Self-appointed tax spend watchdogs, the Taxpayers’ Union have laid into the budget’s $190.2m capital injection for KiwiRail.
Union executive director Jordan Williams is unimpressed by the rail service’s ongoing funding.
“Another Budget another huge cheque from the taxpayer for KiwiRail,” says Williams.
“When National was elected they developed a ‘turn round plan’ so KiwiRail would stop coming cap in hand for hundreds of millions every year,” he says. “That plan failed, and the Government now has no plan whatsoever for KiwiRail to stand on its own two feet.”
He says that written-off spend on KiwiRail since the National government came to power in 2008 totals $3.4bn – or enough for return flights to London for every single New Zealander.
“Only politicians would throw good money after bad trying to breathe life into a 19th century technology, when driverless cars and trucks are on the horizon.”
