Well, very good news today that the Puhoi to Warkworth highway has finally officially been opened.
Only about a year and a half late, but we’ll take what we can get.
You can’t drive on it yet — you have to wait until early next week, and they won’t tell us exactly when because it’ll cause disruptions with everyone flocking to use the road all at once.
That is how much we love a new road in this country.
And do you know who was there to open it?
The Labour Party.
That's right; Chris Hipkins, Kiri Allan, Shanan Halbert. The very people who criticised the road to no end when it was first mooted by the National Party. They derided it as a low-value “holiday highway” and promised to cut the project indefinitely if they won the 2011 election.
And then today suddenly they were calling it a “legacy project” and vital for the economy, and apparently today is an “exciting day” according to Kiri Allan.
And do you know why they changed their tune on this particular stretch of road?
Because Labour has obviously, belatedly, realised that we love roads in New Zealand! Kiwis love a good new road.
It's kind of sad when you realise why we love a new road, it's because we don’t have enough good roads so they’re still a novelty to drive on. Because for about 19 kilometres you can imagine that you actually live in a properly developed country with proper infrastructure.
And it’s even sadder when you then realise that because Labour’s been so ideologically opposed to building roads, we've lost six years of road building time.
But hey, the good news is that Labour has finally come around.
Even if they are ideologically opposed to roads, they’ve realised that won’t win them elections. And let's hope that attitude sticks around on the off chance that they do win re-election in October, Because Puhoi to Warkworth is just one bit, it needs to go all the way to Whangarei yet.
We've got a need in this country for a lot of new roads.
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