Mike Hosking: Julie Anne Genter's peddling nostalgia, not sensible cycling policy

Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter clearly enjoys cycling, which makes her highly highly unusual.

COMMENT: Small irony in Julie Anne Genter's first day back at work from having a baby, is she used NZTA to spend some more of our money.

You know NZTA? The agency currently under investigation for not doing their jobs around warrants. That same agency handed out millions on bike programmes.

Julie Anne, in a fit of nostalgia, wants all kids on bikes cycling merrily to school. She cites the 1980s (I'm a kid of the 80s) and in the 80s, she wistfully recalled, half of us biked or walked to school.

She is right, I biked and walked to school. I mainly walked because anyone who goes to school knows that bikes and a lot of bags, books and sports gear is hopeless. It was easier to talk, which is what we did by and large.

Now what we didn't do is have millions spent on us to one, give us bikes and two, teach us how to ride bikes. So clearly Julie Anne has decided if you can't afford a bike the state can buy you one, and then having got one, if you can't ride it, the state will pay for that as well.

I would argue if you can't ride a bike, then stay off it. Because there is a saying, and the saying is "it's like riding a bike." And the reason that's a saying is because its reference is that riding a bike is easy, which it is. Which then means if you find it hard, you're not a natural, and if you're not a natural, then biking isn't for you.

None of this money is going to see her dream come true because life, I am afraid, has moved on. We don't bike like we used to, kids are driven because of traffic, lifestyle, and distance.

Bikes for kids aren't actually that useful. Maybe she'll learn that when her kid turns 11, and they have three tonnes of books to carry.

As for poor kids getting state-funded bikes, I was a poor kid and my mum saved and for my birthday I got a second-hand bike which she painted purple, because that was my colour, and stuck a banana seat on.

Comparatively it would have cost not a lot, today even less, given the market for cheap Chinese product.

It is not the state's roll to give kids bikes. Wasn't then, isn't now.

When we got a bike we took it to the park, and fell off. And when we stopped falling off, and could do skids and wheelies, we knew what we were doing. No one from a government department ever came anywhere near us.

And my school had about four bike sheds in which literally hundreds and hundreds of bikes could be parked, she paying for those too?

Just because we don't do what we used to doesn't make it bad, life is different, lifestyles are different.

The Government have fallen into the trap of thinking that using other people's money by the millions will somehow transport us to another age we left behind.

But we left it behind for good reason, which is not to say bikes are bad, because they aren't. But it is to say, she's taking that horse with our money and wanting to stick its head in the pond, and drown it trying to teach it to drink.

And it's all based on ideology. You must remember, Julie Anne cycled to hospital to give birth. Good on her, she likes bikes. But what she failed to understand at the time, and clearly since, is that makes her highly highly unusual. She is not like us, thank the good Lord.

So stop wasting our money.