The politics of transport in New Zealand: a history of the policies of several governments towards the transport industry from 1918 to present day

Abstract

It was my original intention to make this thesis a complete account of government policies towards all forms of transport. This proved to be too great a task in the time available and I regret that I have had to omit chapters on civil aviation, coastal shipping and public transport, after conducting some research there. However, I believe the details of transport policy described are sufficient evidence to prove my conclusions. For instance, there are no better examples of the New Zealand method of solving an economic problem by a pragmatic political approach than the regulation of competition between road and rail and the system of financing highways.