Julie Anne Genter

There is further confirmation that Labour and the Greens do not want to complete the Waikato Expressway.

Should they win the next election, we could see the most major intercity highway in the country detour into a 2 lane highway through the shittiest town in the country.

NZTA’s Waikato-Bay of Plenty regional director Harry Wilson said the agency had spent $28.9m buying properties along the designated route of the Tamahere-Cambridge section.

The agency has a total purchasing budget of $50.3m and, to date, had made both full and partial property purchases.  Read more »

The green taliban love to tell us all how to live, especially over our choices for transport. Gareth Hughes is the classic, finger-wagging and telling us all off while booking one of the largest carbon foot-prints in the known universe.

In the Herald yesterday though we hear of a green taliban member who was actually catching a bus…like the other people…shortly before using a fuel guzzling SUV to chase bad guys.

Auckland-based Green MP Julie-Anne Genter is trying to find a woman who rescued her luggage last night after a driveby theft from a bus stop.

Ms Genter made a quick dash to her Mt Eden apartment next to the bus stop to grab her cellphone, which she’d left charging upstairs.

She left her luggage unattended, a move she says was a bit foolish, and came back to find her bags gone.

“I suppose I felt secure. It was a sunny, still evening. Mt Eden Road was quiet and warm after a long Anniversary Day. I was only running upstairs for two minutes, and my flat is just above the stop,” she said.

In a panic, Ms Genter asked a man at a bus stop across the road if he’d seen anything.

He pointed to an old red hatchback pulling out down Lovelock Avenue, a side street off Mount Eden Road.  Read more »

The Greens have issued a statement about taxes and borrowing to pay for roads…

The National Government’s reckless plan to build unneeded highways has created a huge budget hole that taxpayers will be forced to pay for with higher taxes, Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said today.

The Green Party has obtained an internal New Zealand Transport Agency document which states there is a $1.7 billion shortfall between the cost of the Government’s transport plans and the projected revenue as a result of the huge cost of National’s pet highway projects and stagnant traffic volumes resulting in lower than projected fuel tax revenue.

The briefing outlines three options to close the gap: delaying the so-called ‘Roads of National Significance’ by up to five years (which is marked as “not acceptable”); borrowing the money and using Public-Private Partnerships as a form of borrowing, which would only shift the cost to the taxpayer into the future and constrain future transport budgets; or increasing petrol tax by nine cents a litre.

“Kiwis will be paying more to fund National’s unneeded and uneconomic highways, and they will have few options to avoid rising fuel prices.

Perhaps Genter would like to us whether the Greens still support regional petrol taxes?  Do they still support raiding the Land Transport budget for walkways, cycleways and trains at the expense of roads?  Do they still support minimum emissions standards for all vehicles on our roads?  Do they still support minimum fuel efficiency standards for all cars on our roads? Do they still support new taxes on all fossil fuels?  Do they still support emissions testing becoming part of the WOF? Do they still oppose all oil exploration?

And that’s just a few for starters.  So for the Greens to complain about taxes and borrowing (when they want to print money) is just two faced hypocrisy sanctimony.

The Green prescription is a pile of new taxes and red tape for motorists.

Cactus Kate continues the review of youth candidates. Today she looks at Labour and Greens candidtates:

Deborah Mahuta-Coyle

Should she be an MP? Of course not. Mahuta-Coyle joins a long list of Labour staffers who think they can be MP’s. Not many have done anything else but leave University and work in the Party.

Could she be an MP? For Labour, of course. She’s a perfect candidate. Academically better qualified than Kim Kardashian who has slipped her way up to number 13 on the Labour List, Mahuta-Coyle is also Tainui and a female that gives her as many points as all of Stuart Nash’s degrees and work experience combined.

Will she be an MP? Here is hoping not as it would mean Labour would have polled 30-33% on Saturday. I predict she will be miraculously “re-appointed” in the Opposition Leaders office working from Monday for Labour’s next leader.

Michael Wood

As an observer by far the best thing Michael has ever done in his life was marrying a woman far smarter and more politically astute than he is as she is picking Labour to lose three key electorates. Wood is also somewhat unique in that he is one of the only men I have read of in politics who does something called splitting childcare. That is, he works part-time to look after the kiddies. I cannot imagine “Iron” Mike Williams and his bovver boy mates ever sanctioning that.

Despite being the whipping boy to stand and fail in safe National seats, Wood seems to be a genuinely nice man who I have known of since University days. With his child minding duties he should be winning all those silly polls as to which politician would you leave your kiddies with? Wood doesn’t trumpet a great academic record, sporting prowess or anything really. He doesn’t have to, he’s a Unionist.

Jerome Mika

Mika is an EPMU bitch make no mistake about that. His candidate page is full of idealistic waffle and weasel words and should have been ripped apart by Labour’s Comms team and rewritten as it tells us absolutely nothing about him. At number 36 on the Labour list he needs 34% to have a look in so his wiki is premature as well.

Holly Walker

The horrid grating inequality thrashing is dull and boring which means she’s the perfect little card carrying pinko. Her rejection of fifth form economics puts her in line to be the Greens Finance Spokeswoman.

Julie Anne Genter

Should she be an MP? An American Greenie dictator of the New Zealand public transport system? I think not.

Could she be an MP? Bit of a one-trick pony in a farm facing the ETS really. It is bad enough having an Australian as the co-Leader, and now the Greens are foisting a Yank on the House of Representatives?

Will she be an MP? I hope so for no other reason than at number 13 on the Greens list it would mean Labour would have had an atrocious night and there will be blood on the floor.