31 October 2013

Transmission Gully Is Labour’s Wellington Test

UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne is calling on the Labour Party to say where it stands on the building of the Transmission Gully Highway.

“It’s not that many years ago that the then Labour MPS for Mana and Ōtaki joined me for a photo-op at the site of the start of the Highway, or the occasion when the then Labour Transport Minister helicoptered a group of local MPs over the site to view how the road could be constructed.

“But Labour has been curiously quiet on Transmission Gully ever since – and seems to have left the running to the Greens, whose opposition is well known,” Mr Dunne says.

Mr Dunne says polling over the years has shown consistently that the construction of the Transmission Gully Highway has the overwhelming support of Wellingtonians, with most people frustrated it has taken so long.

“Labour now has to spell out its current position – without equivocation.

“Do they still support Transmission Gully, or have they succumbed to the Greens in the interests of potential coalition politics?

“If Labour is in a position to form a government late next year, will it let the construction programme proceed, or will it stop the work already underway?” Mr Dunne asks.

Mr Dunne says that Wellington people have a right to know where Labour stands on the issue, and whether its silence means it is backtracking on its previous support.

ENDS

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