Greens will campaign on light rail if Government fails to agree a deal

Tuesday, 2 June 2020

Work has started on the southern-most part of the City Rail Link project at Mt Eden earlier this year, marked by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, CRL CEO Sean Sweeney and Transport Minister Phil Twyford.

The Greens will take the fight for light rail to the election if the current Government can't take the current plan forward.

Associate Transport Minister and Green transport spokesperson, Julie-Anne Genter said today the Greens would be campaigning on 'better public transport and rapid transit for Auckland, absolutely'.

Genter said this specifically included light rail.

Labour and the Greens had both been in favour of building light rail in Auckland as a solution to the cities' travel woes.

* Government puts light rail 'on hold'

* No guarantees for light rail after 2020 election

A commitment to begin work on light rail is in the confidence and supply agreement between the two parties.

But this hasn't stopped coalition partners NZ First from expressing their dislike of the scheme.

Transport Minister Phil Twyford, who is leading work on light rail, and NZ First leader Winston Peters made confusing and contradictory statements about the health of the project last week.

Twyford said light rail would be going to Cabinet 'shortly', but Peters said the project had been 'suspended'.

Green transport spokesperson Julie-Anne Genter says the party will campaign on light rail.

Stuff asked Peters for his party's position on light rail.

'It's not an issue with us, because it's not going to happen in the immediate term,' Peters said.

'Light rail is a plan that the costs have blown out massively for,' he said.

'We've always been for heavy rail in this country. Our programme is on target, as you know, and light rail has been suspended for planning in the immediate future'.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hasn't spoken on whether or not she would campaign on light rail if her Government fails to get it over the line this term.

When asked whether she herself would campaign on light rail she said her 'focus on getting Auckland moving has not changed'.

'Our focus on transport from the city to the airport has not changed, but, of course, I’ll wait until I have Cabinet decisions to speak in any more detail on that'.

Ardern's first promise after being elevated to the leadership of Labour was to build light rail in Auckland and to have the first section, between Britomart and Mt Roskill open by 2021.

Since the election, the project has been dogged by delays – delays that businesses say have cost them millions of dollars. Meanwhile, Treasury has warned the Government that getting it wrong could see the cost of the $6 billion project balloon like Edinburgh's light rail, which took six years to build and cost twice its initial estimate.

After a long and protracted process, the Government has yet to decide who will build the scheme, let alone begin construction.

The two bidders are NZTA, the Government’s infrastructure builder and NZ Infra, a group made up of the NZ Super Fund and CDPQ Infra, a Canadian pension fund, with the Government currently at the stage of working out which partner it would like to build the scheme.