Story: Roads

‘Little Sydney’s rush hour traffic’

Watch footage from the late 1950s explaining how the taxes from petrol funded the National Roads Board. Auckland is termed ‘little Sydney’.

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Archives New Zealand - Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga

Reference: Pictorial Parde 67. National Film Unit, 1957

Permission of Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga must be obtained before any re-use of this material.

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How to cite this page

Carl Walrond, Roads – Centralised road funding, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/23322/little-sydneys-rush-hour-traffic (accessed 11 June 2026).

Story by Carl Walrond, published 2 March 2010, updated 1 March 2016.