Roading the wrong focus for New Zealand infrastructure

New Zeal­and’s two lead­ing trans­port uni­ons say that pour­ing pub­lic money only into road­ing and ignor­ing oth­er trans­port infra­struc­ture is a mis­take.

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and, rep­res­ent­ing sea­farers and water­front workers,and the Rail and Mari­time Trans­port Uni­on, rep­res­ent­ing rail and port work­ers, are con­cerned that eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus plans focus trans­port invest­ment exclus­ively on road­ing.

The trans­port uni­ons say that while the Gov­ern­ment is cor­rect in invest­ing in infra­struc­ture as a stim­u­lus for the eco­nomy, it’s sole focus on invest­ing in roads is wrong.

Rail and Mari­time Trans­port Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Wayne But­son says that Gov­ern­ment announce­ments on infra­struc­ture invest­ment since the elec­tion have been focussed on road­ing and this is a major con­cern for all New Zeal­anders.

He says in a time when we need to lower our reli­ance on fossil fuel powered vehicles and reduce green­house gas emis­sions, leav­ing out urgent rail and ports infra­struc­ture invest­ment is a mis­take.

“We need to get goods and pas­sen­gers out of gas guzz­ling, con­ges­tion cre­at­ing road trans­port, and use high qual­ity, low impact trans­port options like rail and coastal ship­ping.”

Mr But­son says rail was privat­ised by the last Nation­al Gov­ern­ment and it appears that this ideo­lo­gic­al anti-rail approach is still around.

“Around the world, Gov­ern­ment is invest­ing in upgrad­ing their rail industry, and we are noti­cing we are los­ing our skilled New Zea­l­and work­ers over­seas as rail oper­at­ors expand their oper­a­tions to meet the demand of grow­ing busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies.”

He says the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment gave strong sup­port to rail, retain­ing vital skills in New Zea­l­and, but the neg­at­ive mes­sage now was that rail was not part of the pic­ture for the new Gov­ern­ment.

“The Rudd Gov­ern­ment in Aus­tralia has shown strong sup­port for rail in its eco­nom­ic reju­ven­a­tion pack­age, and that is an example we should be fol­low­ing.”

Mr But­son says that yet more road­ing pro­jects cre­ated more prob­lems down the track, as it was obvi­ous the world was facing an energy crisis and an envir­on­ment­al crisis.

“The Gov­ern­ment seems to be stuck in a George W. Bush type real­ity, where peak oil and cli­mate change don’t exist.”

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says as an island nation and a mari­time nation, New Zea­l­and should be devel­op­ing a coastal fleet for domest­ic ship­ping, but had struggled for any recog­ni­tion from Gov­ern­ment.

“The cash for road­ing is the oppos­ite of what the Gov­ern­ment should be invest­ing in. The vast major­ity of goods in and out of New Zea­l­and are car­ried by ship­ping, but coastal ship­ping seems to be ignored.”

“We lack an integ­rated plan in New Zea­l­and around ports and ship­ping, which is remark­able giv­en that we are depend­ent on our ports for trade. Changes in ports will prob­ably lead to hub ports and feed­er ports that require ship­ping links, but where is the New Zea­l­and owned ship­ping to ser­vice these new devel­op­ments?”

He says ship­ping was the most envir­on­ment­ally friendly trans­port mode and would reduce depend­ence on fossil fuels.

“The SeaChange strategy announced in 2007 showed how coastal ship­ping will be an increas­ingly import­ant part of New Zeal­and’s trans­port sys­tem.”

SeaChange iden­ti­fied a goal of mov­ing 30 per cent of domest­ic freight by coastal ship­ping by 2040.

Mr Han­son says over­seas flag of con­veni­ence ship­ping enjoyed unfair advant­ages over New Zea­l­and ship­ping under cur­rent mari­time trans­port legis­la­tion.