RNZ article today featured 'Truck crashes leave Auckland Harbour Bridge hobbled' clearly shows the massive cost of damages many of our highways drains, bridges and road surfaces by overuse of freight
trucks all over NZ as the National Party recklessly ramps up yet more pressure to increase truck use policies during the
election to move freight around NZ, when simple switching more freight to rail would benefit us all.
The irony of Michael Barnett CEO of Auckland Business Chamber is only making things worse by calling for another plan
for a tunnel to handle truck transport is poorly thought out, as the cost would exceed $30 Billion and take 10 years to
build, and tThe NZTA senior journey manager Neil Walker said it right, "You can't build your way out of it forever and we're going to have to think smarter about how we try and manage demand
on the roads, so that's greater use of the likes of public transport and that sort of thing, particularly around the
peak times."
CEAC supports Government to ‘balance the freight between rail and road to reduce the high cost of damages to our
highways and reduce the Paris climate emissions inventory policies signed by labour, which is now increasing as reported
by Oxfam.
“Oxfam New Zealand says drastic cuts to emissions are needed by the end of the decade if New Zealand wants to play its
part in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, Marc Daalder reports.
Oxfam New Zealand has blasted the Government's emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement, saying it falls
short of being consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees over the pre-industrial average and places an
unfair burden on developing countries, including our Pacific neighbours, to reduce their own emissions.”
National must get real and deal with Climate change by reducing truck freight firstly and join the global efforts to
reduce the effects of climate change as time runs out.
National’s two serious freight truck advocates Chris Bishop (National’s shadow spokesperson on transport) and Paul
Goldsmith (National’s Finance spokesperson) must show leadership if they hope to win over the voters or languish on the
opposition benches for years by repeatedly calling for ‘more roads and more roads policy’.
CEAC has many times on the looming environmental catastrophe approaching us, that National Party has not even mentioned
this looming issue yet. This is abysmal; CEAC said in our several reviews of National’s ‘lacklustre environmental
policies are “abysmal” as none even exist yet, so we encourage National to get real for our climate sake and return
increased freight to rail.