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Transport Minister Steven Joyce has said he listens to what the freight industry says and the Government would not respond to other lobby groups who wanted to skew the Government in a particular direction.
Speaking at the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Federation Conference in Taupo, he said:
“With all these things, I take a view of actually listening a bit more to the people who actually move the freight and what they want to do.”
He warned the shipping industry that it can’t expect favourable treatment over other modes of transport from the Government and spoke about the need for efficient road, rail and sea freight systems to work well together.
But he did think coastal shipping has an important role to play, he said, adding that “interesting discussions” had been rekindled as a result of the recently announced decision on a port at Clifford Bay.
His comments are reported in a newsletter to KiwiRail staff.
NZTA’s Chief Executive Geoff Dangerfield, in his presentation to the conference showed a slide labelled “5 trends that will affect New Zealanders - and have transport implications.”
And this one to show the link between transport (moving freight) & economic performance:
Ports of Tauranga Commercial manager Graeme Marshall gave a positive presentation about the growth of rail freight between Tauranga and Auckland’s MetroPort.
Recently the Port of Tauranga issued a statement saying: “Responding to media speculation that Ports of Auckland is looking at merging with Port of Tauranga, Port of Tauranga Chief Executive, Mark Cairns, states that the Company has had no recent approach from Ports of Auckland or its shareholder on a possible merger.”
4 Comments
No no no, of course Steven Joyce does not listen to lobby groups (yeah right).
So what is the Road Transport Forum and why does Steven Joyce’s National Party except large financial donations from a trucking lobby?
“With all these things, I take a view of actually listening a bit more to the people who actually move the freight and what they want to do.” - Translation I listen to trucking companies because they contribute a lot money to my party.
This is like arguing that the only ones who matter are those who do - not those who are affected by what is done! Par for the course for them - but shocking to see it put so bluntly.
In other words, this is a minister who believes that a polluter is the right person to tell you about pollution controls, not the person breathing in the smoke.
So of course the persons moving freight are the persons to talk about how freight should be moved, not the rest of the country suffering from excessive costs of road transport investment and road transport environmental effects.
Completely fraudulent that graph matching freight and GDP. Doh! Two measures of the same thing, economic activity, somehow that’s meant to prove we must subsidize big trucking more…. And what is happening at the end? Freight movement goes through the roof and GDP dives, err? What, were we giving it all away in Q2 2010? Or just spending all our hard earned cash on petrol?