Last Tuesday Parliament passed the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act. Put simply this act allows the Minister for Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee, to amend any law he wants, apart from 5 constitutional laws and the right of Habeus Corpus, via Orders in Council (OIC). The Act removes the right for judicial review, so any decision he makes cannot be challenged in court. It’s worrying from a democratic stand point but one of the first OIC related to transport:
Exemption
(1) While this order is in force, a person who operates a heavy motor vehicle and complies with subclause (2) is exempt from—
- (a) sections 16 and 43 of the Land Transport Act 1998; and
(b) regulations 5(1) and 18 of the Heavy Motor Vehicle Regulations 1974; and (c) sections 4 and 5 of the Land Transport Rule: Vehicle Dimensions and Mass 2002
So essentially I think Joyce is getting his 53 ton trial, just without paying a political price by us pointing out it is economically and fiscally dangerous. I think it may make it easier to sell here in Auckland too – “it worked so well in Canterbury”, etc.
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That is interesting, I wonder what NZTA thinks about it
The line is that it is for those who broke the law moving rubble or will need to break the law moving rubble… But if you read the OIC I think it says that as long as you say it’s for the quake recovery effort and the Earthquake Committee says “okay” you can pretty much do whatever you like…
I’m so disappointed in labour and greens for allowing this piece of shit legislation to go through. NZ is theoretically a dictatorship with Gerry Brownlee in charge. It’s a disgrace.
I mean sure, even though tomorrow Gerry could make homosexuality illegal he probably wont do so, but the pure fact that he _can_ makes me ashamed to be a kiwi.
This is a transport blog, so if we can keep it to the issues around transport please…
I assume that the Police have higher priorities in Canterbury than operating weigh stations, and so they aren’t actually enforcing the existing law. Also that if it is a matter of removing rubble and restoring services efficiently and quickly then the government is happy to see a tiny bit of extra road wear and tear. It isn’t as if the roads there are pristine at the moment. You may recall a few months ago when the Obama administration was being trashed because oil skimmers were tied up in port waiting for the coastguard to come and inspect the number of life jackets on board… I’m sure the NZ government want to avoid a situation where, say, it takes longer than required to restore water services because replacement pipes have to be split down in to smaller loads for delivery.
Don’t you think that Gerry Brownlee has more important things to think about then “hey, the earthquake will give us a perfect opportunity to promote larger trucks in Auckland, so lets get on it”?
No, but there is now a de facto trial going on… So unintended results are exactly the same as intended results…
You could also argue that the Tax Administration (Emergency Event-Canterbury Earthquake) Order 2010 (which waives penalty fees for people who didn’t get their tax paid on time because of the earthquake) is a de facto trial for widespread tax fraud. Or that the government are running a de facto trial for tearing down perfectly good buildings with giant diggers.
The Order is pretty clear that individual vehicles must be approved for operation outside of normal regulations, and then only in accordance with specific conditions granted as part of the approval. I’d be amazed if anyone else argued that this sets some sort of precedent for regular truck operation in a part of the country that hasn’t been devastated by an earthquake. Certainly no one in the government is making that argument, and no one in the media is worrying about it.
That’s a ridiculous comparison, for one the tax legislation shows the redundancy of the CERRA, there was plenty of time to pass an exemption before March 31 next year…
My point is we have to watch closely whether trucking companies start to apply for approval to run oversize trucks for all manner of uses, say, supermarket supplies as having more supplies per truck can be seen as helping earthquake recovery…
You may be comfortable simply trusting a government that has voted themselves such overwhelming power to not abuse the process to push their agenda – and that they’d tell you if they were – and you may trust the media to be completely on top of potential abuses and corruption at all times – but I’m not…
Errr, there is more to the tax system than filing your return once a year. Anyone trading or employing staff is paying GST and income tax deductions to IRD pretty much constantly. The emergency order means that you’re not fined if you were late paying your GST.
There are plenty of reasons not to like the enabling legislation. Arguing that it might be misused to allow slightly-larger-than-normal trucks to deliver groceries and therefore we should all be vigilant trivialises the issues surrounding the legislation and the earthquake recovery itself. There are plenty of people in Christchurch living in temporary accommodation, worried that their homes are now a write off, and have lost their jobs because their place of employment no longer exists. I can’t imagine that any of them list “oversize trucks might restock supermarkets” as a priority. As if the difference between 45 tonne and 53 tonne trucks was a priority for anyone other than a tiny number of people even before the earthquake.
Obi – and the heavier trucks will damage the existing water and stormwater pipes, so the costs dramatically increase. Taxpayers and ratepayers will suffer for this.
The extra “damage” is increased wear and tear… I don’t think anyone is seriously arguing that our pipes are completely okay with (say) 45 tonne trucks, but will fail quickly with 50 tonne trucks. Engineers just don’t work with those sorts of margins.
But if Christchurch residents want to slow down removal of rubble, delay the opening up of cordoned-off sections of the city, delay the reconnection of services, and slow down reconstruction in favour of strict truck weight limit compliance then they should kick up a fuss about this.
Seems pretty pointless from a practical view. Trucking companies are still trying to sort out the mess caused by the earthquake, I doubt that they have above-regulation trucks around right now anyway, and likely don’t have the time to acquire them.
In addition, there are still damaged roads, possibly damaged bridges, and the threat of further road blockages – I would imagine trucking companies would play it safe for a while.
There have been purchases of trucks that can carry oversized loads by trucking companies in anticipation of the new 53 ton limit…
We are reduced to guesswork and trusting trucking companies, yes…
Yeah, as policies go it’s pretty terrible.
The good news was that rail and shipping carried a lot more freight into Chch, especially when SH1 was closed near Kaikoura.
Makes sense for helping lots of people rebuild their homes and businesses. If you are towing a boat with your 4WD and don’t have HMV License, you are potentially breaking the law. It also allows getting in structures and building material to where it’s needed quickly without going through all the bureaucratic crap. Makes sense in Christchurch’s situation.
It does to a certain extent, my point simply is – it is something we need to keep an eye on…
To draw this bow shows the bias that the writer has, there is no way that “Joyce” as you call him would be thinking great the earthquake in Christchurch means we can now get our 53 ton trucks on the road, please explain how they can move the rubble in any other way, by forklift and train?
Lets show a dose of realism here, and consider the needs of canterbury to get back on its feet, rather than trying to score political points for an agenda that does not exist.
Implying that I thought Joyce would be happy that the earthquake happened is political point scoring…
Point scoring from the earthquake is not my intention at all, transport campaigners were working hard to bring the 53 ton legislation into the public domain – and succeeding – read the legislation and look at what is now permissible on Canterbury roads (in fact all roads) and it is clear that as long as trucking companies apply for a consent and say it is for the earthquake the rule book is out the window…
When Canterbury does get back on it’s feet it doesn’t need an even bigger rates and tax bill because of extra damage caused to the roading infrastructure…
Is Canterbury roading infrastructure comparable to Auckland’s? When the Canterbury heavy truck trial (if it is seen as one) is over, could reasonable conclusions be drawn about the efficacy of using the same trucks on Auckland’s roads and elsewhere? Just wondering if Auckland’s dense motorway network with lots of bridges that would require strengthening means it’s not a like-for-like comparison for heavy truck advocates to make.
Roading standards are national wide but construction I guess depends on funds and 50% of local roads is funded from rates…
Not that I’m saying the legislation should ever have been passed but I do think there will be quite close scrutiny of what the govt does and if they start using bigger trucks just to carry freight through the area (rather than for reconstruction) then there will be complaints.
Compltely off topic – what do y’all think this will do to local traffic?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10675209
I think it will suck. St Lukes should never have been built in a place that is so hard to reach by public transport and now they have built it they shouldn’t be letting it expand out with yet MORE carparks.
It’s dumb all round, the mall is of sufficient size now, this will blight the area with even worse traffic than it currently experiences, and take business away from Newmarket the CBD and smaller retailers…
“Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act”
If this is what we get after a no casualties-earthquake which did not lead to any significant civic disorder, what will be the response when, say, a volcanic eruption kills 5 people in the Waikato? John Key being named dictator of NZ for life? What is this shit?
Hi Jeremy
Really pleased you’ve raised this….
Go to the CBT site and check out a post named ‘April Fool”. It is all about very dodgy log truck trials at weights bigger than 53 tonnes being planned/been carried by PanPac out of Napier – 60 tonnes gross, 24m length. Keep a very close eye on what sort of weight standards Canterbury road bridges are upgraded to.