Dazza Hughes wants his own train set
Labour’s favourite ginga MP Darren Hughes is getting all lathered up over Transport Minister Steven Joyce.
Today the carrot top has submitted 36 written questions to the transport chief – all about rail.
Private Bin wonders if this is good use of a list MP’s time.
To speed up the response process we’re going to help the ‘ranga out by answering a selection of the most serious queries.
So Steve, if you’re reading, don’t worry about this one’s, we’ve got it covered.
Question:
Have any tracks or sleepers been stolen from the Wairarapa rail line?
Answer:
Well Dazza, that’s a difficult question to answer. We don’t think of it as theft, it’s all about recycling. Ask yourself, all those sleepers providing borders and rustic looking benches in gardens throughout the lower North Island had to come from somewhere.
Question:
Has KiwiRail ever investigated any blackmarket sales of stolen rail and sleepers from the mothballed Rotorua branch railway line?
Answer:
That sounds like a question for the SIS. Very serious business.
Question:
Where does the Wairarapa rail line begin and end?
Answer:
Dazza, the Wairarapa rail line begins at the start and ends at the finish.
Question:
Has he decided that the Government will not underwrite the estimated $15m that KiwiRail needs to upgrade and reopen the Stratford to Okahukura line?
Answer:
Wasn’t it you guys who spent the best part of a $1 billion buying this giant white elephant? How much more do you want us to spend?
Question:
Is he concerned that with the Stratford to Okahukura line now closed, Fonterra now has to truck its milk products 200km further between Taranaki and the Port of Tauranga?
Answer:
Nope. Three words Dazza – road user charges. Kaching.
Question:
If the Rotorua branch line corridor is to be used as part of a national cycleway, would that prevent the restoration of the line for use by trains?
Answer:
Only if too many sleepers have been recycled.
There you go Dazza, hope that helps. Why all the questions? Are you looking at getting a train set of your own now Steve’s got the big one?
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Comments and questions14
Brilliant. Please answer the rest of the inane questions.
This article really lowers the standard of the NBR. Perhaps NBR may not care about responsible public spending (on rail or anything else), but this MP does, and I know for a fact that his questions are related to a bigger picture and are of interest to many people. Keep up the good work Darren, and don't let NBR put you off track.
Brilliant - What's brilliant about this? Have some of your journalists had a liquid lunch and collaborated? I think it's about as brilliant as I think it is funny. It's full of cheap shots, ill-informed and crass.
I wouldn't think that Steven Joyce would think it to be particularly funny either. Not what's expected from the NBR.
It's not that funny about the Rotorua Line come to think of it - somewhat of an embarrassment actually. I heard some inbound tourists talking the other day about it. The discussion being that they couldn't believe that they had to catch us bus, as they had in (other)third world countries, to what's supposed to be one of the world's premier tourist attractions ( Ka-ching).
NBR. New Zealand's equivalent of Glenn Beck.
Whichever scribe, and their editor, who allowed this piece of tripe to be published should be hung out to dry. They're obviously still wet behind the ears. Beside the personal attacks on one of the better MPs the Otaki electorate has had in recent years (ginga), he has his facts straight, unlike the ACT clone who wrote that piece of drivel.
Isn't jornalism supposed to present the fact from both sides in an unbiased way? Maybe that's just me but that's what I was always told.
How about researching both sides and presenting all information in a fair way?
This appalling piece of unfunny trash should have been left in the "private bin" it was found in. I doubt that Steven Joyce would have bothered reading any further than the first "answer". The northern Wairarapa line is still operational. Removing sleepers from it could cause a serious accident. In the past, Steam Incorporated have used this line for their very popular and very well patronised (including families and children) train excursions. The only sleepers that should be removed are the ones the ACT party has in Parliament. Incidently, Steven Joyce has done more in his short time in office to give us a viable railway system than the Labour Goverment did in its entire nine year term.
For the author and the editors who approved it.
Come on NBR, you can do much better than this. Obviously some sleepers within the editorial staff have let us all down here. 10 minutes of my life I won't be getting back!
I posted one of the earlier comments and have never voted Labour - I don't think that Labour did a particularly good job in government and lost their way in their last term. (I realise that that the column was just taking the p***, it just hit a nerve with a lot of people).
I think that Minister Joyce is overall terms a very switched on transport minister but there are really 2 things that annoy me.
1) The allocation of funds to the new motorway up near Wellsford The same amount of money-according to unrelated press reports (approx) would pay for Auckland's proposed CBD passenger rail loop and I'm 100% sure would transform the city.
2) (Quite selfish but I enjoy my driving) , There's far too much of the national freight task being handled by road than is neccessary and I feel that my taxes are massively cross subsidising road transport - the roads have far too many trucks on them. The government's complaining about a $90 million dollar subsidy for KiwiRail- this is surely peanuts compared to what's spent on roads.
A lot of these comments sound like they come from angry gingers and obvious socialist/communist politicians.
the ginga mp was Helen Clarks little puppy and is now being turned into the 'investigator' mp but the reality is that he is a semi-literate, barely palatable mp who is incalpable of doing any real work and so is a politician.
Wasting the governments time is labours strength at tyhe moment - watch parliament on the tv and realise how much they care about this country moving ahead - they just put question after question, amendement after amendment through to stall the process of government with the full knpowledge that, as they do not have enough votes, it will have no effect.
They are a shambles, a bunch of people who would otherwise be unemployable - i guess the labour party id\s a bit like a taxpayer funded work shceme - stop asking stupid questions and start finding real solutions to get this country ahead - you will be far more respoected for working to get the country kick started than wasting all of our time.
Perhaps Dazza was inspired to ask so many questons, after watching James May's Toy Stories on TV3. James May tried to break the world record for the longest toy train set. But maybe this is all a cunning plan to boost tourism numbers by raiding the Major Events fund in MED, to get James May downunder for another world record attempt, but in the Wairarapa on a closed branch line. While here 'Captain Slow' may film XT's next generation of adverts collding two trains with one line.
I cannot believe this passes as newsworthy. NBR's worth paying for the subscriber content.... Yeah Right!
Look, this is answer: www.aztekium.pl
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