Michael Wood needs to get a grip on Ministry of Transport

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Michael Wood to get a grip on his department, the Ministry of Transport.

After Monday’s transport policy U-turn, the New Zealand Herald today revealed that a new ‘The Future of Transport in Aotearoa New Zealand: Who should pay for what?’ had suggested public support for a raft of new taxes and the promotion of public transport over roads. The survey, however, had just 436 participants and was self-selecting with even the researchers acknowledging that it had a skew towards cyclists.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Callum Purves, said:

“It’s not good enough for Michael Wood to pass the buck here and refer questions on this paper that suggests new taxes and charges and deprioritizing roads back to the Ministry of Transport. In case he has forgotten, he happens to be the Minister of Transport. Mr. Wood has either had a change of heart since the Ministry commissioned this report or its authors have gone way outside their remit and he needs to get a grip on what his department is doing.

“The commissioning of this report simply confirms that the Ministry of Transport doesn’t understand New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Moreover, self-selecting surveys with emotive and loaded questions like these that are not representative of the New Zealand population are worthless and do not support good policy making. If the Ministry of Transport wants to find out what New Zealanders actually think on these issues, they would be better commissioning a scientific poll, which would probably be a lot cheaper too.”'