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Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
11 Comments
Here’s Joyce’s statement tonight:
Associate Finance Minister and National Party Campaign chair Steven Joyce says Labour has left gaping holes in its promises to fund the Auckland City Rail loop, which will only add to their extra borrowing.
“Construction funding for the upgrade of State Highway One north of Auckland is currently not scheduled to start until 2014/15 and construction would extend for eight years after that.
For Labour to meet anything like the timetable that Auckland Mayor Len Brown is has set for the Auckland rail loop, Labour will need to borrow $530 million over the next four years.
That takes their extra borrowing to a new grand total of $17.19 billion over the next four years, and we will update the Owe our Future website accordingly.
“Of course if they weren’t serious about yesterday’s promise and meeting the Mayor’s timeline, they should let New Zealanders know”.
Mr Joyce says Labour is also silent on the Mayor’s plan to pay for most of the other half of the CBD rail loop with toll or congestion charges on Auckland motorists.
“Do they or do they not want to lump Auckland motorists with this big extra cost? Labour have past form on this issue with their regional fuel taxes. They need to come clean.”
“Once again Labour wants to spend more, tax more and borrow more.
Oh dear.
Does no one in Labour proof read their press releases?
Shane Jones has put out a press release saying Shane Jones is dishonest! Good line Shane! That will give you credibility.
I think he meant Steven Joyce.
It’s half way down.
He says..
Mr Jones’s dishonesty on the rail link is not occurring in isolation, however.
What amateurs!
Here’s the press release as distributed:
Associate Finance Minister and National Party Campaign chair Steven Joyce is simply dishonest in claiming that Labour’s plan to fund half the City Centre Rail Link will add to borrowing, says Labour’s Transport and Infrastructure spokesperson Shane Jones.
“The closer we get to the election, the more dishonest National’s claims are becoming,” Shane Jones said.
“Labour plans to fund half the rail link by cancelling National’s holiday highway north of Puhoi, but today Mr Joyce claimed that because construction funding for the highway is not scheduled to start until 2014/15, and construction will take eight years, that Labour will have to borrow $530 million over four years to meet Auckland’s rail timetable.
“That’s absolute nonsense, and Mr Joyce knows it,” Shane Jones said.
“The truth is that the holiday highway money has not been allocated to specific years. It’s just pencilled in to come from the National Land Transport Fund at some point.
“Labour may take money from that fund for the rail loop in different years than National would have done for the holiday highway, but the fact is that the timing of on-going transport projects drawing from the fund can be adjusted so that funding for the rail loop stays within the pool of money currently available in the fund,” Shane Jones said.
“Mr Jones’s dishonesty on the rail link is not occurring in isolation, however.
“National’s new campaign advertisement on its infrastructure achievements is a remarkable example of deception and dissembling,” Shane Jones said.
“The ad opens with shorts of Newmarket Railway Station. Labour planned and funded this station. Former Labour Transport Minister Annette King turned the first sod.
“The next shots feature Hopetoun Street Bridge and the ALPURT B2 extension to the Northern Gateway Motorway, both built and completed under Labour. The ad then shows John Key inspecting the Victoria Park Tunnel, but that valuable addition to Auckland’s infrastructure was planned and consented under Labour,” Shane Jones said.
“No wonder people should take anything National claims with a large grain of salt.”
hmm, maybe Joyce should let Auckland/Northland know the Holiday Highway wont be finished until 2024.
Also he knows that if Labour got voted in, and said go ahead on Nov 27, that would still be years before the project spending really ramped up. Wouldnt be until 2016-2018 that the big money is spent. Can easily be met within Transport budgets.
Joyce is also very light on info on how all the RONS projects will be funded, big issues around 2014 - 2020.
I thought Phil done quite well with leaders debate tonight.
Although John had it most of the time, it was like Phil just about KO’ed him at the end of the show, and that TVNZ had to cut them off before he did!
In regards to the CBD, National don’t seem to be ducking for cover about all this, when they should.
Of course the Puhoi-Wellsford rd is important. But it’s not as important as the CBD tunnel link. They need to get their priorities right. Using the excuse people are dying on the roads is poor. From the driving skills I see on our roads nationwide, and up there inclusive, it’s not just the road at fault now is it.
I quite liked Phil Goff in the debate, Key just seemed kind of nervous and his hands were almost soldered to the little stand…but apart from that i like Labour’s support for the rail tunnel and for the puhoi-wellsford the truckers would be no.1 users during normal days and holidaymakers during the holidays (including Key…..
)
So… Govt can force Kiwirail to close Northland Rail lines in 2012
So… Holiday Highway can open in 2024 (if ever)
Sounds like someone should question Joyce over this. If the Holiday Highway won´t open for 14 years after Northland Rail lines close….shouldn´t the Nats guarantee funding for the line to stay open in the interim?
Is this Joyce just helping out his “mates” in the trucking lobby?
Labour and Greens should be publicly asking this question.
I see Steven Joyce is using fear of extra costs and tolls as an argument against the CBD Rail. However it is to be majority funded by cancelling his unnecessary holiday motorway.
And how the hell does he pretend the $11 billion of unnecessary RoNs roads are going to be funded? Asset Sales. Plus National are the party of the huge debt blowouts like financial year 2010/2011.
Steven Joyce is a proven liar (his claim that more people drive on the existing holiday highway than use the Auckland rail network), has multiple convictions for bad driving (including causing injury) and is now trying to scare people into voting for him with disinformation and fears of new costs.
Is there actually any reason other than fear to vote for National? I read that people who vote conservative are more fearful than the rest of us. It’s wired in their brains. Then the master manipulators, like Steven Joyce, knowing that, come in for the kill. like a lion on a warthog on the Serengeti.
When I meet someone who says they do vote National I ask them why. They just about never know why, and can’t give me a single reason why they do. It either boils down to they don’t like Goff, and when pressed on that they don’t know why or in one case I was told “Stuff the poor, I don’t want them to get $15 an hour”. It’s all negativity and fear.
Contrast that to people who vote Green, who are voting positively for policies they believe in.
And that’s why we should keep MMP. You do get to vote positively for who you believe will do a better job and who has better policies.
Under FFP, I’d be voting negatively against the fear of National. To me that would disenfranchise me and take away voting as an expression of positivity.
—
Note from Jon C: Lets be careful here with the facts about his driving record. He was convicted for careless driving causing injury, for which he was fined and lost his licence http://www.aktnz.co.nz/2010/09/16/joyce-reveals-driving-record/
“Contrast that to people who vote Green, who are voting positively for policies they believe in.”
Most people who vote Green are old unrealistic hippies and young people who don’t know much about how the world works, and tick the box that “helps the animals”. Fortunately anyone who has done 3rd form science knows that “banning DNA” or “banning dihydrogen monoxide” are the ideas of luddites.
Anyway Matt, here’s why you should vote National:
* You work I gather. Voting National prevents a large proportion of your work going to perpetuate welfare-dependence. Labour continues to pay these people to breed, they then bring up their kids terribly and incur massive costs, which we all pay for!
* National spend less than Labour. (They still spend too much.)
* National gives us a more freedom. Helen Clark wanted to ban certain types of lightbulbs!
* National doesn’t just spout populist crap “$15/hour minimum wage”. Seriously, where do you think this money comes from Matt? Why not make the min. wage $50/hour, then we’ll all be rolling in it!
* Do you think it’s fair, that someone working hard in a factory should pay for other people to sit on their asses, smoke, drink and fuck all day?
* Do you think that someone who violently rapes three times when he’s on parole deserves to be let out in 10? (Labour wants to repeal 3 strikes)
Labour is terrible. They are nasty, hateful losers. They campaign against John Key “because he is rich”. Have you seen their blog? Apart from the face most comments get censored, the posts are hollow little vindictive comments.
Get into the real work, and stop letting entitlement ideology rule your thoughts. That’s what happened in Greece and Ireland - I don’t want NZ to head in that direction.
tbird - what is wrong with you?
I’ll vote Green because of their policies on the environment, urban transport, social inclusion, and yep fiscal responsibility.
As for the being hard on single mums and disability pensioners, as for not paying a decent living wage (inflation is up buddy, but minimum wage isn’t) and as for playing off fears of crime, bah humbug. And you do realise what you said is folly. They are against 3 strikes because it is bad law, and they don’t actually want serial rapists to be released early. That’s you making their policies up.
I use compact fluorescents, and so should you, unless you go all out and get LEDs.
National don’t spend less than Labour. Please refer to the proposed RoNs for examples of this.
Nasty, hateful loser doesn’t really apply to them now does it tbird? I recommend a few electrodes and we’ll see if your fear centres are enlarged or not, but Neuroscience is really a boring science, compared to the cool stuff like physics and biology.
Now National give us “freedom”?? What an empty populist fantasy world you must inhabit. They have taken away our right to breathe clean air with their delays on the introduction of tighter air quality standards. If you can’t breathe you don’t have any freedom. And you equate efficent light bulbs with “freedom”. Huh???
Of course I work buddy. I live within my means. I don’t spend more than I earn. I won’t have to sell the silver to fund my extravagances and I’m not about to gold plate my driveway. And not all beneficiaries are evil parasites. I’m certainly not going to vilify them for political gain.
We have nothing to fear, except fear itself.
tbird says:
November 1, 2011 at 11:57 am
“Fortunately anyone who has done 3rd form science knows that “banning DNA” or “banning dihydrogen monoxide” are the ideas of luddites.”
So you’re saying National are luddites then - the last person to be caught by the “dihydrogen monoxide” ‘hoax’ was National’s Jacqui Dean while she was opposition drugs spokesperson back before the 2008 election.
I was even privy to the rather hilarious e-mail trail between some friends of my who sent the initial e-mail, her and Jim Anderton. More hilarious still was that she went on radio blaming “left-wing” students even though these guys were right-wing libertarian ACT party supporters.
Hell, it even hilariously made the Herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10463579
Get your “luddite” facts right before using the tarring brush. Also, show me with links where the Greens want to “ban DNA”.
*sigh*
Another in depth analysis from tbird, the thinking mans Nat.