Media Release
Monday 6 March 2017

Government Launches Reti Rescue Package

“The $400 million, four lane highway carrot, dangled in front of voters is a cynical attempt to shore up flagging support for National in Whangarei in the run up to this year’s general election”, according to Democrats for Social Credit deputy leader, Chris Leitch.

A National Party insider has told me that their polling shows a big drop in support, and this, combined with the current MP indicating he didn’t want to carry on, has led to the “Reti Rescue Road” announcement, which is part of a package aimed at keeping him in the position.

Northland has been starved of road funding for decades, yet road users will have to wait five years or more for improvements to a section of road that is already one of the best on the Northland to Auckland trip.

If it is such an important project from a road safety perspective it should have been announced last year, but National obviously think that Whangarei voters are gullible enough to be swayed by an election bribe of this sort.

While Northland roads have been getting a pounding, particularly from logging trucks, spending on road improvements has been almost non-existent.

Meantime rail, which has the potential to most rapidly make the main highway safer by taking dozens of heavy truckloads off the road, has been mothballed.

Northland’s councils should be pushing the government to adopt the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund report of August 2012 which proposed using greater sums of government (Reserve Bank) issued money, rather than overseas bank borrowing, to increase the spend on road and rail projects.

Such action would result in more local jobs, put more money in the hands of consumers and give a boost to the small business and retail sector.

To those who claim that giving the government the power to issue a larger stock of money would be highly inflationary, the report says the opposite is true.

Ends

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