Did Little even talk to Goff on his bribe?

Radio NZ reports:

The Labour Party cannot rely on Auckland Council to pay half of the cost of its light rail proposal for Auckland, with mayor Phil Goff questioning whether the council should have to pay anything.

So Labour’s bribe for the byelection didn’t even have the support of Phil Goff, who was in their caucus up until a few weeks ago.

The city’s new mayor Phil Goff agreed, but questioned whether the council should have to put anything toward the network, as it could be treated as a road of national significance, and be fully funded by central government.

Except it is not a road. It is a local rail link.

Goff seems to think that everything in Auckland should be funded by the taxpayers of Gore, Whanganui and Hastings.

“It will be carrying far more passengers than many other roads around New Zealand that are funded 100 percent, so we’d want to negotiate between the Labour Party position of 50 percent funding and what would currently be paid for a road of national significance by central government, which is 100 percent,” he said.

Roads are funded 100% by road users through road user charges and petrol tax. The equivalent for light rail would be for that to be funded 100% by those who actually use it.

So Goff is advocating that Wellingtonians should not have their petrol taxes spent on local roads such as Transmission Gully but instead be used to fund Labour’s light rail bribe for Mt Roskill.