Accountability

Over the past months we've learned of a crisis in NZTA's oversight of vehicle warrants of fitness, with garages allowed to issue thousands of dodgy warrants to unsafe vehicles and the work of truck inspectors not checked. People have died as a result of this slackness. And now, NZTA's CEO has finally accepted responsibility and resigned:

New Zealand Transport Agency chief executive Fergus Gammie has resigned.

He announced his resignation today after months of mounting pressure over the agency's failure to enforce road safety regulations.

Good. While Gammie was only CEO since 2016, he was part of this problem and he needed to go. As chief executive, the failings of the agency are his responsibility, and he has to carry the can for it. But we should also consider the role of the politicians whose penny-pinching cuts ultimately caused this problem by starving NZTA of the resources necessary to do its job. Gerry Brownlee and Simon Bridges should be being held responsible for this as well. A man died because of their cuts and their ideology. But I suspect that that doesn't impinge on their consciences at all.