National have come out in favour of pushing forward
with construction, but with differing plans for its use after construction is
completed.
During a recent
press conference when both party leaders were present, Bill English stated that
“the National Party believes investment in the land bridge infrastructure would
be a benefit to all New Zealanders, with a potential to bring more much-needed
foreign workers, capital, and investment.” English went on to state the
national party planned to introduce a fast lane for those individuals bringing
over $500,000 of investments into the country; “as well as the standard
immigration flow, we plan to utilise the western lane of the land bridge to
fast-track people who stand to contribute the most to our economy.”
When asked why
National’s plan for the bridge overlooked the possibility of a two-way system,
English said he did not understand the question. English went on to state “Roads
are the best, am I right?”
Jacinda Ardern,
while in favour of the land bridge, suggests that a moderated approach be taken
after its construction: “New Zealand is a country built on immigration.
Migrants bring to New Zealand the skills we need to grow our economy and
vibrant cultures that enrich our society.” adding that; “With that in mind, the
flow of immigration needs to take a breather after the National government’s
lack of preparation for new residents. Therefore it is the policy of the labour
party to only open the land bridge every second Tuesday of the month, between
the hours of 8.30am and 4.30pm”
Winston Peters, who
happened to be in the room at the time and demanded “everybody listen up”,
stated it would “give us a quick and easy way to send them back where they came
from”. When prompted to elucidate, Peters chortled and disappeared in a puff of
smoke.
New Zealand has a
decision to make regarding what shape it wants transport in New Zealand to take
over the next decade. Will we be like the modest sardine, crammed with our
fellow brethren into a train across The Golden Triangle, or like the stubbornly
determined salmon, endlessly swimming upstream against the flow of Auckland car
congestion? Your vote will decide.
AJ Macfarlane is a known
satirist/liar and is not to be trusted. He can be found scouring meme pages,
harassing David Seymour's snapchat, or on
his instagram (@purplebassmonkey).
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