Editorial: Govt: You must keep our faith

OPINION: The Waikato Times has spent the best part of a decade campaigning for the completion of the Waikato Expressway project. It is essential for the development of our region, the safety of people on the roads and has to be, as anyone who has driven the highway will tell you, completed as soon as possible.

Before the last election National and their Hamilton East MP David Bennett promised the injection of nearly $790 million in extra funding to complete the expressway within 10 years if elected. They were duly handed power and the pressure is very much on, following revelations at a meeting in Hamilton this week.

Waikato's regional transport committee was told by Kaye Clark, the New Zealand Transport Agency's regional highways and operations manager, that the Hamilton bypass section of the expressway was not scheduled for completion until 2024-25, with construction not even starting until 2018-19.

The Hamilton bypass is the longest section of expressway, running 21km from Lake Rd, Horotiu, to just north of the Tamahere interchange. It is also the most expensive, estimated to cost $550-$650m.

That caught committee members by surprise, with many venting their displeasure.

Hamilton City Council transport committee chairman Dave Macpherson was outraged, saying it was "quite an extension", later telling the Times that the situation made a mockery of the process. He was particularly miffed that the planned Huntly bypass was now rated a higher priority than the far bigger Hamilton one.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce and Mr Bennett have moved quickly to make soothing noises and cover their bottoms. Mr Joyce said that the latest update was "not the final word" and that though the Hamilton bypass in particular was "a challenging one", the Government had a plan to "get closer" to its original promise. They'll have to do a lot better than get close.

Mr Bennett, whose ability to influence his more senior colleagues in Wellington is under the microscope, said that no promises had yet been broken. "The plan presented to the committee was not the plan the (transport) minister is working to," he said. He also defended Huntly's elevation in the pecking order.

There is no doubt that a flurry of activity occurred in the wake of this week's transport meeting; the Government was caught off guard. A few transport agency flunkies have been chewed out. But now we wait to see if there is any action to back up the bluster.

It all adds up to a bad couple of weeks for the National Party in the Waikato. The Government used doctored stats and lamentable reasoning for closing ground-breaking youth justice facility Te Hurihanga, something Mr Bennett has studiously avoided getting caught up in, and yesterday revealed that the proposal for a cycle path along the Waikato River had been rejected. If Mr Joyce and Mr Bennett fail to deliver on their promises, there will be hell to pay.

- © Fairfax NZ News