Blumsky scores an own-goal

I see that Mark Blumsky (United Future National candidate for Wellington Central) has put out a release attacking today's Wellington transport announcement, arguing that it's just a distraction from the Orewa Speech and that it ignores the Western Corridor issue.

Excuse me?

The Wellington Transport Project began in May last year, with an approach to government by the regional council. They worked with Labour MPs, the Greens, UF and local councils to put together a package. Hodgson did a media release in September (here) outlining progress. It was anticipated that the project would be finished last year, and that announcements would be made this year. It was and they have. How that relates to Orewa, I am really not sure.

He also fails to note that this is the third funding increase for transport in Wellington since Labour came to power in 1999; the first was the "Moving Forward" package in Feb 02, the second was the "Investing for Growth" package in Dec 03. This is the third major increase, and the fourth step will be the response to the Western Corridor report - which Blumsky seems ignorant of, saying that the announcement ignored the issue when it's mentioned more than once. Already the total funding increases are $483m over where we would have been with National.

What is strange about this is that Mark used to be quite well connected with what was going on in Wellington. It's disturbing how out of touch this shows him to be. As mentioned this announcement was signalled last year. If it was a surprise to him, what does that say about his relevance as someone who wants to be a local MP?

For those interested, Marian Hobbs' media release welcoming the package is here.

Comments

[PaulL]

"Already the total funding increases are $483m over where we would have been with National."

A strong argument weakened by that line (well, logically speaking it isn't actually weakened, but chucking in a few weak statements with a strong argument always seems to me to drag the average down).

Surely you aren't suggesting that if National had been in government for 6 years they would not have increased funding at all?

A more accurate statement would have been "The cumulative 6 year increase over the dollar funding the last National government was providing is $483 million."

A statement that didn't attempt to create a large number from a small one would have said "the increase in annual budget in real terms is x%," or perhaps "the increase in annual budget in real terms is $x."

Can't be bothered working out what the figures in real terms would actually be, but I suspect it doesn't sound as impressive as the cumulative $483 million.

[Jordan]

Fair cop. The only % figure I have is that the ordinary NLT funding is up 88% over five years ago, whic is a reasonable rate of growth. I'm sure funding would go up under National too, but it didn't during the 1990s. I think by the end of their government, National had realised that underinvestment in infrastructure is not a "good thing".