TRAC Applauds Minister For Ignoring Treasury Advice

Scoop

10 hours ago

TRAC applauds the Minister of Rail, Winston Peters for standing up to Treasury's blinkered anti-rail view. Treasury appears to be colluding with the road transport industry in some theoretical belief that road transport is cheap, and, therefore, good for the New Zealand economy.
Gareth Dennis, a UK rail engineer and rail advocate says in his book, 'How the Railways Will Fix the Future', '…two strips steel rail, - remain our most powerful yet under utilised tool for societal transformation.' Dennis goes on to say, that there are achievable goals of increasing rail's share of passenger transport to 25% and freight to 40%.
TRAC national coordinator, Niall Robertson says, 'Currently, the so-called cheap road transport vehicles weighing over 3.5 tonnes which cause 93% of all road damage pay just 14% of the cost of building and maintaining roads, and get boosts of $4b for pothole repairs and $5b for resurfacing work'. Robertson adds that most Roads of National Significance have benefit cost ratios of about 21c which is very low. Robertson says, 'This is technically a significant loss in transport investment'.
TRAC chair, Guy Wellwood feels that Treasury has a myopic, short term view of what is economically good for the country and just look at what is cheap in the short term with little thought for the long term value to the economy. Wellwood says, 'There was a time when New Zealand needed to change its economy to a liberal free market one, but things have changed in the last forty years'.
Robertson says, 'We now have an economic system that frets about the 'fiscal deficit', but this is to the detriment of the infrastructure and social deficits which are chronically ignored.' Robertson adds that this short term approach has meant that New Zealand's productivity is continuing to go backwards and wages and salaries are getting lower by world standards'.
Wellwood says New Zealand needs to lift its game. He says, 'Rail infrastructure is cheaper than roading infrastructure and a railway from Levin directly to Marton via Foxton and Greatfod would cost $950m with a BCA of $1.57, which compares with the Otaki to north of Levin motorway at a cost of $1.5b with a BCA of just 21c!'
Rail should be moving 40% of the freight task, but is doing barely 10% currently. That is fine for treasury as KiwiRail in their trimmed down form offer the Treasury a reasonable return as an SOE, but Robertson says, 'There needs to be a rethink of land transport funding, starting with the removal of the below wheel infrastructure from KiwiRail and that part of the industry be funded through the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), then offering open access to other railway organisations to offer services that KiwiRail can't or won't offer such as a line to Gisborne'. There is a list of bouquets for rail which are brickbats for road transport that will incentivise motorists to prefer more funding to go to rail and these include; road safety, road congestion, road damage, CO2 emissions, road particulate matter from tyres, brakes and road dust that pollute the air, waterways and oceans, small land footprint as rail can move people and freight using a lot less land, improved green credentials with our trading partners and the fact the 30% of the population require public transport as they are young, elderly, disabled or on low incomes'.
Gareth Dennis who regularly speaks on sustainable transport matters, skills and strategy, as well as more specialist engineering subjects and makes a compelling case that railways, 'are capable of carrying tens of thousands of people per hour or tens of millions of tonnes of freight per year on just two strips steel rail'. Robertson adds, 'More road safety, less congestion, smaller road bills, less pollution, better land utilisation, greater green standing with our trading partners and more transport equity and connectivity'.
Dennis says, 'Rail is both the past and the future of mass transit. Anyone who suggests otherwise probably doesn't have your best interests at heart'. Dennis also says that we need to,'…counter those generous party donations from the roading lobbies and the trucking companies and put pressure on the Treasury away from short-termism in financial planning'.
The Minister of Rail appears to have a profound and insightful grasp of these flaws and has made a very nuanced decision in the interests of the New Zealand people to buy rail enabled ferries.