Electoral Suicide
January 29th, 2006 at 11:13 am by David FarrarDick Hubbard seems determined to be the third one-term Mayor of Auckland in a row. He has written a column in favour of his plan to toll existing roads by saying Oliver Cromwell, Dick Turpin and Robin Hood all tolled roads also.
So Aucklanders your Mayor is basing his policies on those of a traitor, a robber and a mythical character.
Not only are the AA against the plan to charge people for roads they have already paid for, but his former cheer-leader Brian Rudman labels it a kamikaze mission.
Matt McCarten calls Hubbard’s plan “electoral suicide”.
I think this guarantees the ‘left’ in Auckland will now put up their own Mayoral candidate.
January 29th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Maybe if we can see some rate cuts as a result…
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 11:31 am
I thought the Dick WAS the candidate of the left.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Remind again how this guy was voted in as mayor!!!
IS this guy the accidental mayor or what? how how did he ever get elected?
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
“how how did he ever get elected?”
Given the alternatives I think most Aucklanders would have been just as happy voting for a sack of lard or a small lop-eared rabbit.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
The rumours I hear is that Hubbard blows hot and cold about running for a second term. I would not be surprised if with 4 months to go, Hubbard announces that he wants to return to his business at the conclusion of his Mayoral term.
Tizard is the obvious left wing candidate, Phil Goff could be another if he thinks the top job in Parliament is out of his reach. Goff has the advantage of being a moderate Labour Party person with a socially conservative background.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Tizard has been useless as an MP and Minister for Auckland.
Vote:She seems to survive purely on the support of the arty luvvies and one luvvy in particular.
I cannot see Goff wanting the job as it would be a bit of a come down for him.
Now, looking rightwards, I am warming to Christine Rankin.
What do you think , Aaron?
January 29th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
It’s extraordinarily clear that Hubbard is using Romans, Cromwell, Robin Hood and Turpin as humourous introduction to show the antiquity of the concept of tolling. Is this your sole point, that he mentions some folks you don’t like? I notice you leave out the Romans from your hate list, though, despite them being the most murderous, agressive and unfair bunch out of the list. Should I write off all your opinions on that ground?
Do you even have any arguments on this point, or are they all in the links? I’d have thought tolling would be right up your user-pays alley.
I’m personally against it, except for ‘special projects’, which don’t already exist. Like the harbour bridge, which is a great good to Auckland and was worth the tolls. Projects of that magnitude do justify extraordinary charges.
My only real reason for being against it is that we already pay tolls in our registration and fuel taxes, and the tolling infrastructure itself comes at an unnecessary cost.
I don’t understand Hubbards column to be advocating tolls generally, but to be advocating public discussion of the possibility of tolls speeding up our infrastructure development. This kind of discussion is worth having, if it is inclusive. Maybe Aucklanders should shoulder the burden of building up our own infrastructure? This is not crazy talk at all. There are many projects which could easily be kickstarted by more money, and retrospectively funded for a period of time by their users. What’s nuts about that? How is it ‘electoral suicide’? It could indeed give Aucklanders the power to define how fast our city grows, instead of waiting for Wellington to pay for everything.
So long as the toll roads are publicly owned, it is hard to see any evil in the idea at all.
I would be against tolling existing roads, though. But let’s hear the arguments, rather than writing them off because of a humourous introduction, and the Mayor supposedly being ‘leftist’.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Hubbard only got in because voters wanted to stick it up John Banks.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Darren, no – I don’t think Rankin would be a good Mayor for Auckland, given that she ummed and aahed about running for the Wgtn Mayoralty prior to running for Auckland. I get the impression from recent media interviews that she is more interested in getting rid of Maharey, and maybe sniffing around a safe National seat in Auckland instead. Rankin also is in an unusual position in that her ex-husband is the Chief Executive – the top ‘crat for Auckland City – that may cause voters to think twice about voting for her.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
I was fully opposed to the congestion charge when proposed in London (about the time I moved away).
I went back there after it started and had to drive from Smithfield to Shepherds Bush in rush hour. Previously this had been a two hour nightmare – I did it in 30 minutes. I was instantly convinced.
It wouldn’t be hard to implement a similar system in Auckland either. The London system works by reading number plates and fining people who haven’t paid by the end of the day. A better and less intrusive system would be to simply log usage and charge people when their reg is due – e.g. if you drove 20 days on the Auckland motorways at $5 a day then you need to pay $100 extra when you register your car.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
The Auckland mayoralty is the toughest job in local Government, certainly Banksie found it so. But I do think a second term Banks will be a vast improvement on Banks 1. Judith Tizard please let that useless bit a lard become the Labour candidate. Please. Goff will not want it, he is looking at the International stage though god knows NZ is very over represented in the plum jobs and you know who, has bagged the next available one for NZ.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Ben Wilson said,
“I’d have thought tolling would be right up your user-pays alley.”
I agree Ben… This is exactly what Brash/Hide want for NZ. I thought those here would be praising Hubbard for this move?
I also note by his blog ACT’s Rodney Hide is silent on this issue also, he must be 4 it then?
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I notice you leave out the Romans from your hate list, though, despite them being the most murderous, agressive and unfair bunch out of the list.
“the Romans” were a nation with a long-held policy of tolling roads, the others are as variously described by DPF. Understand the difference now?
hate list
You really are a … genius … to describe it as a hate list. No really, you are. How 2000′s to use ridiculous emotional attack language in an effort to put yourself on the high ground in a blog comments thread. How about considering yourself a ‘hater’ for so easily leaping to use such language.
Anyway, Auckland is enough of a pain in the arse to live in as it is. Road tolls would make travelling in the city just that much more annoying, and that much more expensive. And comparisons between Auckland and Sydney and London are lame, as those cities are magnificent metropolises while Auckland is several low-density little towns and suburbs stuck together with a concrete communications tower in the middle. Aucklanders and their mayors should be striving to make Auckland more attractive to live in, not less.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Um, AL, if you can find anything in DPF’s post that remotely even resembles more of an argument than “Cromwell was a traitor, Turpin a criminal, and Hood a myth, thus Dick Hubbard is a fool” then all power too you.
I don’t grasp your 2000s point at all. This was a hate list, quite simply, with Hubbard on the end of it. And I don’t ‘hate’ DPF for doing it. I’m just a little surprised. In the past he has put a little more diligence into blogging arguments than “On the topic of road tolls and Dick Hubbard, pffff! What do you guys think?”. You yourself have put more effort in with your 1 paragraph of content out of 3.
That is not to say I agree with your paragraph, which seems merely to be saying ‘we can’t discuss road tolls because Auckland sucks’. Sorry man, I find it less than compelling. Are you saying you’re happy to keep paying for Auckland roads via income and petrol taxes?
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Mayors are just councillors with more PR and a fancy title. Hubbard has been a bumbling fool, but at least he’s not Banks – Tizard was right (for once) when she labelled him insane.
There are no stand-out contenders for the job because no-one with any real talent and ability wants it.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
I think it would be fairer to say that noone with talent or ability who also has big party or big money backing wants the job.
But how about some discussion of the point rather than just slagging off the mayor? I personally don’t give a shit if he’s a twit or a genius, on this issue all I care about is the quality of the actual idea.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Fair point Ben. Here’s a few reason’s why I dislike the idea:
1. Dick Hubbard raised rates by a very large amount in 2005 for his “congestion-buster budget”. Clearly that hasn’t worked, mind you, any fool could tell you if rates increases alone could fund Auckland’s transport solutions, we would have done it 3,6,9 years ago.
Vote:2. Labour brought in a special 5c a litre fuel tax specifically to provide funding for transport expenditure.
3. Labour is running large surpluses, which could be used to target infrastructure improvements if they are not going to be returned as tax cuts. Rudman rightly pointed out in his herald column that Hubbard would have an argument for saying that Auckland saved Labour’s bacon, and now its payback time.
4. Labour promised more money for Auckland roads from the existing tax take, so why give Auckland City the power to levy charges for road construction
5. Tolls for new roads is quite logical. Tolls for existing roads which have been paid for could be seen to be nothing more than greediness on the part of the council. It would seem pretty unfair to charge people like the elderly who paid for roads 20/30/40 years ago to be asked to pay to use them again.
6. This sort of congestion pricing would essential price poorer people off the roads and force them to use public transport. In a nutshell, thats probably exactly what Hubbard/Harvey/Curtis want, but I expect it to cause all sorts of problems for the political left in Auckland, who dominate the councils of Auckland and Waitakere, and to a lesser extent Manukau. It seems that this is a contrivance of the Mayors acting outside the support of their council, particularly in Auckland City where Hubbard’s relationship with the ruling City Vision/Labour/Action Hobson bloc has soured somewhat.
January 29th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
For me, tolling is bad as it is an administrative nightmare.
I read somewhere that two-thirds of London’s congestion charge just covers admin. I think similar figures have been produced for the completion of the ALPURT motorway near Orewa.
Think about it, you have the cost of staff in tollbooths, or fancy electronic devices in your car, plus call centres, etc, to administer it all.
If tolls are paid the old-fashioned way, though a booth, then you have to slow down and this may cause congestion.
I recall driving along the M25 around London some ten or so years ago. The traffic flowed smoothly until you got near the Thames crossing. There was a huge queue causing considerable delay, just so you could pay your pound or two to cross.
New roads aim to ease congestion, but toll booths create it.
Furthermore, tolls deter people from using the new, safer road. Thus the road safety and other benefits of new roads are not fully realised. It is wasteful to have an empty tollway and have congested roads nearby.
Yes, this argument is about user-pays.
This is why I would be happy to see an extra 10c or some appropriate figure on a litre of petrol as long as it all goes into roading.
I know Liar-bour slapped on an extra 5 cents, but progress seems very slow. Have they siphoned it off somewhere else?
Erm, thats it for now.
Fair comment on rankin, Aaron, i will bow to your superior knowledge on the Auckland mayoralty.
Vote:But who shall the right have as it’s flagbearer?
Come back Banksie, all is forgiven????
January 29th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Looking at it from the right, the obvious name is John Banks as he was good for 46,000 votes even on a bad day. Now that he has said that if he ran again he wouldn’t push for a road across Hobson Bay, I imagine a good chunk of the centre-right vote in Hobson would vote for him again. I’ve had the odd coffee with Banks, and without fail people come up to him in the cafe and urge him to run again. So I think he’s a strong chance.
Other names include Michael Barnett, the highest polling candidate for the ARC in the last elections. But he lives in Papakura, so that probably counts him out.
Former Deputy Mayor David Hay, son of Sir Keith Hay, the former Mayor of Mt Roskill is a possibility, but is not as well known.
A name could pop out of the woodwork like Richard Prebble or similar, but in Prebble’s case, he now lives in Rotorua. Former councillors like Victoria Carter are always interested in the top job, or even a current councillor like Scott Milne. Left wing councillors suspect Lesley Max is interested in running after her Queen St trees initiative.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
I think it’s not fair to say that there is no success from the big Auckland road budget. Many of the big projects are not complete yet, but I see them incrementally getting there every day. You can see the bridges lengthening weekly. I have driven the Grafton gully every working day for about 5 years and it has transformed completely in that time. My wife regularly uses the Britomart station, along with thousands of others. She would use it in the morning too, taking my car off the commuting road altogether, if trains could be relied upon time wise. Double tracking will help this. Very soon the west-north motorway link will be complete, relieving spaghetti junction traffic. The western motorway is being widened, I see more progress every week. I don’t really follow the progress of the other works closely.
But this thread was about tolls specifically, and you say in point 5 pretty much what I say – tolls would be OK for new roads.
This undermines your next point, that poor people would be priced off the roads. They would not, indeed the old roads would be less congested as richer people drive on the new ones. The old roads would not be tolled.
I can see some argument, albeit poor, for tolling existing roads. The money would go on maintenance. But surely that’s what fuel taxes and rego costs and RUC are for. Fuel tax and RUC are tolls of a sort already, and a hell of a lot easier to administer over a huge area. Tolls should be an extraordinary measure to cover (retrospectively) an extraordinary cost.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Paul Holmes?
He’s got the ego, and the stature.
Cats and pigeons and all that.
Cheers,
Vote:Matt
January 29th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Road pricing works the way any pricing works. Without a direct connection between consumption and cost consumers will over use a resource. When the roads are overused it’s called congestion and it costs money. But indirectly so people are not aware of it. Congestion pricing makes sense. It is better to remove all taxes on petrol and have roading funded by direct consumption fees. And it makes sense to toll more during rush hour the same way movie theatres charge more for Saturday night than for Tuesday afternoon.
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Oh no, not David Hay, anything but that joy-hating fundie nutter – equivalent to Christian Taliban -
Vote:January 29th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Geez I knew Nippert fancied Brown but I had no idea he has decided to imitate the man. Great sign off.
Cheers
Vote:Mark
January 29th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Hubbard’s column is a bland list of bullet points that he probably didn’t wrote himself and It doesn’t constitute a real argument for the mayoral forum’s request (although DPF’s claim that “your Mayor is basing his policies on those of a traitor, a robber and a mythical character” is hardly an intelligent analysis of the issues either).
But basing a claim that we’d be better off with Banks on *this* is fatuous. Has everyone forgotten Banks and Barry Curtis in May 2003 going to the government proposing to apply peak-hour congestion pricing on every route in and out the CBD – *just* to raise money for the Eastern motorway?
The idea was flawed (congestion pricing is not a big revenue-earner – and certainly not enough to pay for that bloody motorway) and unfair (it proposed using all the revenue for one road of little use to most Auckland City residents).
Congestion pricing is worth discussing (I seem to recall it being National Party policy going into the 1999 election) as a way to manage the resource. Tolling for revenue makes sense on new roads, but you just don’t do congestion pricing for revenue.
Cheers,
RB
PS: If you’re really just up for any excuse to hate Dick Hubbard, feel free to ignore the above …
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 12:03 am
North Shore’s George Wood seems to differ with his mayoral forum colleagues on this one …
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0601/S00099.htm
But at least *he* has a memory:
“In 2004, the former mayor of Auckland, John Banks, was driven across the Auckland Harbour Bridge one evening – toll-free – to tell North Shore City Council of his plan to return the tollbooths to that span in order to fund the proposed Eastern Highway and other roading projects around the region. That suggestion did not sit well with his audience.”
Heh. I had a look for the 2004 Kiwiblog thread in which DPF, darren, Aaron, et al expressed outrage at this extraordinary proposal, but curiously enough, I couldn’t find it …
Cheers,
Vote:RB
January 30th, 2006 at 1:27 am
How did Cromwell get to be a traitor? It’s called “the Glorious Revolution” for a reason, you know.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 1:29 am
RB:
Sorry, I don’t think you can blame the staff for this one because it sounds exactly like the folksy little newsletters that used to fall out of his cereal boxes. (And loosened my bowels quicker than the company’s bran flakes, but that’s just me.) And that’s the problem – he had an opportunity to put forward a serious policy argument and didn’t make it.
Hell, I actually support well-designed congestion charging (and am not sure the London model qualifies) and don’t have ideological objections to public/private partnerships, but you’ve got to make the argument a damn sight better than Hubbard’s managed so far.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Heh. I had a look for the 2004 Kiwiblog thread in which DPF, darren, Aaron, et al expressed outrage at this extraordinary proposal, but curiously enough, I couldn’t find it …
Russell, the VRWC must have deleted that post in anticipation of you searching for it. But seriously, why would we (I) be opposed to tolls for *new* roads, especially for projects with significant import for the region?
Tolling for revenue makes sense on new roads, but you just don’t do congestion pricing for revenue.
Which is pretty much what I was saying in the post around 7 or 8 places up.
If you’re really just up for any excuse to hate Dick Hubbard, feel free to ignore the above . I doubt anyone here “hates” Hubbard, although I think its fair to say that the man has lost a lot of respect from Auckland voters in around 14 months.
Craig nails the issue when he says Hubbard “had an opportunity to put forward a serious policy argument and didn’t make it.” Folksy feel good stuff invoking medieval childrens stories is fine when you’re cutting ribbons but not when you are proposing a transport solution for the city you are supposed to be running.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 8:49 am
The council would be far better off to put the proceeds from a congestion charge into building a modern electrified rail network.
Given a train capacity of 500, and a car occupancy rate of 1.1 passengers per car, a single full train at rush hour would remove 450-odd cars from the road. Mulitply this by 10 trains an hour, spread over multiple lines to suburbs; add a congestion charge to incentivise commuters to catch the train instead of driving, and you would dramatically cut congestion (cf London.) A win for both train and road commuters, not to mention the environment in terms of Auckland’s shocking air quality.
In most cases the rail tracks and corridors are already there, all it would take is a bit more political will, and possibly another oil shock (which is certainly possible with this Iran business.)
Just a thought.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Russell, the VRWC must have deleted that post in anticipation of you searching for it. But seriously, why would we (I) be opposed to tolls for *new* roads, especially for projects with significant import for the region?
Because Banks was proposing exactly what Hubbard muses about in his column – tolling existing roads (in the original 2003 pitch, every route in and out of the CBD; in 2004 restoring tolls to the harbour bridge) to raise revenue for other projects. If anything, Hubbard makes a better argument, in that he actually cites some numbers.
And yet somehow, Banks emerges as some sort of misunderstood prophet, while Hubbard is committing “electoral suicide”. Forgive me if I don’t think that it’s really about the issues.
I don’t think Hubbard’s perfect, but he looks like Solomon compared to Banks, who spent his mayoralty noisily declaring things that were never going to happen: remember closing off Queen Street to foil the boy racers? Or the harbour tunnel that was going to connect with the Eastern motorway? Appearing to offer (on live TV on live TV in 2001) boy racers the use of either Western Springs or Hobsonville airbase (which is not only in another city, but owned by the taxpayer)?
Anyone else who made as many thoughtless, empty promises as Banks did would have been crucified. But anyway, back to my point: Banks repeatedly proposes tolls on existing roads = no problem. Hubbard muses about the same thing in a column = electoral suicide, bring-back-Banksie, etc. Doesn’t seem quite right to me …
Cheers,
Vote:RB
January 30th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I think Russell has come up with the campaign slogan for Hubbard. It looks to be:
Hubbard: Still not as bad as Banks
or
Hubbard: Not yet as bad as Banks
Russell also overlooks that the electoral suicide comments come not from Banks supporters but from perhaps two of Banks’ biggest critics – Rudman and McCarten.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 10:36 am
No David, I think it should be:
Hubbard: Unlikely to ever be as bad as Banks
Anyway, as I said, I think the idea of imposing tolls on existing roads to pay for new ones is flawed; especially if you’re talking about full-scale congestion charging. But if tolling helps new roads get built quicker, then it’s certainly an option.
I just thought people were displaying curiously short memories about this.
Cheers,
Vote:RB
January 30th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Russell:
Well, I don’t see your point. I don’t have a knee-jerk ideological opposition to tolling, congestion charging or public/private partnerships. My problem is when you have Hubbard given a high profile forum to make a serious argument for policies that are always going to be a hard sell, and all you get is a pretty medicore after dinner speech. (And, seriously, Russell what’s the statute of limitations on Hubbard’s screw-ups getting blamed on staff?)
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I don’t think Hubbard’s perfect, but he looks like Solomon compared to Banks, who spent his mayoralty noisily declaring things that were never going to happen:
Actually Hubbard is just as or even far more guilty of the above sin:
- Underground rail for the CBD
- $700 million Aotea Centre upgrade, including video screens in the Square and shifting the library without a clue as how to pay for this
- Team 20 (or whatever Hubbard called a more kinder, gentler, united council).
And that’s not even taking into account Hubbard’s brazen hypocrisy on matters like rates, where he railed against his mother’s rates rises prior to the election, and then delivered an even higher rates rise for her in his first year, not to mention the sharp rise in my part of town that would have surely hurt those on fixed incomes like the elderly. Heritage is also amusing considering that Hubbard wanted to introduce heritage controls on residential zones when he himself lives in a home in such a zone that would fail those very same controls.
Isn’t it funny how Banks is the devil incarnate to Russell, but Hubbard is nowhere near as bad? Maybe we would do well to all recognise that recent Mayors have inspired a good deal of partisanship on both sides of the political fence.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
I think we can agree that in an election between the devil incarnate and John Banks, Russell would probably vote for the devil.
To be fair he might just abstain though!
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
I would also note that Banks’ 2003-2004 proposals for the Eastern Corridor predates:
a) Central govt commitments for Auckland road/transport funding
b) the extra petrol taxes
c) record $8 billion surpluses
d) commitments from the two major parties in the 2005 election to fund solutions for Auckland’s transport woes.
and, please correct me if I have this wrong, but I understood that the final version of the ETC that was defeated in the Oct 04 election did not contain proposals for tolling other than for those roading elements of the ETC, which was based on public/private partnership.
It may well come to pass that tolls on existing roads will occur, but I think ratepayers and Auckland residents have a right to demand that existing taxes/rates and provisions for funding come on stream first before we bring in another way to sting Aucklanders.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Aaaron: Actually Hubbard is just as or even far more guilty of the above sin:
Fair point to the extent that the council is guilty of publishing wish-lists, but the Aotea Quarter plan was developed in a committee chaired by C&R’s Scott Milne, and then seems to have been approved largely without incident by the full council. (I couldn’t quite work out what the moving-the-library thing was about …)
I appreciate that you have been consistent on it Aaron, but, again, it seems like anti-Hubbard hysteria to load the whole thing on the mayor. And it seems in a different class to Banks’ unilateral proclamations that he’d do things he had no power to do. If Hubbard had declared he was going to close Queen Street at nights, against all evidence of its practicality, you’d have been screaming blue murder.
The harbour tunnel blurt was hilarious. He and Curtis (with the support of the Minister for Auckland Issues, I think) had spent weeks agreeing wording on an initial outline for the ETC, and then, on the day, Banks suddenly started talking about a harbour tunnel to connect with it. Everyone else was horrified. That’s pretty damn loose.
By any measure, Hubbard is vastly more circumspect that Banks was, which is the main reason I prefer him to Banks. Banks vs The Devil? Well, the latter is reputed to have better taste in music …
Cheers,
Vote:RB
January 30th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
The Aotea Quarter plan is little to do with the specific upgrade plans promoted by Hubbard. The Hubbard “Outside the Square” plans are the work of an uber-committee formed by Hubbard and colleagues of his like Bryan Mogridge and Steven Tindall. The “Aotea Quarter” of course extends far beyond that of the actual square and includes the promotion of arts and culture as well as entertainment and education It is a distinctly broader plan to what Hubbard was specifically proposing (although of course, there was some overlap in terms of Aotea Square vision).
The vote for the “Outside the Square” project was unanimous (I was in the audience at council when the vote was taken) but I wonder if this is because both Hucker and Milne (and supporting tickets) knew that the council officers would kill the project when ranking spending priorities, which is what has now effectively happened.
The harbour tunnel plan by Banks was about a future harbour crossing which is going to have to be contemplated at some time in the future – probably a two or three decades away (although I concede it could take any shape rather than what Banks was talking about). Banks might have been inopportune to mention it at the time he was launching his ETC proposal, but then Dick Hubbard has been adovcating undergrounding of rail and roads in the CBD a musings without any clear idea on how to progress such a plan financially or politically.
We could go tit for tat about Banks and Hubbard for some time, so allow me to end this particular post by conceding that the Devil probably does have better taste in music than Banksie.
Vote:January 30th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
We could go tit for tat about Banks and Hubbard for some time, so allow me to end this particular post by conceding that the Devil probably does have better taste in music than Banksie.
Nicely done, sir …
Cheers,
Vote:RB
January 30th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Maybe Hubbard and Banks could split the job between them. Hubbard could be the Day Mayor and Banks could be the Night Mayor.
Vote:January 31st, 2006 at 12:10 am
Local government is no more competent running roads than it would be running telecommunications, banking, electricity or any other essential service.
Frankly, what the hell do local body politicians know about running a road network? About as much as they know about running a phone company, or a bank or anything else that involves multi-million dollar assets that need managing as a network, with customers – bugger all.
Auckland’s roads should be taken out of the hands of the local authorities and be run by a company – which receives a share of the petrol tax/RUC income and can charge tolls to pay for new roads, but gets no rates funding at all (and ratepayers would get that money back compulsorily, with rates increases capped at the CPI afterwards). The company would be owned by the territorial authorities, but would make decisions outside political control and be expected to maintain standards of service for traffic flow, safety and environmental emissions. Having seven local authorities running Auckland’s roads and ARTA trying to assert control as well, is just nonsensical – neither Hubbard nor Banks have a clue.
Vote:January 31st, 2006 at 8:28 am
Libertyscott, perhaps you’re hoping for a Telecom-like outcome for our roads then? I particularly like the oxymoron:
“The company would be owned by the territorial authorities, but would make decisions outside political control and be expected to maintain standards of service for traffic flow, safety and environmental emissions.”
Yes, and the free market will walk amongst the lepers, healing them. Dream on.
Vote:January 31st, 2006 at 12:50 pm
Before we start rushing in and give these turkeys even more our hard earned cash what dont we check on how well they are spending or not spending the cash they already get God what a bunch of lemmings.For starters Id like to see an independent audit done Not one of the usual whitewash jobs.The trouble is we are so gulible and trusting.These con artists and their predecessors have been ripping us off for years taking money for roads and spending(wasting) it on everything but.And all we do is shrug our shoulders and think up new ways to encourage them to rob us blind.Reality check please.
Vote: