I should be jumping for joy today over an editorial in the NZ Herald today that’s highly critical of Steven Joyce. But I’m just not quite sure about what it’s really trying to achieve by telling Joyce to “butt out” of the congestion charging issue.
Transport Minister Steven Joyce should button his lip if the Auckland Council resolves to finance an inner-city rail tunnel from sources other than taxation. Road tolls and congestion charges are perfectly proper local devices. Having given the city a single voice, national politicians should listen to it.
Mr Joyce is not alone in remaining sceptical of the cost-benefit merits of the $2.4 billion underground rail loop compared with other transport needs. But his responsibility is to national taxpayers. If the Auckland Council can convince its voting residents to pay the full cost of the project without calling on central funds, sceptics will have to reassess their view.
A charge is the best test of real demand. A recent Herald-DigiPoll survey tested Aucklanders’ enthusiasm for the inner-city rail loop against a Northern Motorway extension, Mr Joyce’s priority. More than half, 63.3 per cent, preferred the loop. If that enthusiasm survives when they face the financial obligation, they must be confident the railway would be well patronised and roads less congested.
Mayor Len Brown has yet to convince the council, let alone citizens, that the inner-city loop is worth financing in this way, but it is too early to be dismissing the idea as the minister did last week.
This sounds like a typical John Roughan editorial: trying in a bit of a sneaky, round-about kind of way, to say that Auckland should completely pay for the rail tunnel and being sceptical that Aucklanders really will support the project once it starts to hit home how it will be paid for.
However, he does make an important point in this paragraph:
New Zealand has long had a highly centralised system of government in which local government has been restricted to roles, powers and rate finance approved by Parliament. The creation of a single council for Auckland, which comprises a quarter of the country’s population and more than a quarter of its wealth, poses a challenge to the national apparatus.
Though the scepticism then returns:
Planners of the inner-city rail loop hope it will change the shape of Auckland again, stopping sprawl and concentrating population growth around public transport routes into a revitalised core.
Next they have to convince Aucklanders to pay for it. Road charging is a punitive way to pay for a railway but city road users might recognise it to be in their interest. It is brave of the mayor to propose it. He will need all his powers of persuasion. But having taken this step he can reasonably tell Mr Joyce to butt out.
The general consensus between Stu Donovan and myself (and most commenters it would seem) is that congestion charging shouldn’t be used as an additional revenue generator, but as a congestion management tool. But then I think we have plenty of money to build the City Rail Link: we just need to cut back on a couple of pointless Roads of National Significance (holiday highway and Transmission Gully for example) and we could easily fund the project, with a few hundred million to spare.
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Yes it was a very interesting editorial from the Herald, in some ways it sounds like they are starting to get it and in others they completely miss the point. In the end I kind of wonder if it was a “if Len wants to risk pushing this through to get the tunnel built then it might well be enough to hang him on it at the next election so get out of the way and let him do so” kind of piece.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Matt. Roughan’s probably sitting back going “come on Len, do congestion charging so you get kicked out!”
This article from the Herald is also interesting:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10743814
Especially:
… But behind the scenes, Cabinet Ministers and their officials are blunt that big cities – particularly the huge Auckland Council – need to work their own balance sheets hard and look at flexible funding options before coming to central Government for major funds injections to bankroll big ticket infrastructure items.
There are some mixed messages going on here, I suspect.
The council were also told to consider road pricing in the governments submission to the spatial plan. I think the whole thing from the government is just politicking, I think they have tried to smack it down so quickly so they can say “we are trying to look after you unlike the greedy council”