12 Feb 2019

Northland Transport chair faces Jones over highway

From Morning Report, 6:12 am on 12 February 2019

Northland's Transport Committee chair John Bain says he's not going to step down just to keep Shane Jones happy. The New Zealand First minister says Mr Bain keeps pushing for a four-lane highway to be built and given that's not going to happen, fresh thinking is needed. But John Bain says Labour and New Zealand First have scrapped a 450 million dollar project the previous government had agreed to and which every council in Northland supported. John Bain says the government's plan to tackle notorious black spots on State Highway One is better than nothing but it's essentially another patch-up job for the north. He says he was thinking of retiring from the Regional Transport Committee this year, but Mr Jones's taunts have spurred him to seek re-election.