Budget takes New Zealand transport down the wrong road

The Mari­time Uni­on says the budget announced today is a step back­ward for trans­port infra­struc­ture.

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says the lack of sup­port for the mari­time industry is a glar­ing omis­sion.

Mr Han­son says the aban­don­ment of the SeaChange strategy to build up New Zea­l­and ship­ping in favour of build­ing more roads is a bad mis­take.

“The Gov­ern­ment has poured money into road­ing as the world hits peak oil and cli­mate change. They are mov­ing in exactly the wrong dir­ec­tion. Ship­ping is the trans­port mode of the future that is low-impact, envir­on­ment­ally respons­ible and cost effect­ive in the long term, but has been side­lined.”

Mr Han­son says New Zea­l­and is depend­ent on mari­time trade, but has allowed its coastal fleet to be decim­ated by open­ing the coast to for­eign ves­sels.

He says build­ing roads is put­ting good money after bad and is only pro­long­ing crunch time by relo­cat­ing traffic jams around badly designed cit­ies.

Mr Han­son says the Mari­time Uni­on has sev­er­al key goals for a secure and stable New Zea­l­and eco­nomy.

These include the pub­lic own­er­ship of key assets such as ports, the devel­op­ment of a nation­al ports strategy “Kiwi­Port” to get ports work­ing togeth­er, the strength­en­ing of job secur­ity by redu­cing cas­u­al­iz­a­tion of jobs, and sup­port for the devel­op­ment of New Zea­l­and ship­ping.

He says it appears work­ing class people will be pay­ing for the instabil­ity of the glob­al eco­nom­ic sys­tem, which served a minor­ity rather than the major­ity.

“The simple fact is that the world is in the grip of a deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic crisis brought about by unreg­u­lated glob­al cap­it­al­ism. The Nation­al Party sup­ports more of the same.”