Bring back the Ministry of Works!

I was consulting with my panel of advisors yesterday - OK, the usual academics, lawyers, engineers & god knows what else who assemble on Magpie Lawn to watch the dogs... do their thing (we carry bags for that), and conversation naturally turned to the ramifications of our new Gummint.

But since none of us had heard any other details than "New government announced, film at 5pm", the topic quickly changed to other things, although related things, like, Peter Dunne's insistance that Transmission Gully be started & completed ASAP.

Actually, I have no beef with that, although some say we can't afford it. I also have no beef with making the coastal road 4 lanes instead... although some say that civilisation will end when Paremata & Pukerua Bay houses & shops (and just why did they build that shopping centre in the path of a proposed highway? Wasn't that just asking for it?) are demolished to make way for it.

But the consensus amongst this august group was that we should definitely do something... anything (except that road from Korokoro & Porirua, which starts and ends before any bottleneck anyway & just sounds really stupid & a waste of money - hello! That's what the road over Haywards Hill is for!).

And someone... and OK, it was this pinko lefty academic law lecturer, but we shouldn't hold that, or anything else come to that, against him, said that in the old days, the Ministry of Works would just have announced its plans, there'd have been a few rabid protests & some biting criticism from blowhards & dogooders on TV for a while... and the bulldozers would have gone in & we'd be speeding North by lunchtime...

And I think he was probably right.

And actually, now I think about it, wasn't that guy Donald Brash talking about creating a Dept of Infrastructure for just this sort of thing? Good idea I reckon, which goes to show that he & Mr Dunne had one good idea each at least.

Why is making roads so difficult these days? Is it the Resource Management Act? Is it that we spend too much money on silly yacht races? (a whole lot more than we do on Hip Hop Tours anyway)

I dunno, I dunno... anyway, I'm all for resurrecting the Ministry of Works. That's all.