Archive for the 'Motoring' Category

Let’s have no truck with Kamikaze King

Topic: Consumer, Motoring, Politics, The economy

The price of just about everything (apart from houses and shares) is going through the roof, thanks to rocketing fuel costs. Many thousands are suffering genuine hardship that cannot be eased by Working for Families hand-outs, and we are in recession. So what does our Government do to protect the poor and vulnerable? It piles [...]

Petrol-heads and thick-heads

Topic: Advertising, Consumer, Environment, Media, Motoring, Politics, The economy

In the face of rocketing fuel costs that – if they continue rising for much longer – will have very serious consequences for our economy and population, what does our Government do? It announces a futile public inquiry into petrol prices that will take six weeks and cost another small fortune in taxpayer funds. Commerce [...]

Harry sallies forth and confronts the mobile phone threat, head-on

Topic: Consumer, Law and order, Motoring, Politics, Society

Congratulations to Transport Minister Harry Duynhoven for finally realising that it is not possible to use a mobile phone while in charge of a moving vehicle without endangering lives. This fact has been painfully clear to other transport ministers in nations where traffic densities are much higher and where a ban on mobile phone use [...]

Why Labour doesn’t add up, continued…

Topic: Consumer, Motoring, Politics, Your money

Here is a short lesson in basic arithmetic, for the benefit of Finance Minister Michael Cullen. It’s the sort of stuff they try to teach very young children.
If the pre-GST price of a litre of petrol is $2, the post-tax price is $2.25.
If you remove GST on fuel, the pump price is $2, saving 25c. [...]

Driving ambitions, slow brains and clogged arteries

Topic: Consumer, Environment, Motoring, Politics, Your money

Motorists are always easy prey when government - whether national or local - is looking for new sources of income. Wellington Regional Council has wasted $198,000 on investigating congestion charges for drivers. Chairwoman Fran Wilde now says the idea “is not on the table”, which is at odds with what she said last year: the [...]

Woeful Warblings over Wanaka

Topic: Consumer, Motoring

Easter weekend’s Warbirds over Wanaka was an impressive event. It probably brought the organisers at least $5 million from ticket sales, plus countless fortunes earned from in-show spin-offs and by air show traders and local businesses who blithely ignored Easter trading laws. The organisers say it brings in more than $50 million to the local [...]

Rules is Rules is…

Topic: Consumer, Law and order, Motoring, Politics, Society, Your money

The “all smacking is abuse” folk – who can’t tell the difference between a slap on the wrist or the backside and a punch in the head or beating with blunt objects, riding crops, and so on – are now trying a different tack.
They deride the petition that has passed the magic 300,000 mark [...]

Four wheels good, two wheels bad

Topic: Consumer, Environment, Motoring, Society

Summer’s here, and ’tis the season when Kiwi motorcyclists wash the dust and cobwebs off their bikes, recharge their batteries and roar away.
New Zealand is the biker’s true paradise, but France is the safer alternative. Most French four-wheel drivers – despite being up to their eyeballs on Chateau Rotgut most of the time – look [...]