Debate on Crown Entities, Public Organisations,and State Enterprises — Transport Accident Investigation Commission

The vision that drives New Zealand’s transport future is admirable. I rise to examine the preparedness of Transit and Transfund to realise that vision. I want to examine the issue by referring to a real transport issue from my own community. Several weeks back, the Environment Court handed down a decision that confirmed an earlier decision made by Nelson Council - appointed commissioners not to approve a third highway, the Southern Link, into Nelson City. It was a decision the Greens endorsed, and the kind of decision we would expect to see more of in future under the Land Transport Management Act. However, having said that, we have considerable sympathy for local authorities confronted by transport issues, where all the advice and the vast bulk of the funding have been devoted to roads.

While roading decisions have been arrived at with the help of all the expertise Transit has at its disposal, and are likely to be substantially, if not totally, funded by Transfund, there appears to be no equivalent authority to advise on public transport initiatives and their implementation, on some of the more innovative and exciting cycling and pedestrian possibilities, or on planning mechanisms and land-use tools that might put at the community’s disposal a range of transport options or might persuade individuals and families to live closer to the places they live, work, shop, or go to school, and thus avoid the necessity of spending vast amounts of time getting to places they should have lived much closer to in the first place.

The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee noted that the ministry had adopted a sustainable transport vision, focusing on economic, social, and environmental sustainability, in line with the new Act. The committee was interested in how the ministry intended to achieve greater environmental sustainability and encourage people to move towards sustainable modes of transport. For instance, the report noted that approximately 30 percent of journeys were 2 kilometres or less. The committee noted that a key component of implementing change involved changing cultural attitudes. The report supported measures taken by the ministry to encourage people to move away from car travel towards alternative modes, such as walking, cycling, and the use of public transport. The culture will not change by itself. It requires commitment.

The Southern Link was more than an idea. It was a fully developed, if flawed, concept. Millions of dollars had gone into its planning, and millions more into pursuing it. Half a million dollars had been spent on air quality plans, so that the catchment through which the road was to run could accommodate the pollution generated by 30,000 cars a day. The road and the air quality plan demonstrated commitment. The Nelson City Council had budgeted $15,000 for a carpool hotline. Another $15,000 has been committed to extending the bus service. Millions of dollars in pursuing a road and half a million dollars for a clean air plan spells commitment, but $15,000 for a hotline or a bus service equates to lip service.

Traffic demand management will certainly be much less expensive, and, I suspect, more successful, than building roads, but traffic management is not free. Just as roads need planning and expertise, so do measures to persuade people out of their motorcars—at least, for some of their journeys. Traffic demand management will certainly be much less expensive and more successful than building roads, as I say, but traffic management is not free. Local authorities feel aggrieved when central government imposes its decisions on them without providing the wherewithal to carry them out. In that way, the Land Transport Management Act and the new land transport strategy, as admirable as they certainly are, must come with the necessary levels of expertise and funding that will enable councils to develop sustainable transport measures to meet New Zealand’s transport needs without the downsides of congestion and pollution, and the costs to health and quality of life that the roading approach has imposed on all New Zealanders for much too long.

We are concerned in the Green Party to ensure that councils are equipped to carry out the culture shift that the committee endorses in its report. Unless Transit New Zealand is matched by an equivalent authority to provide the expertise for non-roading transport initiatives, or is provided with a mandate and the personnel to help councils develop more imaginative transport solutions, then Transit itself may have outlived its usefulness.

The Greens have been pleased to work with the Government to provide leadership on transport issues. Transport and how we provide for it has implications for health, safety, air quality, and our exercise habits. It has implications for the economy. Auckland’s wish list has grown from $5 billion a year when we started the hearing into the Land Transport Management Act last year, to $8 billion at the end of last year, and to $10 billion at the beginning of this year. It is almost certainly a quality-of-life issue.

I welcome following a speaker from the Greens, because if ever I heard a party talk about transport issues from the bottom up, it was that party. I am astounded by some of the things the Greens stand for when it comes to transport matters.

Transport in this country is in a mess. It is either just getting out of a mess or just coming into a mess—and we can look at every mode of transport. Let us look at our airline industry. A few years ago we sold it, because marketeers were going to make it into the best airline in the world. But the Government had to rescue it—and it cost $800 million to rescue it. What about our railways? My leader only the other day, apparently, put some railway brakes on the table. I was not here; I missed that. The railways are in a mess, and there is a Railways Bill going through a select committee right at this moment to sort out the safety issue. Then there is the shipping industry. I know that the Minister has inherited a problem with that. The Government has sat on its hands and done nothing for 3 years, although it has had a shipping industry review since December 2000.

Every time I have an opportunity—and the member over there knows it full well—I ask a question about our shipping industry. I should give the Minister a piece of advice. In my view, he has two options: go with cabotage, which is what the seafarers want; or go with a favourable tax regime like a tonnage tax, which the British have. Cabotage will cost more. Undoubtedly, it will cost more for exporters and more for the users of ships. A tonnage tax like the one the British have adopted will encourage the development of shipping, and it will cost the users less. That is the way to put our shipping industry on par with international shipping. We owe it to the people of New Zealand, an island nation down in the bottom of the South Pacific and miles from anywhere, to have a reasonable, efficient shipping fleet. I have stood by that view as long as I have been in this Parliament, and I am hopeful that this new Minister of Transport will do something in the not too distant future.

Let us now look at roading. Roading has been so heavily influenced by the Green Party that we will go backwards. If the Greens had their way, they would tear up the roads. They are anti-roads, and anti-car.

Reports noted.