PENLINK FINAL
S 122C REPORT
Impending
Government Transport Policies
Imminent Policy Announce-ments
The incumbent
Labour/Alliance Coalition Government has foreshadowed the announcement
of the soon to be released (possibly March 2002) National (New Zealand-wide)
Transportation Strategy. Its content, as referred to by the Prime Minister
in her speech which opened the current session of Parliament will contain
inter alia new policy relating to Territorial Local Authorities
powers to build tolled roading projects. The prospect of privately sourced
funding for these projects is widely expected to accompany the announcement
of the detailed policies.
The content
and timing of these arrangements is obviously very significant for PENLINK.
The policies will affect long-term roading strategies for all New Zealand
Councils. This report has been required to be delivered by 28 February
2002 - any later and its impact would be lessened because of the short
time remaining for its content to be absorbed and if circumstances warrant,
for it to be debated.
This timing,
of necessity excludes from the report any settled conclusions based on
the imminent announcements of Transportation policies.
A "Fairer" Policy
for Subsidies?
One exception
to this position, albeit a somewhat speculative stance is the following
brief commentary on the matter of Transfund subsidies. There can be no
guarantees that the current very unsatisfactory status of subsidies for
tolled facilities will be adequately addressed in the announcements to
come but it is likely that the existing law as it relates to Transfund's
provision of roading subsidies will at least be revisited.
The present
law relating to subsidy payments is highly unsatisfactory due to its inequities
and the irrational (in an economic sense) application of Transfund subsidies.
The present circumstances give rise to the motorist paying twice - the
so termed "double-dipping" that arises from the loss of subsidy in the
PENLINK case and is referred to in more detail elsewhere in this report.
In simple
terms what this means for PENLINK is this. Merely because the Council
if it were itself to complete PENLINK as a tolled road/bridge would
deny the Council the entitlement to about $24 M of Transfund subsidy for
the project - given the reasonable expectation that the project would
in the foreseeable future meet Transfund subsidy requirements.
An iniquitous
position then arises which means that the motorist (road-user), having
paid petrol tax and or road user charges to furnish the monies for roading
subsidies effectively loses the benefit of such payment and on top of
this must also pay a toll to use the PENLINK road bridge.
Whether this
state of affairs is properly resolved within the soon-to-be announced
policies is of course a moot point. Governments make the rules, iniquitous
or not. There is no guarantee that they would alter the existing policies
but if economic sanity was to break out - they would.
RDC's Interest
in the changes
At the time
of writing "no one knows". The matter of subsidy is so significant to PENLINK
that an active interest - to the point of lobbying for a sane and
equitable treatment of subsidy monies should be taken by the Rodney District
Council. It is in its ratepayers and motorists interests alike to do so.
As already
referred to, CSL [ref; CSL's Weiti Toll Road Option report, at page
14] included in their study a notional $10 M of subsidy monies to
enable them to assess their impact. The impact resulted in a large reduction
of the tolling period and is therefore very significant. Receipt of the
full entitlement of the Transfund subsidy (together with the receipt of
any grant monies) for PENLINK would, it is submitted, completely alter
the weightings of the decisions involved. The tolling period would be
so much shorter than the privately funded alternative that the latter
would scarcely be a tenable option.
With the
significance of these factors in mind the Council should take every step
necessary within its powers to inform itself, and if need be to promote
its interests when the detailed Transportation policies are finally made
public. This matter ranks in significance with other major issues and
is included with them in the relevant (final) section of this report.
There may
well be other policy initiatives in the announcements that could affect
the evaluation of PENLINK. These too should be closely monitored.
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