Govt cash 'pouring' into region

The Government may be removing the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) office from Wanganui but it is also pouring money into the region to improve schools, houses and roads, Whanganui MP Chester Borrows says.
Mr Borrows has been fighting to keep the NZTA in town but said people should not lose sight of the overall situation.
Government figures outline the spend in the wider Whanganui region, although most of the figures lump the district in with others.
The Government responded to the recession by investing $7.5 billion into public amenities during the next five years. Two years ago it fast-tracked $500 million of this into housing, roads and education, in a package called Jobs and Growth.
Since February 2009, Wanganui schools have had $1.3 million spent on them.
Modernisation at Wanganui High School got the lion's share - nearly $590,000.
Rutherford Junior High got $268,000, Kai Iwi School $256,000, Waverley Primary School $135,000 and St John's Hill School $108,000.
Manawatu/ Whanganui roads had $13.4 million spent on them. That work included the Wikitoria Rd/State Highway 3 roundabout, rumble strips and blackspot treatment.
Across a wider region - Taranaki/ Whanganui/ Manawatu/ Wairarapa - 587 Housing New Zealand houses were upgraded, at an average per house cost of $8900.
Private houses are also being fitted with insulation and clean-heating devices. In the Manawatu/ Whanganui region, 3733 houses have been fitted since June 2009. Just over $5 million has been spent on insulation so far and $432,000 on clean heating.
Just beginning is a project to spend a further $2.7 million to upgrade, heat and insulate 100 houses at Ratana Pa.
Whanganui Labour candidate Hamish McDouall was less impressed by the spending. He said any Government needed to maintain schools, state houses and roads - and it didn't create long-term jobs.
However, Mr Borrows said the spending had created increased work opportunities in Wanganui and across the wider electorate.
But on the NZTA front, he said he would always disagree with centralisation of jobs to bigger centres when cost benefits were either negligible or marginal at best. "Decision-makers need to understand that provincial centres support much-needed primary production, which is the backbone of our economy but can't exist in a vacuum. There needs to be a solid infrastructure of jobs across the local economy for any provincial city to do well."
Mr McDouall agreed.
"If any city can talk about losing government jobs, we can. A good government would be apportioning government services around the country, sharing them around."
Mr McDouall did not want to be churlish about the road spending, because it was important to have safe and speedy roads, but said he preferred rail as a way of moving things around.
"Crowing" about this Government's spending on insulating and heating houses annoyed him.
It was carried over from a Labour initiative, he said.
"The main problem is that they put a ceiling on the amount that they could spend. A lot of landlords got in and warmed up their homes and ordinary Wanganui citizens didn't get it."