Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand

New Zealand Truck & Driver readers may recall the furore around the approval of nearly $12million of Government money to a ‘green’ school in Taranaki that threatened to envelop the Green Party’s election campaign. 
As shabby and embarrassing as that was for the Greens and in particular co-leader James Shaw (whose stated policy had been to remove state funding from private schools), it was actually the insight it gave us into how public money is currently being allocated that should be of far greater concern to taxpayers.
The $12m green school grant is just one small scheme to acquire Government money as part of the $3bn ‘shovel-ready’ pr...

The history of road transport in New Zealand is one of continuous change and adaptability. 
Whether it be changing technology, changing markets, regulation, deregulation, increased health and safety, or the ever-evolving state of our roads….over the decades the only real constant has been the dedication of the men and women who make our vast logistics network work.
And Road Transport Forum chief executive Nick Leggett believes: “Historically we haven’t done enough to acknowledge success and loyalty in our industry – and those who work in road transport are very often humble sort of people who just get on with the job. 
“However, ...

The Road Transport Forum recently joined with the Association of Consultants and Engineers, the Automobile Association, Civil Contractors New Zealand, the Employers and Manufacturers Association and Infrastructure NZ to demand urgent action be taken over the state of our roads and for increased investment in the maintenance of road surfaces.
The scale of the problem was starkly illustrated by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s (NZTA) recently published National Pavement Condition Report. 
Between 2008-‘09 and 2018-‘19, the volume of resurfacing work completed was 33% below NZTA’s own targets for the maintenance of a safe network. Over the same peri...

It is commonly said that good news comes to those who wait. Well, when it comes to waiting for the introduction of roadside saliva-based drug testing, surely the road transport industry deserves something very good indeed.
RTF chief executive Nick Leggett points out that “it was way back in 2004 that delegates at the Road Transport Forum Conference passed a resolution calling for roadside drug testing – and I bet that nobody at that event could have envisaged that 16 years on, we would still be waiting for it. 
“The good news is that finally we can see the finish line, with the Government introducing legislation that should, within the next year or so, ...

A worrying trend has developed in New Zealand during this pandemic, where any opposition to what the Government does is treated as some sort of seditious act. Even the simple task of asking questions about what government officials knew – and when – is being characterised by many as pandering to conspiracy theorists or whipping up dissent. That is not just unfair, it is counterproductive. 
At times like this, the role of our political opposition and commentators must not only be to encourage compliance with the rules, but also to ask questions as to how and why we got here. Testing what ministers and government officials knew and when is how a democratic society id...