Social Implications

4. If the North Auckland Rail Line closes down, what effects might this have for the community in the future?

If the North Auckland Rail Line closes down, what effects might this have for the community in the future? Very positive

Positive

Mixed

Negative

Very negative

What specific effects might the closure have? Please consider families, employment, road accidents, youth, education, culture and so on.

Social concerns about the discontinuation of Northern rail service

High unemployment rates of Northland combined with uncertainty of bulk carrying transport systems will see a continuing trend of the best and brightest of trades and professional people leaving the region with their families.

Global energy supplies are diminishing while population increases pushing up the cost of passenger and goods transport increasing the costs of production due to distance from markets. If this creates more urban drift, the urban centres infrastructure becomes stressed, pushing up the costs of infrastructure per head of population in Auckland. Higher living cost always have social impacts.

Certainty of rail transport opens opportunity for sustainable development along the rail line. Where rail intersects with existing infrastructure industries can establish providing employment opportunities for rural communities.

The opportunity for passenger transport with novel smaller railcars to provide more frequent services. This would allow people from smaller communities to socialise in larger centres and smaller communities hosting events to be able to provide the transport to bring in the people from larger centres to spend their disposable income in rural towns and villages.

Even if the rail does not operate with all of the free market indicators of being a sucessful business model we must remind ourselves that it was sucessful free market business models that brought about the global financial crisis. The indirect economic benefits may over ride direct costs creating social benfits that generate down stream economic benefits with multiplier effects. We must venture outside of the failed system forced upon us by the IMF the World Bank and WTO.

We must examine who the decision makers are. Is Bob Field still the Chair of Toyota and Director of Kiwirail ? Is this a conflictof interest? Does a conflict of interest an create an unacceptable social burden? What is the social cost of conflict of interest? Does it represent the undermining of democratic process?

Just some thoughts