What a year already! If you’d been the prime minister with a crystal ball as the sun rose on 1 January, you might well have quit!

Anyway, the last thing the incumbent government and friends would have wanted in an election year were key road links disappearing into the abyss and needing reconstruction at all haste and any cost. This is especially so considering a vast number of their low-hanging ballot box fruit was awaiting affirmation that tricycles, Thomases (trains), and tubs on the ocean blue were the modes of transport destined to deliver a better tomorrow. The government could seal their tick for sure if they cried from the hustings that the tax take from all things road would be plundered to ensure more tricycles, and more Thomases, and more tubs.

Alas, reality bites hard, and it took good Minister Wood to sort of calm the seas of anguish locally following Prime Minister Hipkins’ inability last week to commit to the rebuild of SH25a crossing the Coromandel. Wood almost ensured in an absolut…probably, sort of way that the road would be rebuilt, although he cautioned – in that wise-dad, Arden-esque manner he’s honed – that the run to the bach this Chrissy might be a long one. In other words, not this year. (Cue, sad philosophical eyes.)

There’s no question 25a will be rebuilt. As the Coromandel stands now, there’s one more road, itself besieged with ominous slumps, preventing the middle and most populous two-thirds of the eastern Coromandel from being completely cut off to trucks.

Preaching resilience on the one hand and then leaving the bush to repatriate 25a would be like telling everyone you are anti-coal, and then import it for power stations so you didn’t have to be seen to dig up your own deposits. Hang on, maybe that’s a bad analogy.

While there is a functioning loop on the Coromandel, it goes without saying that priority No.1 should be SH5 – the Napier-Taupo Road, – other key routes in Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti, and Northland’s stricken arterials. I’m no way saying ‘us first’. I’m just saying don’t give us the BS that it’s us never.

It’s great the PM has binned some pet projects in the interests of freeing up “bandwidth” as he called it (previous generations called it money), directing a portion of the savings to Cyclone recovery. I don’t think he went far enough as we’ve seen things like guard-railing projects around the country blissfully continuing. I would have thought all tier-two projects – a phrase I’ve chosen – be put on hold, and if not the physical resource, then certainly the money allocated, redirected at the eastern, Far North, and Coromandel networks.

Then comes the issue of the damage itself. Again, I know, understand, and appreciate the eastern provinces are catastrophically impacted, but looking at the local scene. SH25a mentioned above, is about a 26km stretch of largely good dual carriageway. It was built in the 1960s to a high spec for the era, and at least a portion of it was virgin cut road. What has happened is about 200m-odd of that road has fallen down the hill – 0.77% of the overall road length. Yes, it’s a pain, and a big job, but it’s not the original build. It’s not the Upper Waitaki hydro project; it’s not Transmission Gully, it’s not the Northern Extension. It’s 200m of missing road. I’ve spoken to several people of exceptional repute when it comes to moving dirt and none were stricken with fear as to the scale of remediation required. SH5, Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti had them a bit ‘eyebrows up’, but that was more a latent ‘let me at it!’ sort of thing.

In terms of modern infrastructure repatriation, I’ll admit that watching the rebuild of SH60 – the Taka Hill Road – over four of the past six-odd years, and the SH2 safety improvement between Waihi and Tauranga, hasn’t filled my heart with joy in terms of the time it may take for SH25a, or the result.

But hang on…?

Harking back to the start of my comments and it being an election year… Maybe the government will realise the one thing that’ll appease the naive more than ideology is reinstating their reality. I mean how do you get to your environmental, pro-alternative mode rally if the road’s stuffed?

Then there are the other influences heavily ‘resident’ in places like the eastern Coromandel – party donations, former parliamentarians, and even holidaying former PMs, and the like.

I’m picking that about two weeks from polling day, miraculously, SH25a will be open for Christmas, even as a single-lane shambles. Then huge plans will be announced for the north, and the eastern arterials will be set for a Botox-like, wrinkle-removing makeover.

Hipkins, Robertson, and company may bewilder many of us for two and half years of every three. But on the lead up to each big day, be assured of one thing; they’ll read whatever room needs reading as the moment nears for a fickle, intolerant, impatient, and erratic electorate to take a pen in hand, and stand silently in an orange booth for just a couple of minutes.

All the best

Dave McCoid
Editorial Director