Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / James Smith: National Road Carriers Association General Manager of Policy and Advocacy on the first stage of the Northland Expressway

Transcript

James Smith: National Road Carriers Association General Manager of Policy and Advocacy on the first stage of the Northland Expressway · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My goodness, me is actually happening. They're going to extend
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: that Northern Expressway. The government has signed app with the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Northland Consortium to get the first part of the Northern
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Expressway built now that is between Walk within Taharna. So
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: they've got that what they called the Wholiday Highway up
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to Walk with now they're going to go to Tahana.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is the largest public private partnership in New Zealand's history.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: The final cost has a net value of three point
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: six billion dollars. So I'm joined now by Jane Smith,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the General manager of Policy and Advocacy at the National
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Road Carries.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Hello, James, greeting Xandre.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: You'd be very happy we are.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's good to see the sound of political flip flopping
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: in waffling being replaced by the sound of machinery actually
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: doing something.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. This road is going to Tahanna.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: That's obviously you get the start of Thedans. In fact,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it's not even the start of the Brin Durans. It's
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: short Kaiwaker Is. So that of course the Brian Durans
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: will be the wildly expensive part of the whole road
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to Fung and Ray and do you worry that, in fact,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: this project might just get mud at the Britain Dowings
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: And that's the bit that we really need to fix.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the Britain Dowans is on a basically it's
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: on a bit of a time time limit anyway, it
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: needs a replacement highway. The work that was done recently
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: is really just keeping it together, but it needs to
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: be replaced. There is project underway. What we would like
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: to see is the work to continue through until that
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: highway is completed.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that isn't in place at the moment, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of course this is going to take quite some time though,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So when now are you going to start getting the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: benefits And what sort of benefits do you think road
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: carriers will see?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Well, we won't see the full benefit of course until
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the thing's finished. And that's right, and the thing can
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: only get finished if it gets if it actually starts.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So we celebrate every win as the rain pours down
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: around us. That we're just celebrating everyone. So what we
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: do want to see though is we want to see productive,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: resilient and safe highway network. We need facilities on that
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: network for you know, vehicles to poll over safely. We
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: need stock effluent facilities, those sorts of things, and those
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: are best on our state.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Our way. Absolutely, James, well, look happy tracking and thank
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you for joining us today. But yeah, absolutely, we've got
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: brought up there. We've got fucking Ray up there, We've
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: got all of North and we know the economic problems there.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: In fact, we want good road, rail and sea connections
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for fate everywhere, because it's not good other than the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Golden Triangle, if you know what I'm talking about, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: because when you New Zealand, you're quite right he mentioned
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: at stock effluent disposal. That's quite a big thing. It's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: going to be a big road and I hope it
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: goes well.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio