Rankin and Waterview

Cross post from Just Left.

Some strange things are starting to come out of the National Party.

There appears to be quite some disquiet within the National Party (and even the National cabinet) around the appointment of Christine Rankin.  There are those who remember all too well the role she played in the downfall of their last Government and realise how unpopular she is with the public.  But there are those who wish to reward her for the role she played in supporting National over the past couple of years as well as reward the conservative base that helped get National elected last year.

Her appointment, as Russell Brown notes in an excellent post "...is a significant shift away from professional knowledge and towards moral conservative certainties for the Families Commission".

It's all sounding very George Bush.

And then yesterday we also had some interesting creative accounting coming out of the National Party.  This was the kind of rubbish National was constantly getting away with in Opposition - but it's not going to fly any more in Government.  It was so blatantly an attempt to convince the media that the tunnel option was not only more expensive, but massively more expensive than an above ground motorway through a residential area.  And therefore National was saving Mr and Mrs taxpayer over $1 billion dollars.

Putting aside the creative accounting, let's remember that this project is not primarily aimed at benefiting the people of Mt Albert, but the people of Auckland more generally.  Mt Albert people were already being pretty generous in supporting an underground tunnel and it seems that the tunnel was a good compromise consensus.  If National try to bulldoze ahead with their above ground option they can and should expect a massive campaign from the people of Mt Albert to oppose it.  That will mean lengthy delays to the project, added costs, noisy protests etc.  For the people of Mt Albert it is "tunnel of nothing".  The nothing option means significant economic costs to Auckland.

Comments

[tim barclay]

First Christine Rankin in NOT unpopular with the public, though certain Labour people do not like her and at 30% polling support I do not think Labour counts for much. Nor does Peter Dunne at 1%. Secondly I have seen nothing to support your notion about creative accounting saying the tunnel option is overstated. The poposed project can be financed within existing revenue, and it is more easliy future proofed than the tunnel option. I actually think the tunnel is a fraud as it will never be built even by the Labour Party. Helen Clark has delayed this link for years and has caused massive traffic problems through-out Auckland - that is the real story.