A parliamentary select committee inquiry’s report into the future of inter-regional passenger rail in New Zealand hardly mentioned the South Island, and the words Otago and Canterbury did not appear once.
Otago Business School senior lecturer and rail advocate Duncan Connors said this was the sort of neglect that could be expected from a political landscape oriented to Auckland and Wellington.
"We live in an unproductive, irrationally centralised nation and politicians only focus on the low-hanging fruit 40km north and upward from Hamilton; the densely populated 50% of the country’s population that provides half the votes."
Promising better transport infrastructure for Auckland, Wellington "and their environs" made sense to politicians, but much of the country missed out on a fair deal, he said.
Parliament’s transport and infrastructure committee recommended scoping studies for inter-regional passenger rail services — Auckland to Wellington, Auckland to Tauranga, Napier to Wellington and an extension of the Capital Connection service beyond Palmerston North to nearby Feilding.
"We understand that there are a number of other potential inter-regional passenger rail routes, aside from the ones we have identified above, where further investigation would be beneficial," the committee said.
"In particular, we recognise that none of the routes we have identified above would service the South Island.
"We recommend that further investigation of different route options be undertaken to meaningfully compare and identify the costs, benefits and risks associated with different opportunities."
Save Our Trains spokesman Patrick Rooney said lack of reference to the South Island was the most disappointing aspect of the report.
Select committee chairman and Labour MP Shanan Halbert said the South Island was included in a recommendation that referred to "other" potential routes possibly worth investigating.
Dunedin city councillor Jim O’Malley said planners in Wellington were "not even remotely thinking about the South Island".
The combined 500,000 people of Christchurch and Dunedin seemed to be lost on the Government, he said.
