Gareth Hughes a clown once more

What the Greens say about an unprofitable Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service.

Ohhh a new rail link? Yes, we want it, you should pay for it, it must be good, it's a railway. People like trains, see the petition of those people who want it? No we didn't ask how often they'd use it, stop being mean, we want it, you pay for it. Go on, it's good for you. How much? We don't know, who cares, you'll be made to pay anyway. It will reduce congestion? How much? We don't know, we ignored any evidence that says it will do nothing.

Gareth Hughes is proving he is as much of a clown as Keeping Stock showed he himself demonstrates.

He says "the commuter rail connection had real merit and offered a long-term option for linking Auckland and Hamilton. Yes, so hard to get between those cities with that state highway, the buses that use it and even the Overlander rail service.

He goes on as the Waikato Times reports "Hughes pointed to the 2011 World Cup as a "great incentive to get a commuter service happening"". Yes, nothing so good for the environment as encouraging Aucklanders to live in Hamilton and commute, and commuting has everything to do with the Rugby World Cup, right?

Follow the thinking so far? Well Gareth doesn't even know there is a railway already between Auckland and Hamilton (most of it double-tracked) "The Greens wanted to see a "corridor of national significance", with construction of a rail-line – or space for it to be built – alongside the Waikato Expressway". Presumably he's never actually travelled between the two cities by land.

This staggering level of ignorance should render the Greens as being a laughing stock. Let alone the wilful blindness of the Greens and local authorities in Waikato ignoring that the last time such a service was trialled, it was for 16 months from 2000 to 2001, undertaken by the then privately owned and unsubsidised Tranz Rail (you know that awful foreign company that leftwing legend has it destroyed the railways). The trial was not a success, even though it used the relatively comfortable Silverfern railcars, it carried on average 12 passengers a day south of Pukekohe.

That's not even a profitable busload. A profitable rail service would need to carry at least 12 times what the trial did, every day, in each direction.

However, the Greens aren't about economics, or reason, for them railways are a religion, and any idea of a new service must inherently be good because trains are good, always.

You should be forced to pay for them because of this, because it is about faith "Mr Hughes said the Greens did not have costings for a Hamilton-Auckland commuter rail link, but they believed the cost-benefit ratios would still be greater than those for new roads.

No costing, no idea about how many people would use it, but they BELIEVE it would be more beneficial than new roads.

If the Greens are so blindly ignorant about something which is rather easy to dismiss, can you imagine how often the Greens engage in such a faith based view of the world (especially given how they dismiss those who have one they disagree with?).