Yesterday was the first opportunity for Labour transport spokesperson Phil Twyford to question new transport minister Gerry Brownlee in parliament. The issue at stake related to a point I made in this post, from the briefing to the incoming minister, which highlighted the decline in cost-benefit ratios of state highway projects over the past few years. It’s best summarised by this graph:
Here’s the exchange:
You can read the transcript here too.
It’s early days and I’m sure transport is a pretty big portfolio with a lot to learn but it is very concerning to see Gerry Brownlee simply not answering the question with anything other than a simple yes/no answer and going off on his own little tangents. Perhaps he doesn’t quite have the same command of the transport portfolio yet that Steven Joyce had or he is just playing games (after all parliament often operates on the same level as a kindergarten). Its disturbing to see that he seemingly couldn’t care less about the significant deterioration in the cost-effectiveness of state highway spending.
Phil if I may suggest some further questions:
- Does he pan to do anything to change the mix of projects so more high value projects are progressed.
- Should projects with high BCR’s, regardless of their mode be progressed ahead of projects with low BCR’s
- If he is not concerned about low value BCR’s, does that mean we should be paying more attention to other factors and if so what are they.
- Does he plan to instruct his officials to make any changes to the way BCR’s are calculated.
I’m sure this is only the first of many exchanges we will see over the coming few years.
Processing...
And exchanges I am looking forward too
Lets hope Twyford gets a good few glances and maybe the odd KO in there đŸ˜€
And for those scratching their heads on why I would so called bag a member of – well you get the gist
There are two things I do not tolerate from either side of politics
Incompetency
Ummm can not repeat the other word – will break the censor đŸ˜‰
Pathetic display by Brownlee displaying bot arrogance and ignorance. How on earth did this bumbling fool get to become a government minister?
It’s both concerning and embarrassing.
In the scheme of things, performance in the House doesn’t matter too much. But it does inform how the press gallery journalists see the Ministers, and thus how they present them to the public. Let’s hope that the current madness is made public.
I suspect the “quality” of answers on display may become the norm, in light of changes to standing orders around misleading the House. Simply answering yes/no is an easy way to avoid any suggestion of giving a misleading answer unless the answering minister outright lies.
That said, Brownlee is a mammoth waste of space and I do not see us getting any improvement in the handling of Transport over the coming three years. It’ll be more money thrown into the asphalt-lined black hole, and precious little else.
Didn’t we collectively decide just a couple of days ago that if the discount rate used was more reasonable then projects with a low BCR (such as the CBD rail tunnel or Puhoi to Wellsford) would have an increased BCR? Twyford seems to be making a case that the CBD tunnel should not be funded, but the money should instead be spent on other stuff… Maybe minor improvements at rural highway blackspots or something. I think that ignores the bigger picture, which is that major projects like the CBD tunnel and Puhoi to Wellsford are required in order to allow Auckland to keep growing.
Business cases are an internal agency tool. They don’t dictate policy which is also determined by strategy and a fair dollop of politics.
I think Twyford is pointing out the hypocrisy of the government being so concerned about cost benefit ratios for rail projects it doesn’t like, while not giving a damn about them for the RoNS projects.
Relying on conventional BCRs for both Puford and the CRL rated the CRL higher. Using WEBs the CRL knocked Puford right out of the water, even if WEBs were included for Puford.
As Peter says, Twyford is trying to trip National up on their gross hypocrisy about picking which BCRs they like and which BCRs they don’t.
I can’t believe that you obi seriously believe that Puhoi to Wellsford is needed in order to allow Auckland to continue to grow?
Like it or not, the next 500,000 people have to go somewhere. Rodney seems to be as good a place as any to take a few of them.
Also, a growing prosperous city really needs to be well connected to its surrounding regions. The current SH1 just isn’t the sort of road required to support a modern city economy or prosperous region. That’s already evident now, although it manifests itself more in Northland than in Auckland since Auckland is comparatively well connected to the Waikato, whereas Northland is essentially isolated from the rest of the country by poor infrastructure.
Auckland isn’t a Singapore-like city state connected to the world economy via shipping and air links. Its the back office of NZ and needs to be well connected to the rest of the country.
There is a lot of land within the limits of the current length of the Northern Motorway.
The further the city sprawls, the less agricultural land we have left. Even Federated freaking Farmers have come out against continued sprawl.
There’s a lot of greenfield and brownfield land available within the boundaries of our existing motorway network before we start worrying about building more motorways to service more sprawl. The pronouncements of the current and previous Ministers of Trucks notwithstanding.
Phil is forgetting that all-important suffix to his questions, to avoid the silly yes/no answers.
“If so/not, why/why not?”
It’s nitpicking but now that you’re the main blogger on this site Matt could you clean up your grammar a bit? The plural of BCR isn’t BCR’s it is simply BCRs – apostrophes aren’t used for plurals, as I’m sure you’re aware. Everytime I see apostrophes being used for plurals I grind my teeth.
A while back on this blog when Gerry was made Transport Minister and roundly bagged by many regulars I opined that we should give him a chance and that maybe he’d do a better job than Joyce.
I now regret those comments, and wish to withdraw them.
God help us all.
There’s no shame in owning such comments. Even the Lord Uber-fuhrer of Canterbury, Gerry “Darth” Brownlee, is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. I also believed he should be allowed to prove himself in the portfolio before being roundly condemned.
Now, however, he has proven that he’s at least as worthless as Joyce, and that makes him fair game. We gave him a chance, and he flubbed it. That there was really no doubt that he’d show himself up as a complete waste of ministerial oxygen is beside the point, because it’s only fair to let the new boss show he’s different from the old boss before saying that the regime may have changed by the stench remains the same.
In response to this Geoff, let us hope he fails and in the meantime Labour and the Greens can score some points to put the current road centric (at all costs) transport policies, at the expense of PT, into the public spotlight. Maybe it could be a blessing in disguise?