Pity the people of Coromandel. Or any other region that has been striving for years for improvements to its bridges. It is hardly their fault that they have not been favoured by a byelection, unlike the people of Northland who learned this week that up to $69 million will be spent to upgrade 10 one-lane bridges in their electorate. With polls suggesting a close race between the National Party candidate, Mark Osborne, and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, this represented pork-barrel politicking at its most flagrant.
The Government says the work will be done whether or not it wins the byelection. On that score, Northland will benefit. But this is insulting on so many levels. First, it insults Northlanders by suggesting their votes need to be bought. They handed a 9,000-vote majority to the former National MP, Mike Sabin. But they cannot, apparently, be counted on to assess the credentials of a 69-year-old politician whose most recent electorate campaign ended in a drubbing in Tauranga.
Equally, it is an insult to the country's transport planners. Their analysis of the region's needs does not accord priority to the bridges. It is focused on improvements to SH1. Indeed, the bridges did not even feature on National's election pledge to fast-track some regional roading projects.
No cost-benefit analysis has been done. But one cost will be to other regions, which will find upgrades to their roading receding further into the distance. The best service their MPs might do for the district is to resign for the sake of a byelection.
