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I’d love to be able to give it all away, but sadly New World and the bookshop and Hammer Hardware continue to put their stuff behind a paywall, so I’m forced to follow suit. Trust you understand.

In a moment, this week's free edition, A government that can't see twenty feet ahead, plus a preview of other recent editions.
But first, the button.

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A government that can't see twenty feet ahead

There are two failings that consistently characterise a National government. One is a lack of imagination, the other is their willingness to look after their mates, no matter what harm it might do to everyone else.

This is how we come to have thousands of enormous trucks carving up our roads.

The trucking lobby said “jump” to the Key government and Steven Joyce replied “how high?”

I wrote about it last year.

In 2010, they increased the maximum truck weight from 44 to 53 tonnes.

There are now an estimated 5,000 trucks with this weight rating on the roads.

Take a guess how much road damage one 18-wheeler can do.

It can do as much damage as 10,000 cars.

Shall we take out our calculator?

We've got 5,000 of those 18-wheelers on the road now, and each of them does the wear and tear damage of 10,000 cars.

So that's like putting fifty million more cars on our roads.

Fifty million more cars and no more money to fix the potholes.

There is a reason our roads are so full of potholes, and that reason is the last National government.

There is a reason they are now having to spend billions of dollars on potholes, and that reason is the last National government.

There is a reason cancer patients are not getting what they were promised, and the reason is that this National government is even worse than the last one.

Even though it undermines the negotiating position of Pharmac, they happily vowed to fund those cancer drugs.

Even though it was short-sighted and ill-advised, they happily did it for the votes.

And then they reneged on their vote-buying pledge because their other vote-buying pledges were requiring more money.

We have a main trunk line that is largely electrified and could be playing a vastly bigger role in moving freight and people using electric power. But all this National government, and the National government before it, can think of is More of the Same. And so our roads get ever fuller of cars and utes and hurtling behemoths and cost more and more to maintain, and sorry cancer patients, but there’s none left over for you.

Again and again, it has been the way of a National government to look at a new and better way of doing things and say no no no not eating that, don’t like it. And again and again we have had to live with the consequences of being denied a better future.

We deserve better.

More Than A Feilding is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Also this week in More Than A Feilding

More Than A Feilding is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.