Of course, the government isn’t spending anything on walking and cycling or on roads, or on building or maintaining power stations. Nope, all that spending is being done by quasi-independent entities with money they receive from their customers for services rendered. The really alarming thing is that the LTA charged it’s customers $2.7 billion but only delivered services to the value of $1.9 billion.

All the politicians do with roads is set the price that users pay, usually well below the price the operators consider desireable. But, where there’s credit to be taken there will always be a politician taking it.

The Helen Clark speech has gone but there was a press release Auckland to benefit from increased transport spend . Has Judith Tizard been repremanded for telling this lie:
“MP for Auckland Central Judith Tizard welcomes the launch of the 2008/09 National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) which allocates a record $2.7 billion for the development of New Zealand’s transport network.”

Follow the link at the bottom of the press release and we find a mere $1.2 billion for the development of New Zealand’s transport network. The other 1.5 billion is for maintanance and operation – nothing developmental about that.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

100 months before the world decides that climate change is the biggest load of bullshit ever?
Hmmmm I’d say a bit less than that
End of this year, it is announced 2008 is substantially cooler than any of the last 10-15 years
Then once GWB leaves office, who in reality never tried to state a decent argument against AGW despite not agreeing with, climate skepticism will start to become a bit more tolerated.
Give it another year or 2 years tops it’ll all be over

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)

Yeah, I saw this in the paper today and said to myself “That looks nice, where’s the hook?” until I looked at the bit where it said they were going to take forty years to do it.

Ouch.

Like or Dislike: 0  0 (0)