From parliament:
The war of words over transport policy has continued at parliament today, with the National Party accusing the government of being “in chaos”.
Yesterday saw the National Party unveil its multibillion-dollar transport policy. It included projects for around the country, though much of the attention has been on what it would mean for the capital. There would be a new four-lane highway to the Wellington Airport along with the party’s long-pledged new Mount Victoria tunnel.
But, yesterday, transport minister David Parker said he’d uncovered a mega fiscal hole in the plan and accused the opposition of misleading the public.
National’s unimpressed and said the Labour Party needs to figure out its own position on transport plans for Wellington. “They’ve got Labour Party candidates… putting out damning press releases of the National Party [and] you’ve got the prime minister from what I can see basically agreeing with our criticism,” National infrastructure spokesperson Chris Bishop said today at parliament.
“They are all over the show when it comes to transport, we’re really clear about what our priority is which is getting on and building a second Mount Victoria tunnel which has been talked about for 20 years.” It was “completely outrageous” that the current Mount Victoria tunnel was taking about 40,000 vehicle movements a day with just a single lane.
However, he was pleased that there appeared to be consensus across political lines that action was needed to fix congestion at the Basin Reserve. “No one wants to go back to [the flyover] days, but we do need a solution for the Basin,” he said.
In a scathing press release sent out shortly after, Bishop further criticised the government’s lack of action on transport policy. “Is the business case done or not? Is LGWM going ahead or not? What has Labour been doing for six years in transport?” he asked.
Government ministers agreed with frustrations in the capital, while opposing National’s plans. Finance minister Grant Robertson said that, as the MP for Wellington Central, he understood those frustrations. And transport minister David Parker said progress had been slow. “We are committed to improving transport for Wellington. We’re not proposing dropping the project, [but] we’re open to discussions as to what should be faced first,” he said.
MPs are now in closed-doors caucus meetings but will face media again ahead of question time which starts at 2pm.
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