Ian McKelvie: Govt on a rocky road with plan

Regional roading cuts are bad news for National's "roads of national significance" project and the provinces, Ian McKelvie says.

The Government's new plan for transport is bad news for our region — in fact, it's bad news for regional and provincial New Zealand full stop.

We are all about to be whacked by an increase in petrol taxes of up to 25 cents a litre – which is the equivalent of about $15 every time we fill up our cars.

About half of this will be from a nationwide tax increase on fuel, and the other half from new regional taxes that are provisioned to come into force over the next few years.

Meanwhile, at the same time, this Ardern-Peters Government is set to cut $5 billion from building regional roads. That money will shift to funding a tram for Auckland.

These changes are damaging for transport infrastructure around the country. For Whanganui and the Manawatu, it means projects our communities were relying on — including the proposed Otaki to north of Levin expressway — are now under threat.

This was identified by the previous National government as a Road of National Significance.

It would greatly improve safety and travel times, alleviate congestion, better connect the central and lower North Island and boost regional economic growth.

National's focus over recent years on investing in major new roading projects and public transport, and our commitment to moving towards new transport technologies, is being squandered by this Government. Our Roads of National Significance policy was the cornerstone of our transport plan.

We invested $12 billion to build the first seven projects to reduce congestion, improve safety and support economic growth.

By doing so we also created about 35,000 new jobs.

Our ambitious transport agenda was one that didn't require further tax increases.
Now our regions are in limbo. The Minister of Transport confirmed in Parliament this month he was cutting $5 billion from regional roads.

At the same time he has been trumpeting new fuel tax increases to fund public transport for some Aucklanders.

We don't need this.

The Government is disproportionately punishing rural and provincial New Zealand.

The identified Roads of National Significance represent the most crucial transport linkages in their respective regions and the Government has wrongly thrown them into doubt.

You can't argue on the one hand that you support regional New Zealand while with the other you are taking away these key projects, which will have a significant impact on regional growth and development.

It doesn't make sense.

Our region and our country deserve better.

Ian McKelvie, MP for Rangitikei