Go Green
I hadn’t seen this story until an obviously scandalised No Minister drew it to my attention. Apparently Parliament could be getting flashing green women to replace the green men on pedestrian lights that let us walk across the street at the right time. I love the picture in the paper (below) - I reckon it looks a little like Meyt doing one of her triathlons in her all green suit.
So, here you have it. When you are walking around Parliament, just as when you are looking for action on climate change, green means go and red means stop.
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May 7th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Pathetic!…we waste 600 odd million on a broken down train set and now we are about to waste more changing traffic signals just to make a few middle aged feminists feel good.
Meanwhile OUR kids are being educated in shipping containers and woman are still not being funded for a full course of Herceptain.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
You were happy for us to continue with a broken down train set despite Peak Oil?
May 7th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I hope those new traffic lights are LED-based rather than incandescent bulbs.
Trevor.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Gee, Big Bro, you sure swallowed the National’s hook, line and sinker..can’t even come up with anything other than a soundbite to “object” to the rail buyback. I guess it is no use telling you the clearly obvious point that the reason it is “broken down” is that the PRIVATE ENTERPRISE owners didn’t put any money into it FOR 15 YEARS.
As for the traffic signals, I’d personally put in the ones I saw in Taiwan..where as the time runs down, the little man stops walking and starts running..those are at least fun to laugh at when you have just missed the chance to cross 4 lanes of traffic.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am
“PRIVATE ENTERPRISE owners didn’t put any money into it FOR 15 YEARS.”
Jingyang, you are actually incorrect there. The only private enterprise owners that did not put any money into railways in New Zealand was Fay/Richwhite. When it was controlled by Wisconsin Central, millions were put into our railway network; you had the purchase of the DQ class from Queensland and the purchase of the Mk II carriages from Britain (yes, Aucklanders, you can thank private rail that we got those carriages today); you had the turbocharging of the DFs which enabled them to haul their loads at greater speed. It was in the 1990s that rail in New Zealand shipped the largest amount of freight ever.
Even Toll spent millions on rail in New Zealand in an environment that was questionable. They have upgraded the DXs into the DXBs; they rebuilt a pair of DH shunters and I believe had plans to upgrade all six of them. More money would have been invested had Toll and the New Zealand Government come to some agreement over TACs and Axle Loads.
Of course jingyang, if today’s rail network was broken down, then what was it in the 1980s? A disaster? Let us all not forget that when rail was privatised in 1993, its future outside of the Wellington Region was still in the balance; it had been bailed out thrice in the decade prior (thanks to the inefficiencies that occurred during state ownership), and a hundred and fifty locomotives (mostly twenty year old DJs and thirty year old DAs) had been retired in a matter of a few years and replaced with virtually nothing.
Bigbro, I suspect that Cullen is spending up large now so that National cannot offer much in the way of tax cuts; the one thing that the present Labour Government has been good at is the art of the bribe and how to ensure that your Opposition cannot bribe any higher. Of course, the other thing they have been good at is stealing other parties popular policies and passing it off as their own (fuel taxes anyone……..)
May 8th, 2008 at 12:36 am
National (75-84) chose to fund Think Big and sinking lid the rest of the non farm economy - this left Labour (84-90) with no money and no option but to merely reduce operating costs in the change to an SOE (in the hope of a self sufficient Rail affording to borrow for its own re-investment). Whether that would have worked is unknown, as National then sold it.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:09 am
SPC, Think Big NIMT electrification @ $750m. That came hard on the heels of the Mangaweka-Utiku deviation and the 24km Kaimai Deviation which cost $200m. To keep the amount spent electrifying the NIMT in perspective total amount spent on improving the nation’s 10,000km of State Highways during the entire 1980s was just $1bn. (all adjusted for inflation)
May 8th, 2008 at 8:47 am
big bro: now I’m no fan of the feminist plan to break the balls of this country either, but I really don’t think the female crossing signals are really an issue worth attention from us “righties”. In fact I think it shows a bit of style and panache at no real extra cost to us long suffering taxpayers.
Trevor29: I thought all new traffic lights these days were high intensity LEDs ? Now if the savings in energy costs started showing up on my (reduced) tax bill and were not squandered on an elderly and pointless rail network that would be a real revolution.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:58 am
50 grand for this? WHY?
May 8th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Interesting to note the tight ponytail and the skirt-over-trousers in the graphic. All they missed is the big clunky shoes.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Wait, we’re planning to break New Zealand’s balls, maw? You mean it was us who went up to Waihopai?
Hang on, let me text my friends, I’m sure they’ll be tickled. I’ll add this to my feminazi front-bums tally of ridiculous things said to demean the concerns of women. If you’re going to make allegations, examples would be a fine thing.