Can we have a normal Minister of Transport now?
Yesterday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced a cabinet reshuffle, which saw Simeon Brown picking up the Health portfolio as it's been taken off Dr Shane Reti, and Transport has been given to Chris Bishop. Additionally, Simeon's energy and local government portfolios now sit with Simon Watts.
This is very good news, as Simeon Brown was probably the most fanatically ideological transport minister New Zealand has ever seen.
If we go back to over 10 years ago, on the 19th of August 2014, the New Zealand government announced that they were putting forward $100 million in funding for cycleways in urban areas. This promise, made ahead of the 2014 election, was formally actioned in early 2015.
While the Urban Cycleways Fund rolled out at half the recommended level of investment – and a tiny fraction of what was going into the RoNs at the time – it represented a step change towards rebalancing transport choices in New Zealand cities, in a healthy, productive and cost-effective direction.
Crucially, this advance was made by a National government, under Ministers of Transport Gerry Brownlee and Simon Bridges. Moreover, not long after, in January 2016, Prime Minister John Key announced another great leap forward: central government support for early funding of the City Rail Link, something previous National transport ministers had opposed for years.
This was due in no small part to consistent work and advocacy by Mayor Len Brown (and backed up by polling numbers in Auckland). But like the cycleways fund, it was a major shift from the National Party's ideological inclinations, in the direction of bipartisan common sense. The same year saw the first ATAP agreement between central and local government, which set out a relatively progressive long-term transport plan, even under the old school "predict and provide" approach.
This is not to sugarcoat the Fifth National Government: their main transport focus remained large road projects. But they showed a willingness to look beyond their political paradigm to achieve better outcomes, to support the new Super City's priorities, and to enthusiastically help tell the story of why it's a no-brainer to invest in a wide range of transport alternatives.
Fast forward to 2024-2024, and the picture could not be more different.
Under a self-styled banner of "back to basics", the (now outgoing, thankfully) Minister of Transport Simeon Brown has pursued a bizarre culture war against the most basic transport modes of walking and cycling.
Under the banner of "local control", his wildly skewed Government Policy Statement on transport (GPS) reached right down into the nitty-gritty of local projects to dictate there would be no funding of any multi-modal street designs. This has gutted funding for local cycleway networks, safety and accessibility for active modes, and public transport improvements across the country – even where they were ardently backed by communities.
The fallout has been universal, including in National Party strongholds – and flies in the face of widespread public support for safe, all-ages bike routes, and local aspirations for accessible streets and town centres,
Despite claiming to support 'localism', Brown has pushed a GPS that has been described as 'a disaster for local government'. His meddling has resulted in the axing of hundreds of long-awaited local projects across the country, overridden Auckland's choices on building and funding our transport network, and grabbed ministerial control of reforms to Auckland Transport.
Under Simeon Brown, the government has brought back the next tranche of RoNs, which Brown has pushed to all be four-lane mega-roads, regardless of terrain and expense. In order to procure funding for the mega-roads, the government has been looking at locking in Private Public Partnerships, which will saddle future generations with billions of debt in the decades to come. They're also looking to implement tolls that have no hope of ever recouping the cost of the roads they've recklessly promised.
This time round, the RoNs look set to bankrupt the country with expensive monstrosities that don't hold up under any scrutiny. The Northern Expressway alone would cost 10% of New Zealand's entire infrastructure budget – our collective resources not just for transport, but for all kinds of public infrastructure, from hospitals to energy to defence.
Worse, not only did Brown lie about his road safety policies, he ramped up his culture war to embarrassing levels – casually calling respected international road safety awards 'woke', while championing policies that will lead to the unneeded deaths of Kiwis on our roads. His anti-safety crusade ran against the wishes of experts, local communities, evidence, and sanity.
This is not even to mention the impact of Brown's transport policies on climate emissions, doing his bit to lock us into a damaging continuing cycle of worsening weather, wrecked roads, and costly fallout.
It must have been galling for senior National figureheads to witness this aggressive swerve away from common values and normative policy. In Brown's skewed worldview, his predecessor Simon Bridges (who currently chairs the NZ Transport Agency) and former PM John Key would be considered "woke warriors", for the crime of supporting, funding and celebrating urban cycleways. Cabinet colleagues of Brown's such as Minister of Education Erica Stanford, and fellow National MP Tim Costly, have supported raised crossings and safety measures, which Brown says 'infest' New Zealand's roads.
Brown's words and actions in the role were not normal; not the actions of a normal Minister of Transport.
You would expect any politician to hew to their party's political leanings. But the best care enough about outcomes – and evidence – to consider and accept a variety of different solutions. They care enough about their communities to support their desires for the betterment of the local environment.
Simeon Brown did not care when people and communities differed from his worldview - even when they voted for his party. He only cared about drumming up a bizarre culture war, and delved deeply and inappropriately into project detail to do so.
Again: Simeon Brown was not a normal Minister of Transport.
Now, in Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's cabinet reshuffle, the transport role has been given to Chris Bishop, who retains his roles as the Minister for Housing and Minister for Infrastructure.
Chris Bishop is a National Party politician: his rollback of Kāinga Ora and moving responsibility for social housing to community housing providers, are examples of him sticking to the party line.
Yet there's also plenty of evidence he's an evidence-based guy, with a much more rational approach to policymaking.
Within his housing portfolio he's made some positive moves with 'Going for Housing Growth' which has the potential to fill in the hole of Auckland's donut-shaped development pattern. This is despite National pulling out of the bi-partisan Medium Density Residential Standards in 2023.
Bishop has also been pushing for a cross-party long-term infrastructure plan, and with the Infrastructure Commission currently developing a 'menu' of verified projects for the Infrastructure Priorities Programme, there could be a good foundation to do so.
Now that he has the Transport portfolio, Bishop could have the opportunity to genuinely push for a far more credible cross-party agreement, without the bad-faith fanaticism of Simeon Brown.
What his actions and rhetoric so far demonstrate, is Chris Bishop can be a normal Minister of Transport, as New Zealanders deserve.
It will be interesting to see if there's a mood to reverse some of the destruction left in the wake of Simeon's reign as Minister of Transport to be reversed – or whether political momentum (and the most ideological GPS ever written) shackles Bishop to the same maniacal path.
I don't think Bishop is motivated by the obsessive malice his predecessor showed; this switch brings the potential for change.
There's no doubt RoNs will continue to be the focus. But there may be an opportunity to scale back the mega-roads of the RoNs in order to free up funding for a wider range of projects. We might see a reversal of the some of the cuts to cycling and safety, and we might see sensible decisions to fund hard-won multi-modal projects like the Hill Street intersection upgrade.
Perhaps there's even hope that Simeon's deadly speed rule will be wound back a bit, restoring to communities the option to continue to calm streets in ways they choose, at speed limits they choose. And there's also some hope that Bishop gets the vital role of abundant transport choice in lowering emissions, reducing pollution, improving health, shaping our urban fabric, and helping people cope with the cost of living. These are all things New Zealanders want, and vote for.
No one can predict the future – but we can reasonably feel a lot more optimistic with Chris Bishop as Minister of Transport.
Meanwhile, with Simeon taking up Health, he's inadvertently been given a hospital pass. Health is a tricky role, and with way he acted in the transport and local government space, he will likely end up in hot water sooner rather than later.
And as Simeon's stint as transport czar recedes in the rear-view mirror, what tangible evidence of his legacy will remain in a few short years?
People are still riding the cycleways built by his predecessors in greater and greater numbers, and have enjoyed the fruits of public transport investment - while Simeon just threw billions, bullying, and bluster at the sector. And is getting out before any of those pigeons come home to roost.
Thankfully his name won't be etched for all time on the opening plaque for CRL, as all of his decisions seemed driven by only taking actions which 'visibly' helped motorists - regardless of the evidence. What has he done, other than cause division and desolation?
Who's going to celebrate that? A sad thing, to have a negative, invisible legacy.
Those working in the health sector need our sympathy though.
Christopher ‘Spinner’ Luxon having absolutely no idea how to engage with the health system has now saddled it with the most dogmatic, inept, myopic, ideologue currently on New Zealand soil. Expect nothing good. And 2025 is off and racing. Same shit, different day.