The government is committing 10% of the entire infrastructure spend over the next 25 years on one motorway to Northland. Meanwhile they have not given any indication about building the railway to NorthPort even though KiwiRail already owns land for that route. KiwiRail have said that the line from Auckland to Whangarei (NAL) would cart 110,000 tonnes per annum, but with the branch to NorthPort, this will increase that to $2.5 million tonnes.

TRAC National Coordinator Niall Robertson says that this line could be built a lot quicker and connect with the rebuilt NAL taking thousands of road damaging trucks off SH1, improving road safety, reducing carbon emissions and polluting particulate matter from tyre and road dust as well as reducing road congestion and road damage.

Chair of TRAC, Guy Wellwood, asks the question, “Does the government not understand the principle of cause and effect?” He adds, “This is similar to the iReX rail ferry decision, which will cost New Zealanders a lot of money while simultaneously reversing a lot of greenhouse gas savings and increasing road congestion, road damage, road pollution while reducing road safety considerably”.

Robertson says that the government’s transport policy statement indicates the intention of reducing rail funding by 94% which will expand these anti-climate, anti-road safety attitudes apparent in government policy, to the whole country.

Robertson says, “These policies must be questioned! Why would a government follow such foolishness unless it is just following some blind ideology or serving the interests of vested interests?” Robertson adds, “They get away with this by fooling motorists that they are doing it for them, but in fact it is for the road transport industry who are subsidised by taxpayers, rate payers and motorists. The heavy transport industry does 93% of all road damage, is involved in $1.5 billion worth of social costs (Ministry of Transport figures, 2021) through road traffic crashes and release GHG’s 70% higher than diesel trains and 96% more than electric trains, while they pay just 14% of road user charges!”

Wellwood says, “Looking at current government transport policy, it seems the government is out of touch with New Zealanders, out of touch with climate change and about to destroy New Zealand’s clean, green image in the eyes of our trading partners as we develop an enormous carbon footprint in the transport sector!”

Robertson says that industry leaders are speaking out about these policies, but the government is not listening. Robertson adds, “That is of great concern for all New Zealanders!”

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