Mt Albert: There's only one issue

It is almost impossible to believe that a government would rip a
gigantic tear smack through the middle of Auckland by building an
enormous, six or eight lane motorway straight through the middle of a
settled residential area to complete the Waterview Connection.

Not when there is already a finished plan for a bloody tunnel to avoid
the fuss.

A tunnel: You don't have to demolish hundreds of homes if you build a
tunnel. You don't have to demolish parks where children play. You
don't have to divide settled, colourful communities in two.

And most of all: The Tunnel Is Ready To Go NOW. The motorway isn't.
The motorway holds things up for years and years. The planning
consents could take twenty years. While the consents hold things up,
the costs will blow out, and more right wing politicians will sit on
their thumbs in a panic about the cost.

Auckland is spewing traffic onto Mt Albert roads because of the work
the previous government did to get a decent connected motorway system
in Auckland. That system needs to be completed urgently. The Waterview
Connection is absolutely vital. And it is sorely needed as quickly as
possible.

National is against a quick completion. It put the tunnel on hold.

There is only one big issue at this election: the motorway on the
surface or the tunnel underneath.

National is reverting to form, holding up the tunnel: It is
truculently holding up development because the tunnel wasn't its own
idea.

National is wasting money by mistakenly thinking that delay saves
money. It doesn't. Costs go up while we wait, and the obstacles to
efficiently moving traffic round Auckland cost hundreds of millions of
dollars a year - plus there's the environmental cost of all the
exhaust spewing into the air from waiting cars.

National is arrogantly thinking of riding roughshod over what locals
want - they want a tunnel, by a 90% majority.

National is out of touch with the wishes and needs of the local
Auckland community.