It's embarrassing to live in a country where people can honestly say 'if I was rich I'd take the train'.
In the 1980s we had a passenger rail system that could get your from one end of the country to the other, on an ordinary worker's wage. But after more than 4 decades of corporatisation and underinvestment, intercity trains are marketed as a scenic tourist attraction, and only the well-heeled can afford a ticket to ride them.
(1/?)
My dad knew the editor of Rails magazine back in the 80s and 90s. There were regular editorials complaining about the lack of a “level playing field”, in that rail had to pay for everything including its right of way, where trucking firms got to share the cost with all other road users despite causing the lion’s share of wear and tear.
I find it ironic that it was the Muldoon government that electrified the Palmy to Te Rapa section.
(1/2)
@zkarj
> nice history
Thanks.
> Now do ones for the truck and bus companies. It shouldn’t take long!
You want to take a crack? ; )
Seriously though, last year, on the 40 year anniversary of Rogernomics, I realised that anyone younger than GenX probably has little or no memory of pre-coup NZ. I talked to a range of people about a political history website, and started taking extensive notes to get the ball rolling.
Is this something that would interest you?
(2/2)
The idea was to present the major changes of the 80s/90s. As well as the context they stepped into, and their legacy, which continues today. To show both the way it rolled out decade by decade, and year by year, but also the throughlines in the way it affected each sector. What it was like before, what happened during, and what's it's been like since.
I even proposed holding Citizen's Assembly or People's Inquiry to check it all, and make sure it factual and thoroughly referenced.
The enshittification of our public railways began with the National-led government. They converted a number of public service departments into publicly-owned corporations, including the NZ Railways Department in 1981/2.
Then in 1983, they changed the way transport was regulated, allowing goods to be moved long distance by road instead of by rail. As well as massively increasing wear and tear on public highways, this put railway freight in direct competition with commercial truckers.
(2/?)
But at this point, the railways were still being run as a public good, answerable to a government Minister. The enshittifcation continued with the Labour-led government elected in 1984. Whose policy platform many kiwis still refer to as "Rogernomics", after Finance Minister and unapologetic corporate rights extremist Roger Douglas, for whom the Roger Awards was named;
(3/?)
(1/?)
@CarolynStirling
> You will never convince me that Douglas wasn’t a RW plant into the Labour Party
I don't think so. For a start, look at the kind of policy he was pushing before 1984. All standard social democrat stuff.
Also, he wasn't alone in going down the corporatist rabbithole in the early 80s. Prebble, Caygill, and other Labour MPs did too, including Helen Clark. By 1987 they were the majority of the caucus, which is why they were able to roll Lange for firing Douglas as FM.
(2/?)
If Douglas was an outlier the Clark govt would have reversed the corporatist coup's policies in their first 100 days. Both those of Rogernomics and Ruthenasia. Instead, they mostly tinkered around the edges.
Eg they could have renationalised public infrastructure. Prosecuting corporate raiders like Brierly and Fay Richwhite for receiving stolen goods. But they either left it in corporate hands, or paid more than the original sale price to buy it back in an asset-stripped, run down state.
(3/?)
The 2017-2023 Labour government was marginally better. Partly because of Robertson, one of the few genuine social democrats to hold a Labour Cabinet position since the 80s. Partly because they were pulled to the left by the Greens and Winston First (ironic considering how far to the far right they've swung since 2020);
https://politicalcompass.org/nz2017
But Labour is still shot through with Rogernomes like Stuart Nash. Hipkins, despite his mealy-mouthed platitudes, made it clear he's one in 2023.
Labour started restructuring NZ Railways Corporation, selling off chunks of its infrastructure among their many "asset sales". In 1986 most of the remaining services and infrastructure, including the tracks themselves (but not the land under them), were transferred to NZ Rail. This was one of their newly-created "state-owned enterprises". Run like any other for-profit corporation, despite being wholly owned by the public, and managing assets built up through decades of public spending.
(4/?)
The next step in the enshittification came under the National-led government elected in 1990. Many kiwis still call their policy platform as "Ruthenasia" after another Finance Minister and unapologetic corporate rights extremist, Ruth Richardson.
National embarked on a 3 years fire sale of public services and infrastructure ("state assets") to corporate extractors. NZ Rail was sold in 1993 - including most publicly-owned passenger rail and ferry services - and renamed Trans Rail.
(5/?)
Trains Rail quickly became infamous, particularly for the number workers killed on the job by its lax safety standards, mostly due to ruthless cost-cutting. It won the Roger Award in 1997, 2000 and 2002, and in 2003 it was "shunted into the newly created Hall of Shame" and made ineligible for nomination, to give other horrible corporations a chance to win;
https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0306/S00057.htm
(6/?)
By then, National had been replaced in government by Labour, who were cautiously swinging back towards the centre of the political graph. Governing with the centre-left Alliance party, many of them Labour supporters who had left in protest at the hard-right positioning of the Douglas years.
In 2003 they bought most of the undermaintained rail infrastructure back from Trans Rail for NZ$50 million, vesting it in a new entity called ONTRACK, which started carrying out deferred maintenance.
(7/?)
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
