JORDAN WILLIAMS - SHOCK, HORROR: ACT wants road money spent on... roads
On Friday, ACT launched its Keep New Zealand Moving transport policy, promising to squeeze more infrastructure out of every dollar by stopping road-user money being spent on non-functional art and monuments.
As it happens, our Investigative Lead Rhys had been working on an investigation that landed at rather convenient timing...
Rhys has found that across just three major transport projects, at least $15.8 million has been spent on iwi and hapū resourcing, cultural monitoring, advisory roles and artwork.
The breakdown is pretty eye-watering:
Ōtaki to North of Levin: $7.98 million on iwi and hapū resourcing, including $2.01 million on iwi adviser roles.
Transport Rebuild East Coast: $3.54 million paid to iwi and hapū groups for cultural oversight and monitoring.
Te Ara Tupua (Petone -Wellington walk and cycleway): $4.26 million for mana whenua sculptures and artwork.
That is nearly $16 million across just three projects.
Now, to be clear, nobody is suggesting that genuine cultural issues should simply be bulldozed over. If you are putting a motorway through a burial ground or another site of genuine cultural significance, of course there needs to be consultation and appropriate mitigation.
But that is quite different from allowing millions of dollars to disappear into standing advisory roles, cultural monitoring, reporting requirements and artwork simply because they have become baked into the way major projects are delivered.
And when New Zealand already spends comparatively heavily on infrastructure while getting comparatively poor results, every unnecessary layer matters.
Motorists pay plenty through fuel taxes, road-user charges, rates and tolls. Is it too much to expect that money to go towards roads that are safer, faster and more reliable, not millions of dollars of extras that do none of those things?
Jordan Williams is Executive Director & Co-founder of the Taxpayer's Union
Best roadside artwork in NZ? The countryside.
And it's free.
Scrapped projects
More than $1.2 billion was spent on Three Waters; Auckland light rail had $229 million sunk into it; Let’s Get Wellington Moving $167 million; the polytech merger Te Pukenga $121 million; reform of the Resource Management Act $136 million; $44 million was spent to run the Māori Health Authority; and $36 million was spent on investigating hydro power at Lake Onslow.
Just another way these grifters have discovered they can suck dough out of us . If they knew they werent going to get paid they wouldn't even show up.
Mindboggling! Are these payments made to individuals - or to Charitable Society accounts? And are they made as donations or as payments of accounts submitted?
You do not mention the Manawatu Gorge replacement Road between Woodville and Ashurst.
There must have been a fair dollop of Taxpayers money wasted on unnecessary artwork there.
Not to mention like koha for cosultancy.