National MPs called on him to resign over the case. Mallard had apologised to the man for remarks he made in May 2019, in the wake of a report into bullying and harassment at Parliament. Mallard said he thought a rape allegation had been made against a man working at Parliament. It turned out the complaint against the man did not include rape.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Trevor Mallard spoke to the governance and administration select committee after the defamation claim was settled. Mallard did not name him, but the man said that people he worked with would have known it was him Mallard was talking about.
But in September, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s board approved a new cost estimate of $170m with an upper cost estimate of $205m. That’s about a quarter of what the nearby Transmission Gully was originally meant to cost, before it too blew its budget. Transport Minister Michael Wood said he was “working through” issues relating to the cost increase.
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Plans for the fast-tracked Ngāūranga to Petone cycleway from Waka Kotahi. “The nature of those projects is there’s initially some high level scoping that occurs in terms of making cost comparisons with similar projects, “You then get into the specific work looking at the geotechnical requirements, the safety requirements, the particular requirements of the route and that helps build up an indication of what the cost might be.”
The GWRC has since said it plans to have a bus service between Wellington Airport and Wellington city up and running again by mid-2022. The council will make a decision about extending the route to Lower Hutt once submissions on the transport plan close on March 19. In the first 24 hours after the launch of Fight for the Flyer, 700 people made submissions. During the weekend, another 400 added their voices. One submitter was a 93-year-old who said trying to get from their Hutt Valley home to the airport to board a plane tovisit relatives in Auckland was difficult without a direct bus.
Source:Â Hutt City Council
Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry, City Councillor Deborah Hislop and MPs Ginny Andersen and Chris Bishop have joined together to lead the Fight for the Flyer Campaign â encouraging people to submit to the Regional Council to ensure the airport bus service is returned to Lower Hutt.
Greater Wellington Regional Council is currently consulting on its Regional Public Transport Plan. This includes a proposal to introduce a public bus service by 2022 between Wellington Station to Wellington Airport, but to axe the Lower Hutt service.
The Fight for the Flyer campaign encourages people to make a submission to the Regional Council to support reinstating an airport bus service between Lower Hutt and the airport. Submissions can be made at hutt.city/airportflyer or by visiting any library or community hub in Lower Hutt.