by frog
The Sunday Herald’s series on voters on swinging Nutsey St today features Dutch immigrant Robin Romein who isn’t that impressed with any of the New Zealand political parties, but at this stage is leaning towards voting Green as a protest against the short sightedness of the two old major parties.
“I don’t think National and Labour are doing their best and they continually change their plans – there’s no constructive view of what’s needed in the next 10 years.”
I have a feeling that there are a lot of people with links to Europe, especially northern continental Europe who are surprised by the lack of willingness from New Zealand politicians to make plans based on the future rather than the present (or even the past) and to invest to make it happen. Europe’s pragmatic approach to investment in public infrastructure seems culturally different to our own reluctance to pay for anything that will not show a return in the short term. As Romein notes:
“A really tight public transport network would save a lot in time and costs.”
He cites a new fast freight railway between Rotterdam and Germany. It faced massive opposition because of spiralling costs. “But now it’s running everyone is happy. It’s becoming more economic than trucks.”
It’s interesting to note that much of the Green vision for infrastructure, public transport, design and investment is ‘mainstream’ in Europe. I think the Greens, who are facing up to the reality of climate change, peak oil and sustainable cities and towns are showing the sort of practical European style long term planning (such as the billion dollar warm houses fund) that should convince voters like Romein that the Greens are worth more than a protest vote.
Published in Campaign | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Sun, September 7th, 2008
Tags: , europe, public transport
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
So when will we see costed and timelined Green innitiatives for all those options?
You know the electrified rail, public transport, warm housing, etc, etc.
As a fellow Northern European I can sympathise with Robin Romain about the lack of innertia in New Zealand to start anything.
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Maybe the major difference is that they have the model of their ancient cities and we have a frontier attitude: Our response to the possibility of a cold snap is “throw more wood on the fire”.
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That rail line was massively opposed by the Dutch Greens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betuweroute
The first train run at 40k/h because the Greens blocked the track.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/06/first_freight_train_uses_betuw.php
So while frog lauds train development, in Europe it is blocked.
Some comments on that rail line debate here
http://www.transportenvironment.org/News/2007/6/Betuwe-and-LBT:-a-tale-of-two-infrastructure-projects/
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The notion that Europe is a model for New Zealand is remarkable.
Have you looked at their unemployment rates lately?
Have you looked at their economic performance lately?
And do you approve of their massive agricultural subsidies which keep poor nations poor and pollute the environment so much?
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Looking at Europe or anywhere in the world, to learn from them (mistakes and successes) is better than just experimenting on our own.
Discarding a all part of a model because the model is not perfect is not going to get us far.
But do you really want to go somewhere ?
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Personally, I have to agree, we have a chronic lack of planning in New Zealand and the pollies cannot see beyond the next election. In Queensland, for instance, they have the South-East Queensland Infrastructure Plan (SEQIP) and that is a massive infrastructure plan covering everything from water, sewerage, right through to roads and rail.
But, we are going to need to ramp up our economy first. The SEQIP at the moment is likely to cost A$125 billion over the next twenty years; and that is a figure that we would not be able to cope with in New Zealand.
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Gerrit’s post is interesting – the process itself seems to have been flawed, with the powers-that-be pushing it through while there is an existing low-impact system.
I guess the point of this discussion is really about planning for the future with the best use of resources at hand – which could be a mixture of things depending what you are trying to do. I think that is what the Green Party is trying to do.
Gerrit, the question about costing and timelines is fair enough – but the GP is not the government and does not have the resources to do that in as much detail as they’d like. It would be useful for those who do have some constructive information to come up with it.
Meanwhile, what we have is pretty haphazard and doesn’t seem to take the longer-term future into account at all. It is all about short-term financial return.
Owen, I don’t think Europe is a model in the way you are suggesting – but we can learn from approaches others take, their successes and failures.
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Just a bit of research on European rail shows that new rail lines are developed within a PPP.
http://www.fluor.com/about/papers.asp?action=display&id=196
In fact the Betwune line that is to carry high speed container traffic to Germany and points east is owned by the Dutch government, however the trainsets and train services are privately owned.
A model we should allow in New Zealand.
Let Mainfreight, Owens Group and NZ Post run their own trains if they want to.
Rail is after all nothing but a steel roadway. Our roads are open to public and private transport. Why not the railways?
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Gerrit – that approach was tried in the UK but failed miserably, mainly because of, guess what, competition. Also because the track was privatized and maintenance backlogs got out of hand. The train companies could not agree on timetabling, sharing track access, and many other issues. Private companies still run trains, but the track is back in State hands and the squabling between companies has been much reduced by tough regulation & incentives to co-operate. I do agree though that here, private enterprise could run more trains to the benefit of us all.
On the wider point of using models that have proven useful elsewhere, NZ is a bit of a mixture of saying ‘we don’t do things like that here’ & slavishly doing things that have failed elsewhere, like copying the worst aspects of the NHS (UK). More considered long term planning definitely required & the willingness to wait for a return on investment.
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