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TRUCKERS' PROTEST * New Zealand - SHOTS & OPINIONS
* Trucks, trucks, and more trucks
Wellington,New Zealand -Darwinian Evolution, by David -July 07, 2008: -- Friday was the day the trucks came to Wellington.
.. (Picture: The view out my office window)And to just about every other NZ city.... Truck drivers have been pissed off that the government increased the road use fees they pay. Especially since they increased them overnight after previously promising to give the truckers plenty of notice so that they'd be able to build the new fees in to their own charges, but also because the government has been collecting a fortune in increased sales tax on diesel. So they vowed to bring NZ cities to a deadlock...
They didn't... presumably figuring that keeping the public on side was a good idea when the government is down around 25% in the polls and an election is looming. Instead, it all turned in to a giant street party with hundreds of trucks driving around in convoy with air horns blasting, and with lots of support from the public. People stopped work and stood out on the street, waving and smiling... (And I wished that I had my camera...
Until I realised that I actually DID have my camera, since I was heading off for the weekend after work. The images aren't art... I needed to get to work... but they capture some of the spirit of the morning...)* OPINION - Another pothole in the home straight
Nelson,New Zealand -The Nelson Mail - 7 July 2008: -- When the Government increased road-user charges last year for the first time in nearly two decades it gave operators of diesel vehicles three days' notice - and a pre-purchasing splurge worth more than $17.5 million transpired... By one view the industry's response was just plain business sense; by another, it represented a significant cut to the amount of money able to be spent on our roads. Last week saw another increase and no notice given, sparking trucking industry outrage and Friday's slow-rolling blockade of main centres across the country... Curiously, many commuters seemed happy to support the trucks - not always the most popular users of the nation's roads. Despite their diesel-fuming, road-hogging, menacing ways. Despite the ever-growing burden in prices, levies and taxes that "ordinary" drivers must carry in feeding their petrol habit, including increased ACC levies on fuel and vehicle registrations from last Tuesday... Despite the Government's claim, in justifying the latest road-user charges increase, that the trucking sector is being subsidised by other motorists. Despite the fact that much of the increased charge - said to add up to $4000 a year to the cost of running a 44-tonne truck and trailer rig - will be passed on. Despite Friday's logjams... The trucking industry will be tempted to take the unaccustomed warm fuzzies from the public as a sign of total support for its cause...* OPINION - Trains rule trucks suck
Auckland,NZ -The Wire -5 July, 2008: -- ... I don’t back the blockading truckies, whingeing over a rare road user charge increase. Though boys are meant to like trucks I never got it. Trucks are stinking, road-wrecking killing machines and the less of them on the road the better... I don’t mean any ill will to the family run trucking companies that are really struggling right now with high fuel costs but I hope these companies gently find alternative employment as fuel costs keep rising and rail improves over the next decade (though that is unlikely under National)...
Labels: truckers' protests
posted by Unknown @ 4:44 AM
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