Third Readings

I move, That the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These four bills, which give effect to the New Zealand Transport Strategy and the recommendations of the transport sector review, reflect this Government’s commitment to achieving the New Zealand Transport Strategy vision of creating an affordable, integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable transport system by 2010.

I was pleased to note the support for the main features of the legislation, which broaden the objectives and functions of the Civil Aviation Authority and the Maritime Safety Authority to align with the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy; dissolve the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund New Zealand and replace them with a new Crown land transport entity, Land Transport New Zealand; and integrate safety funding with other land transport funding.

The Transport Legislation Bill, which is now split into four bills, was referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which considered submissions from a range of interested parties. The majority of those submissions provided qualified support for the bill. Where there were concerns, the committee has carefully considered those, and made recommendations for improvement. The committee made a great job of further refining the bill, and I fully support its recommendations.

The changes that have been made to the legislation are technical in nature and largely respond to concerns about the prominence of safety and ensuring that the full range of New Zealand Transport Strategy objectives are considered in rule making. Those changes help to consolidate the policy principles underlying the legislation, rather than represent any significant change in direction. Some have tried to argue that the concept of safety at reasonable cost should be retained. The New Zealand Transport Strategy reflects that New Zealand in the 21st century is a sophisticated place. Our society has a range of economic, social, and environmental goals. This legislation implements this Government’s policy, as set out in its New Zealand Transport Strategy, by widening the focus of the relevant transport safety legislation, from safety at reasonable cost to contributing to the aim of achieving an integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable transport system. This provides a framework that can address the full range of transport objectives, while taking into account economic, social, and environmental considerations, as well as those pertaining to safety. The legislation does not mean that safety is less important, and the changes made to the legislation by the House make it clear that safety continues to be a significant consideration.

The legislation also provides the institutional arrangements for the Government’s transport sector agencies that will underpin the strategy. This includes the establishment of a new Crown transport entity, Land Transport New Zealand. These arrangements will overcome past fragmentation and enable the sector to take a broader and more collaborative approach to transport planning and management. The Government intends that New Zealanders will be well served by an integrated, affordable, safe, and sustainable transport system, as envisaged in the New Zealand Transport Strategy. There is a need for the Government transport agencies, as a whole, to jointly own and contribute to the achievement of the strategy. The Government is getting New Zealand moving again.

What a disappointing third reading speech that was. Here we have four bills being debated as one, and the Minister has had weeks to prepare an erudite, exciting, blistering defence, but I have to say that I have heard the Goons reading stuff late at night on National Radio with more fervour than that Minister can manage.

National Party members are very sad that we are having to vote against these four bills, which started off as one, because in the main we support the general thrust of what was trying to be achieved. The previous Minister quite rightly decided, after a number of years of the new regime, that it was time to review. If we go back to the early 1990s there was just the one monolithic, the Ministry of Transport, which had been broken up into various components—the Civil Aviation Authority, the Maritime Safety Authority, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission, the Land Transport Safety Authority, and a whole range of others. Then Transit was broken up into Transfund and Transit, in terms of the State highway. It was clearly time to go back to review and to look at those agencies and at whether there was duplication—or quadruplication in some cases—to see where we could get rationalisation without compromising specific roles.

The key objective was to do two things. One was to try to make operational issues lie within the operational units and to bring policy issues back to the Ministry of Transport, where they should lie, and we applaud the Government for doing that. Had National been in power at present, I think our review would have come up with a very similar finding. We think that is right. I think it was wrong to leave the Land Transport Safety Authority with some of the control and the powers it had. The authority used to drive me nuts when I was Minister, and I used to think that that control should be back in the ministry, where the Minister at least has some say—I have to say, not all that one would like to have, but that will be for another day. However, when it came to operational areas, where the authority should be working on operational matters, the policy function has now been taken out. We applaud that.

The second thing I was worried about is that it was rumoured the Government might re-merge the funder/provider split within Transit and Transfund. I am delighted to see that it did not do that. There was a worry that this Government would say that it did not need those two separate bodies and that it would now make Transit and Transfund one again. I have to say that would be a great mistake, because in the past there were all sorts of accusations—some real, some imaginary—that Transit, while it was both the funder of all roading and the provider of State highways, had a conflict of interest in maybe deciding to do its own roads before it did others.

So, again, I was very pleased to see the Government decide not to combine them. It realised that there does not need to be two boards, two executive management teams, two public relations groups, and all the other peripheral systems that go with those agencies. So the proposal was to move the Land Transport Safety Authority and the Transfund funding operation into the one body called Land Transport New Zealand. Again, the National Party agrees with that.

Now, anybody listening to my speech would say that until this point it sounds as if I think what has happened is good. The answer to that is, yes—absolutely. However, I simply cannot understand the Government doing one last thing that has forced us to vote against the legislation. The Government has taken out the absolutely crucial benchmark measure that one has to have in transport, which is “safety at reasonable cost”. I will say it again for those who are listening for the first time to this debate, that that measure is important when one is making proper judgment calls on decisions about any transport policy. If there was not the “at reasonable cost” measure, one proposal that the Minister already could come up with today to save hundreds of deaths on the road would be to set the speed limit at 5 kilometres per hour. The Minister could do that. He could say: “Right, we are moving to a 5 kilometres per hour speed limit on the roads.” There would probably be almost no deaths, other than from boredom, but it would not be at reasonable cost. The economy would collapse, New Zealand would not function as a nation, and we would not be able to get our goods and services to market. So it would be a stupid law.

However, while there was “safety at reasonable cost” within the legislation, where a proper measure could be used whenever a proposal came up—be it realigning a road, building a new bridge, some new vehicle standards or emission standards, or whatever—one could measure the cost. In the case of aviation, whether it was to do with certification of aircraft and so on, it was quite clearly possible to measure the cost of doing it. One could quite clearly measure what the benefits would be to the economy overall, such as whether it would save a number of lives, reduce congestion, improve traffic flows, and so on.

The old rule of “safety at reasonable cost” simply said: “Go ahead and do it, if the benefits to the economy are more than the cost of doing it.” I simply do not know anybody, from an apparatchik in the Czechoslovakian Communist party to the extreme John Birch Society of the United States, who cannot see that it is a sensible rule. “Do not do it, unless the benefits outweigh the costs.” Sometimes the benefits might be three times the cost, or it might be four or five times the benefit-cost ratio, but at least the benefits of doing something have to be greater than the costs. But here is the rub: the Greens got into the act with their mucky, grubby little hands, as they do, and squeezed the Labour Government. They said: “We don’t like ‘safety at reasonable cost’ because with that in place, we’ll never get logs carried from forests on bicycles.”

💬 Darren Hughes: How did you find out?

One of the members leaked it to me. The Greens said they wanted that clause out. The Labour Government was reasonably sensible and all the rest of it. I could find no officials’ advice that said to take out the words “safety at reasonable cost”. But it was exactly as the Greens wanted.

I know that the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, told people in Auckland, including the previous Mayor of Auckland, that she regretted letting the Greens get so much of their way on the old land transport management legislation, and I say to the Labour Government that it will regret letting the Greens get so much of a say on this legislation, as well. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government is not prepared to use that discipline. And it is a very strong discipline.

When I was a Minister, every time officials got wheeled into my office the first thing I used to flick to was the benefit-cost ratios, and I would ask: “What are you suggesting this for? This has got a lunatic cost to the nation and, as far as I can see, almost no benefit.” So the issue was killed. However, other proposals when wheeled up looked good. I have to say that the one I do not think we even got to doing a benefit-cost appraisal on—because I went nuclear on it—was the Land Transport Safety Authority suggestion that we might use safety helmets for motorcar drivers. No economy in the world does that. Anyone who does a benefit-cost ratio would realise just what a stupid proposal that was. However, that proposal could raise its ugly head again.

I want to know from the Minister why he would not want that discipline. Why would he as Minister not want to know he could sleep soundly in bed at night while officials beaver away on the next little light bulb that lights up in their heads, knowing that at least they could not go outside the bounds of “safety at reasonable cost”—

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: We don’t fear them; we just tell them what to do.

I tell the Minister that he should fear them. He should greatly fear some of the officials within some of these agencies. Be afraid, I say to the Minister, be very afraid. They sit there daily thinking that because they are being paid, they had better come up with another idea—something else that is stupid, like the window-tinting issue. If the Minister ever wants to know about losing sleep, let the Land Transport Safety Authority take him through the window-tinting issue again and see how he feels about it. Again, that window-tinting issue was very clearly able to be dealt with when we looked at what the benefits were to the economy compared with the ludicrous costs that were to be put in place.

So I say again, the National Party will oppose the four bills that come out of the Transport Legislation Bill—the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill—for one simple reason: had the Minister been prepared to leave a sensible statement in the legislation that all safety would be delivered at reasonable cost, then we would have signed up to it on the day and there would have been no need to have a split vote.

That was a disappointing speech. I know that the member is in fact rejoicing, as he will no longer have to pay the counsellor he has been visiting, ever since he was the Minister of Transport, about his worries and fears of having to deal with The Land Transport Safety Authority. He has told everybody in the country his stories of horror about the Land Transport Safety Authority. Here is legislation that actually does away with an organisation that Maurice Williamson has denigrated from one end of the country to the other, and his miserable party will not even let him have a personal vote to support the Government. He absolutely wants to do that, because he knows that this is good legislation, that it is a sensible measure, and that it is a big step forward. Mr Williamson has been whipped into line and made to vote against legislation that he knows is eminently sensible and very workable.

He also knows, as the Minister would tell him if he had another speech, that all of the advice, from right across the board, on that so-called wonderful “reasonable cost” apparatus said that it did not work. It was well passed its use-by date, and select committee members who visited the Maritime Safety Authority’s rescue coordination centre were scratching their heads as to why a lot more was not being done in the area of water safety in this country. I told them why: reasonable cost in the law stopped them from doing it, because reasonable cost in those frameworks is dependent on how much money there is to do it in the beginning. And if we have a miserable Government, like the National Government was, that is not able to put any money into safety, then reasonable cost is used as an excuse to do nothing. “Reasonable cost” becomes “least cost”.

There are a significant number of people who are concerned about safety in this land who have come up against reasonable cost, not as a sensible measure of whether the Government should act in a particular way but as an excuse for doing nothing. When we became the Government, we put real money into the safety programmes of areas that had been starved of money—and look at the results. We have a much better result in the area of road safety. We are seeing improvements in all of those other areas that were starved of funding.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The cost is going up.

That has nothing to do with reasonable cost. If the member opposite would care to read some of the words that he knows are in the law, he would see that they talk about assisting economic development. How could we put a stupid rule or law into place that had to be tested against that one alone? It would very quickly be in front of the courts. Industries that are concerned about unreasonable costs being put upon them would ask how a stupid rule or law that adds so much cost for so little benefit could get through the tests that any law changes or rules would have to get through.

So it is a nonsense for National Party members to say they are voting against this legislation because “reasonable cost” has been taken out. It is just pathetic Opposition politics. They did not like the fact that the Greens might have had a say, so they decided to vote against it—I mean, let us grow up here. That is not any basis on which to have a policy. But that is what passes for policy in the National Party nowadays.

If Mr Williamson was given his head and allowed to do his thing, he would be voting for this legislation. He would be celebrating and saying that, yes, the Land Transport Safety Authority used to drive him mad as a Minister, and it is good to get rid of it. But he would also say, as I would, to the chair of that authority and its board members that in terms of the revenue-gathering side it is a job well done. They have put together one of the best pieces of computer work in this nation to do the job they do in that area. Yes, they put up some advice on safety that Ministers would tear their hair out about, but that is their job. It is called free and frank advice, and sensible Government processes see the bad stuff put aside and the good stuff come through.

We have got transport working in this country in the last 5 years, cooperatively with parties such as the Greens, in a way that the Tories never managed. Here they are, beating their chests about how great they are at doing things and how many motorways they would build, and we cannot find any anywhere that they actually built in 9 long years. When we go around the country we see there is an enormous deficit of transport infrastructure, and it is all down to 9 years of pontification by the National Party. National wrote a policy, Better Transport, Better Roads, which was thrown in the rubbish bin and rejected. It fills a cupboard in the Minister of Transport’s office. It has been kept as a memento, and a reminder, of the foolishness of the National Party, which upset every Tory council in the country.

When I visited the councils, as the new Minister of Transport, they could not believe it. They said: “This is a Minister of Transport who wants to listen.”, and I did. They said: “We don’t need great revolutions; we just need sensible Government and some money.” So that is what we have given them. The Green Party and the Labour Party can be proud of the work that is going on. The busway in Auckland is under way, and the biggest motorway project in Auckland in many, many decades is actually being built. A lot of Auckland MPs who visited that project last week were amazed at what this Government has been able to achieve in such a short time, and this legislation will push it along even further. I just wish Mr Williamson was allowed to vote for it, instead of being whipped by his party and being told what to do.

I think that the former Minister of Transport summed it up pretty well, and New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation. However, I think to some degree that the Government will be hoist with its own petard, for want of a better statement.

One of the four bills that this legislation has been split into is the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2). So that members fully understand it, I will quote from section 14, “Objectives of Minister”, which is proposed to be substituted for the current section 14 of the Civil Aviation Act by clause 5 of the bill. It provides that: “The objectives of the Minister under this Act are—(a) to undertake the Minister’s functions in a way that contributes to the aim of achieving an integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable transport system; …”, and so it goes on. The bit that concerns me is the term “responsive”.

Right now, as I speak in this House, the Director of Civil Aviation has grounded 10 Wessex helicopters that were brought into the country for logging purposes, and there has been no adequate explanation. Only this very afternoon I asked the Minister for Transport Safety some questions, and I have to say that the answers were less than satisfactory. The director must give a reason to that company for not allowing those helicopters to fly. It is ridiculous, in New Zealand First’s view, that the company has had to take out an injunction, which will be heard tomorrow, against the director and ask the judge to determine a course of action. The Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) will, I believe, put a greater onus on the Minister to ensure that there is a reasonable response in a timely fashion.

Another bill embraced by this legislation is the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. This is probably the major concern when it comes to the argument over reasonable cost. I thought that the Hon Maurice Williamson made some very sensible and cogent remarks, but the examples he used were somewhat childish. He could have used better examples of the application of reasonable cost. Again, I think the Government will be hoist with its own petard on this, because the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill refers to assisting economic development.

One area that needs to be developed in this country is our roading system. It has been starved of funding for many, many years. Regrettably, although the Government is endeavouring to do something towards addressing the roading problem, it has not done enough. It has not adopted what New Zealand First would term a businesslike approach. It is still carrying on the old method of a “pay as you go” type of approach. No area is suffering more from this approach than areas of Auckland, in particular, and Tauranga. I believe that Wellington is suffering to a lesser degree, and that places further south are suffering to an even lesser degree still.

In terms of Tauranga, we need a second harbour bridge and we need it now. It should be funded by Transit.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: There is not enough money.

Well, if the Minister took a businesslike approach to funding, there would be plenty of money. We do not need to increase the petrol tax—as the Government is about to do—and we do not need to implement a tolling regime.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: Sounds like Social Credit to me.

No, it is not Social Credit. It is the exact same way that any major business would fund capital development anywhere in the country.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: You mean, borrow?

I mean borrow, and—

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: How will you service the loan?

We will service the loan by using the money that comes through from road-user charges and petrol tax that is currently—

💬 Jeanette Fitzsimons: It will cost a lot more.

It will not cost more, and I do not mind entering into a debate on this. It will not cost a lot more. It will cost more, but we will have the roads in place more quickly, and the economic gains from those roads being in place will be huge. The Automobile Association commissioned a report called the Allen report, and I invite members to read it.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: We have it.

Well, read it and take it on board, because it points out very, very clearly the economic gains.

Getting back to the legislation, I believe that inserting the provision “assisting economic development” in the Land Transport Management Act will give greater thrust to taking a businesslike approach to developing roading in this country, and to making it safe and practical for all involved. We do not need tolls or to increase the road tax regime. It is deplorable what New Zealanders are forced to pay right now.

One aspect about this bill that does concern me, and which I must mention, is the fact that the Government did not make it simpler. The definition of “land transport”, to be inserted in section 5 of the Land Transport Management Act by clause 25(2) of the bill, embraces “coastal shipping (including transport by means of harbour ferries, or ferries or barges on rivers or lakes) and associated infrastructure”. I understand that provision is talking about funding only. So why does the bill not just simply say that? It could say that for the purposes of this bill, coastal shipping, ferries, and so on can get funding from the appropriate organisation, which would be Transfund. I do not see why the bill has to define coastal shipping as a means of land transport. Later on, the bill states that transport on land does not include ships, ferries, and what have you. To me, that complicates a fairly simple issue. I think it would be a hard job for many New Zealanders to understand that provision.

A third area of concern is the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and a fourth bill, the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill effectively changes the name of the Maritime Safety Authority to Maritime New Zealand. We think, with its increased responsibilities, that is a sensible way to go, and it is only right and practical. Most of this legislation is common-sense stuff. Most of it will improve the situation in this country.

I would like in my final comments to refer to the benefit ratio of reasonable cost. That was an argument that was well put up by some submitters, and was of some considerable concern. However, hopefully the wording in this legislation that refers to economic gains will overcome those difficulties.

I hope that a practical, common-sense application will be applied to the various issues that will arise. The one that sticks in my mind as being rather naive is putting seat belts in school buses. The cost of that would be totally impractical, and I hope that there is no drive as a result of this legislation to push for what one might call impractical and unreasonable solutions. I believe that would be against the clauses that refer to assisting economic development. So I am hopeful that the Government and all the officials in the various departments who will administer this legislation will take a common-sense approach to it.

New Zealand First will support this legislation.

The ACT party opposes the third readings of the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2), the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill, which were split out from the Transport Legislation Bill.

Firstly, I would like to go back to the way in which these amendments were introduced under the one bill. The Transport Legislation Bill was introduced into the House on 12 August, and the Government dispensed with Standing Orders 191 to 194 so that the Transport and Industrial Committee could meet on Fridays and every evening when the House was sitting. The Minister rammed through the legislation so that the select committee had to report back in October. The select committee was given just under 6 weeks—from the time when the Transport Legislation Bill was introduced, to when it had to be reported back to the House.

Increasingly, this Government is using the moving of a referral motion to set aside the Standing Orders. We see that as an abuse of power that affects small parties that do not have representation on all select committees. Some members of smaller parties are on more than one select committee. It is also an abuse of power for the submitters, whose time to make submissions is considerably shortened. I must say that the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is fair. He does do his best to let submitters have their say, and allows for a decent amount of time to be given for questions. However he, too, is under pressure. We are debating four major pieces of legislation and we have seen them rushed through in just over 6 weeks, if one takes the time up to their third readings. That is the first reason why the ACT party is opposed to this legislation.

Secondly, the original bill was supposed to be focused on a reorganisation of the Crown entities that were involved with transport. Instead, this Government has used that excuse as a way to bring in legislation to codify the New Zealand Transport Strategy that was brought out in December 2002. That was part of the deal between the Greens and the Labour Government. It is one of the reasons the select committee never got to see the Ross Armstrong inquiry into public-private partnerships. We will never know for sure what went on between the Labour Government and the Greens, at the dinners at Hoffman’s restaurant in Wellington. A deal was done, whereby the Greens would not support that inquiry because they were desperate to have the New Zealand Transport Strategy, which they had co-written, come into legislation, and in particular, the sustainability filter that we will see increasingly brought into legislation—and Jeanette Fitzsimons is nodding her head; she is not disagreeing with me. I think those situations that we get under MMP, where we see those sorts of deals, are abhorrent.

The Labour Government calls this legislation vision. It says that the New Zealand Transport Strategy is a vision of an affordable, integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable transport system. For people stuck in traffic, not just in Auckland but in Wellington—people coming into the city from the Kapiti coast, the Hutt, and Eastbourne—its vision for transport does not include sustainability. It involves people getting to work on time and getting to the doctor in the shortest time possible, so that people can get back to work and not have their time deducted. It means people picking up their children from school and taking them to sport, and going to the supermarket. None of those issues will be made any easier by any of the transport legislation that we see going through the House. The New Zealand Transport Strategy talks about land transport, but land transport in this country does not mean just road and rail any more. It includes maritime transport and air transport. It would be a great surprise now to all of those who have travelled by boat, ship, plane, or helicopter to know that those are now classified under land transport.

People who know that New Zealand has huge transport problems think that this legislation will solve their problems. They should know that it will not fix a single thing. The Government says that it wants to promote economic growth. How can economic growth be promoted when sustainability must be ensured under this legislation? Sustainability must be ensured, and not just considered. It has a higher grading under this legislation than safety. As several speakers have already said, safety at a reasonable cost has gone. Mark Gosche was possibly right. Yes, safety was used as an excuse sometimes to do nothing, but that does not mean to say that it had to be used to do nothing. It could still be used to progress transport.

But sustainability cannot be defined. Even the Greens cannot define sustainability. We are not talking about sustainable yield here. Under this legislation, we know that sustainability will now include endless consultation with all manner of organisations, including “affected communities, public, and Māori.” So Māori are not part of affected communities or part of the public; they are something separate.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Separatists.

It is separatism. Māori must be consulted when any form of land transport strategy is drawn up. We know what that means. The public sure knows what that means by now. All of those people who are still wasting time trying to travel between Hamilton and Auckland know what consultation with Māori means. It means that a taniwha will pop up when a culvert has to be put in, or when a bend has to be made in a road. All those taniwhas pop up, and miraculously they disappear when the chequebook from the road builders comes out. I do not know where those taniwha go. I suspect that they pop up somewhere else, only to disappear again when the right price is paid.

But as I have said, sustainability is now more important than safety. When people climb into a helicopter or an aeroplane, what is the first thing they think of, and what do they check? Do they check how kind to the environment that company has been, or do they think about how many accidents that company has had, or how many fatalities? People who fly are more concerned about safety, and having their safety ensured as far as is possible, than having the environment sustained as far as possible. When I fly to Picton on Sounds Air the plane lands on the airstrip at Koromiko, which has a row of trees that have to be trimmed, for safety. I could not care whether those trees are pine, kauri, or sacred to Māori. People’s safety is far more important than whether those trees should be sustained. If that is what the Greens mean by sustainability, then they have a lot of explaining to do.

If this Government is serious about promoting economic growth it would realise that it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that to allow the transport industry—that is, road, air, and sea—to develop and grow and to promote economic growth, it has to be done with minimum regulation and compliance restraints. There was a good intention in the legislation in terms of reorganising the Crown entities, but it has been ruined by a Government that is regulation-mad and compliance-obsessed. We will not be supporting the legislation.

The Greens are, of course, supporting the legislation, which is the last piece of structural legislation needed to implement the New Zealand Transport Strategy, the others being the Land Transport Management Act and the Auckland transport legislation. So this legislation is a landmark that puts in place a 21st century approach to transport, which is very different from what we have had in the past. But it is only the beginning of the culture change that is needed to make this legislation work on the ground and in practice.

The most important thing it does is merge Transfund and the Land Transport Safety Authority into Land Transport New Zealand, which has the promotion of sustainable land transport as one of its statutory functions. This sustainability imperative is new, and it will be a major challenge that needs a culture change right through the transport sector to make it work. But we are encouraged that it is now to be law. Deborah Coddington remarks that it is abhorrent that sustainability increasingly will be brought into legislation. Well, I have to say that the Greens take a different view. We believe that the ability of our society and our economy to continue to function long term into the future is one of the most important things that we should bring into legislation in this country, and we are glad to see it happening through cooperation between the Government and the Greens.

The new entity of Land Transport New Zealand will be an active advocate for a safe, sustainable, integrated, and responsive land transport system. It is an organisation that will have considerable local and regional outreach through offices out in the community, and this will help with the new relationships that it needs to build with the community. It is the end of the old idea of legislation gradually being put in place to provide for the corporatisation of roads. The idea was that it would all just happen through the market, if one created a corporate entity and left it to do it by itself. Well, that clearly did not happen in the 1990s, and we now have a much more hands-on transport-planning process that is driven by community needs.

The staff of the new entity will face a challenge in learning to work with community groups, and in broadening their horizons to take on board all five objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy. We will be watching closely to see how the entity rises to the challenge of building those partnerships with community organisations, so that when transport infrastructure is built it is built in response to the needs of the community and with the support of the community. There will be far less hassle at the Environment Court and at later stages if that proper planning and consultation is done at the beginning so that the infrastructure is widely agreed to. Bike Wise is a good example of how those partnerships can deliver excellent results, and we are very pleased to have been able to help find a funding solution to keep Bike Wise going so that that national strategic focus on assisting cycling strategies is able to continue.

The other important thing the legislation does is align all the safety agencies with the principles of the New Zealand Transport Strategy so that they all now have the objective of providing a safe, sustainable, integrated, and responsive transport system. I have to say that all this fuss that is happening over “safety at reasonable cost” is a smokescreen and a diversion. It is actually an absurdity that people are getting so worked up about this. The concept of “safety at reasonable cost” is already embraced in the five objectives of the strategy. The agencies do not have any ability to provide safety without considering cost—the economic development imperative assures that. The safety imperative is there, but it is simply broadened to include being responsive to the community, to include public health issues, and to include sustainability issues.

Making sure that projects deliver on all of the five objectives of the strategy is a complex balancing act, and that is now provided for in the law. It is more complex than “safety at reasonable cost”, but it is also more real. The trouble with “safety at reasonable cost” was that it depended on a narrow and rigid cost-benefit analysis, which hung entirely on what price one chose to put on a human life. If anybody thinks there is an objective measure of the price one should put on a human life, then that person has taken economics to an absurd extreme. These things are value judgments, and it is much more honest to admit that at the heart of transport spending there will be value judgments about how we weigh and balance these five much broader objectives, rather than our just saying: “Right, because we valued a human life at $2 million, the benefit-cost ratio came out positive, and therefore we should build this bit of road.” We also know that an awful lot of projects that would not meet the benefit-cost ratio were redrafted to pretend they were safety projects, in order to come up with figures that would meet the benefit-cost ratio. So this was never an objective analysis; it was always just a way of trying to make the figures suit one’s purposes.

We look forward to the next part of the New Zealand Transport Strategy being implemented, and that is vehicle emission testing, which will occur in 2006. Under the new framework we will have better air quality, cleaner vehicles, and higher standards for what can come out of the exhaust pipe.

I am glad that the legislation does not in fact promote Peter Brown’s idea of passing the costs of roads we might want to build now on to future generations by funding them totally through borrowing. I make the point, in case it has escaped some people’s notice, that future generations will actually have quite a burden to cope with. For one thing, if we build a lot of roads now and defer the capital costs, that will mean a much higher maintenance cost for future generations to cope with. In addition to that, they will be coping with much higher fuel prices because of the world oil situation, and on top of that they will be coping with the costs of climate change and the energy policy changes that are needed to meet the climate change imperative. If, on top of those challenges, we also require them to find the capital plus interest costs to pay for roads we want to build now, we are passing a completely unfair and unsustainable burden on to future generations, and I am glad that the legislation does not do that.

Another matter that is dealt with in these bills is that the rule covering regional land transport committees is amended to clarify that those committees, which are, of course, central to the implementation in the regions of the objectives of the strategy and the legislation, have a balanced mix in terms of the five objectives of the strategy, and that the representatives on those committees are drawn from the wider community. It was always intended that regional land transport committees should draw in people with experience in public health, experience in sustainability, and experience in access for, and mobility of, the disadvantaged, so that they can contribute directly on those committees, and not simply assign those purposes to people who were already there for other reasons. So we see that as a very positive change.

We look forward to the revised land transport strategies, which those committees will produce, and to the growing sustainability, safety, and human responsiveness of the New Zealand transport system as a result of this legislation.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on these land transport bills. I speak on behalf of our good member Larry Baldock, who has done a wonderful job on transportation issues. I see here that the Government has removed that provision relating to “safety at reasonable cost”, but I say to the Minister of Transport that surely he should have put in “safety at reasonable speed”, which would probably be about 120 kilometres an hour! Obviously, that was overlooked, but never mind.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: Petrolhead!

That is correct! I just pick up on what Jeanette Fitzsimons was saying about borrowing to fund roading being provided now. Surely, if I bought a house 20 years ago at a certain price, and only today am I having to pay the interest on it, that has to be far more cost-effective than trying to find the money 20 years later and having to pay $400,000 or $500,000 for a product I could have bought 20 years ago for less. I think the Greens also fail to understand that if roads are put into place now, that will have benefits for the economy, because transport will be speeded up and businesses will operate far more efficiently.

But, never mind, I come back to this legislation, which United Future is very happy to support. It is long past the time that the Government transport sector should have been restructured in such a way that a single agency had the authority and the resources to take the lead in developing and implementing transport policy, and that administrative overlap and wastage were minimised. I think that one of the great things about this legislation is that a lot of that overlap and wastage will be minimised.

United Future has worked closely on transport issues with this Government. We are determined to see the problem of the chronic underfunding of New Zealand’s transport infrastructure addressed, and we are determined to see reforms that will enable much-needed new roading projects all over the country to be expedited. We have already made significant legislative reforms that will enable alternative sources of funding, such as the utilisation of public-private partnerships. We have also ensured that extra funding for all regions—not just Auckland—will be made available from petrol excise tax, and that a more favourable proportion of that tax will actually be spent on roads rather than ending up in the Crown account.

However, there is little point in securing extra funding if it will just be frittered away by an uncoordinated bureaucracy, or tied up while projects are waiting to get the go-ahead. That is why United Future is so pleased to see this legislation. By strengthening the role of the Ministry of Transport, that single agency will be able to take the lead in developing and implementing transport strategy. Rather than having one agency pulling in one direction and another pulling in another, and both spending road-funding money in an inefficient and uncoordinated manner as they go, we will see road money being spent strategically and efficiently, thereby maximising the gains from increased funding.

United Future is also pleased to see resolved the longstanding issue over which agency should have primary responsibility for undertaking search and rescue coordination. By enabling the Minister of Transport to direct the new maritime transport authority, rather than the Civil Aviation Authority, to carry out the management and administration of national search and rescue in the future, we will, hopefully, see better search and rescue coverage and response times, and avoid a repeat of the incident near Oamaru that resulted in tragic loss of life.

So United Future is happy to support this legislation at its third reading.

I am pleased to rise in support of the third reading of this transport legislation. In dealing with the last point raised by the previous speaker, I say that I, too, am pleased to see improvements in the coordination of search and rescue services. As the member is probably quite aware, the present and previous Ministers of Transport addressed that matter, following the local member expressing his concerns about the coordination of a search and rescue effort off Kākānui that was less than desirable, as a consequence of which there were some delays in the dispatch of helicopters. If there had not been any delays, that might—or might not—have led to a different outcome for that rescue.

But, more important, this legislation assists in meeting the Government’s five objectives in respect of transport. The first is to assist economic development. We need a smooth transportation system, of course, to ensure that our products get to port, and then further afield, in the most cost-effective and safe way possible. The second objective is to assist safety and personal security. Our third objective is to improve access and mobility for all people. The fourth is to promote and protect public health. Obviously, we do not want to undermine public health through inappropriate transportation systems. Last, and allied to that, we want to ensure the environmental sustainability of our transport system.

Will this work, and has the transport strategy that the Government embarked on over the last few years been working? I think two recent instances give good examples of progress being made. One was the purchase back by the Crown of an interest in rail at the same time that Toll Holdings took over ownership of Tranz Rail. That company, of course, promised to invest substantial amounts in rolling stock, in consideration of the Government contributing money to the upgrade of the rail network, and we have seen that strategy begin to bear fruit in the minimising of the costs of road transport. The Minister of Transport in question time today made reference to the announcement made by Fonterra and Toll Holdings—or Tranz Rail—last week. Fonterra announced that it is moving some tens of thousands of tonnes of dairy produce by rail from its major factories in the North Island directly to ports. I think—and the Minister can correct me if I have the number wrong—that 45,000—

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: 45,000 truck movements.

DAVID PARKER —truck movements a year will be avoided through the increased volume of freight that is being transported by rail—

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: And there’s more of that to come.

There are many more examples like that, as the Minister points out. That proves that the Government’s integrated approach to transport in New Zealand is working. In addition to the increased movements by rail, there have been recent announcements of barging of aggregate to major metropolitan centres being used to avoid road transport. Again, that is a cost-effective, environmentally sustainable way of transporting goods that decreases the load on the road network, and that makes our roads more pleasant to use as drivers do not have to contend with as many trucks. It also makes good economic sense because we do not have to build extra road infrastructure; the volumes of freight that are being taken through other modes of transport like rail and barging do not have to be catered for by the roading system.

We have also seen progress on the motorway system in Auckland. A large number of projects are now under way, including some long-overdue linking of the motorway system, and the traffic is starting to move a little bit more freely in Auckland. But there is still some way to go up there.

One of the things that the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister have taken an interest in is the need for equitable spreading of the transport funding throughout the different regions of New Zealand. I know that the road funding formula that was previously used by Transfund put too much weight on safety issues, the effect of which was that if people were stuck in a traffic jam in Auckland, that traffic jam might have been terribly inefficient, it might have caused unnecessary pollution, and it might have hamstrung the Auckland economy, but it was not a problem, because there were no safety considerations in terms of people being stuck in traffic jams. As a consequence, the Government has changed the funding formula so that it has regard to things other than safety.

Initially, in the first re-cut of budgets by Transfund, the weighting went almost exclusively to Auckland. Again, the Minister and Prime Minister intervened and said that was not fair, either. One injustice is not cured by the creation of another. So the Government, through its policy framework, ensured there was an equitable funding formula that ensures that all regions of New Zealand, like my own province of Otago—and including Auckland but not only Auckland—get a fair share of the revenue. We see that coming through in more passing lanes, better bridges, and wider and safer roads. We are also seeing contributions to public transportation, in an effort, again, to give people alternatives to driving with just one person in a car at a time. We are seeing advances in public transport, particularly in the larger metropolitan centres.

So I commend the Minister for this legislation. I also agree with him that the select committee made some significant improvements to the form of the legislation. Other parties contributed to the legislation, as well, and I thank them for it.

Well, I guess that that speech is an indication as to why that member’s seat will be changing hands at the next election. One of the extraordinary things we have learnt is that it is dangerous for a member from the far end of another island to apparently speak knowledgably about issues in Auckland, because if he knew the truth, he would know that we have been waiting on the North Shore—and Madam Speaker will be well aware of this—nearly a decade for the North Shore busway. The Government has been in office now for 5 years and not a sod has been turned, so it is extraordinary for the Government to stand up and boast that it is solving the transport problems. The problem is that there is very little action.

I will pick up on a comment made by Mr Peter Brown from the New Zealand First Party, because I found it to be particularly interesting. He said that New Zealand First was fundamentally opposed to tolls. Mr Brown comes from Tauranga and will be well aware that the bridge in Tauranga would not exist but for tolls. That is the reality, although I appreciate that the tolls have subsequently been removed. Mr Winston Peters, the leader of that party, has been the member for Tauranga for the entire period involved and no doubt supported the erection of that bridge, presumably with tolls. He knew that it would not be built without tolls. More seriously, however, how on earth can there be public-private partnerships unless there is a degree of tolls? Has New Zealand First or, for that matter, the Government even thought about the fact that the whole reason that Australia is able to have an effective programme of road building in the major cities—Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, in particular—is precisely that it has tolls? The tolls are the funding stream, fundamentally, for the public-private partnerships. Without that, those projects would simply never have been completed.

Let us contrast that with what occurs in New Zealand. We have a very ineffective regime that was introduced last year. It is very ineffective indeed, and as a consequence there has been no real progress on some of the major infrastructure projects. I refer the House and the Deputy Speaker to an issue that I am particularly interested in: the matter of the second harbour crossing. Currently 160,000 vehicles cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge. On projected rates of growth that will rise to between 200,000 and 250,000 vehicles within the space of 10 years. Even at $2 per vehicle, that translates into a revenue stream of something like $140 million. That is the sort of revenue needed to build a project like a second harbour crossing, particularly if it involves a tunnel. If the New Zealand First Party and, because of the limitations around the Government’s legislation, Labour are so blind to those opportunities, then there is no hope that a project like a second major harbour crossing can be completed. Yet that is exactly what the Auckland region needs. So I would say to both the Government and its helpers—in this case, New Zealand First—that they should take their blinkers off, look at what Australia has done effectively, and repeat the formula here. Motorists and other citizens are crying out for real results.

We are opposed to the legislation, and we are particularly opposed to it on two grounds. The first is the removal of the phrase “safety at reasonable cost”. It was simply a ludicrous proposition for the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to suggest that Maurice Williamson did not support our position. Maurice Williamson wrote the minority report on the Transport Legislation Bill. The reason he wrote it, of course, was that he was the Minister when “safety at reasonable cost” was introduced. It was Mr Williamson’s initiative that brought that into place. Now the Government wants to cancel it and substitute words that are, frankly, no longer capable of precise meaning. They can be interpreted in pretty much any way that one wants. I have no doubt that the Government or the authority will do precisely that. We will see references to sustainability, economic balance, and all those sorts of words that are not capable of precise meaning. Because they are not capable of precise meaning, we will get no sense of prioritisation, no sense of ranking, and no sense of the allocation of scarce resources. Blind alleys will be pursued, effective transport solutions will be ignored, and public funds will be wasted. That is the scenario we are looking at. Therefore, I guess it is not surprising that the Greens support this legislation. I find that to be most disappointing. I would acknowledge in this particular instance that New Zealand First recognises the importance and seriousness of the removal of those words.

The other issue I wish to deal with is the insertion of the consultation rules in clause 30 of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. They refer to Transit, every affected regional council, every affected territorial authority, affected approved organisations—I wonder what an “affected approved organisation” is—the Ministry of Health, the Accident Compensation Corporation, the Commissioner of Police, the Secretary for Transport, the Ministry of Justice, land transport users and providers, affected communities, and—get this—Māori, and the public. What is different about Māori that would not make them an affected community or members of the public? Where is the oft-stated mantra, which I have even heard the Māori Party talk about—of one law for all? Tariana Turia was obviously using it in an unusual situation, in her desire to have police protection because of the SIS.. Clause 30 is a breach of the principle of one law for all. Surely it is reasonable in 21st century New Zealand that we treat all citizens alike, and that we all have equal rights of consultation. That is the very foundation of our democracy. Instead we are building and deepening into our law provisions that separate people out by virtue of their ethnicity. Surely if a particular community is affected, such as Ruatōria, that will encompass the Māori residents of that community in relation to a particular project.

What is the difference between Māori and the affected public generally, or the affected community? The answer, in relation to land transport, is nothing. Māori have the same interest in land transport as the general public. We are not talking about the issue of Māori land or the language, where specific and separate consultation may be expected. We are talking about issues that affect all of us equally and that affect particular communities in particular ways. On that basis also, we are opposed to this legislation. I know that Government members will say that that was in the previous legislation. We in National have been reviewing the way we look at things. It is absolutely clear—and even the Government has some minor recognition of this—that New Zealanders are crying out for our laws to treat us equally where they affect matters of general interest. So along with the issues around the removal of the phrase “safety at reasonable cost”, that is also a profound reason why we are not able to support this legislation.

It is a pleasure to speak to this legislation, which is divided into four bills as it completes its third reading. I say to the member who has just resumed his seat, who, I believe, represents the electorate of North Shore, that he began his speech with a fairly lacklustre attack on the Government for taking, as he said, 5 years to do something about reducing congestion in Auckland, and so on. I was really surprised that Dr Mapp did not give credit where it was due. After all, the previous National Government, which he was a member of, took 9 years and achieved virtually nil. Last week this Government let the contract for the new North Shore busway in his own electorate, and he did not seem to know about that. That particular contract will ensure that a lot of North Shore commuters commute in a much speedier time when the new North Shore busway is built. So I was a bit surprised to hear that criticism. I have always thought of the member as a pretty decent sort of a joker, and I would have thought he would give credit where it was due. I guess politics will always get in the way of the facts, regardless of how good the argument may be.

This transport legislation, which is now in its third reading, is about delivering an affordable, integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable transport system for New Zealand by 2010. As the Minister for Transport Safety, safety has been one of the things I have been particularly involved in. I am very much aware of some of the criticisms that some folk, particularly from the aviation industry, have made with regard to the removal of the “safety at reasonable cost” provision that was in the previous legislation. Many commentators talked about a diminution of safety, but the real message behind that was the second part of the phrase—“at reasonable cost”. Some folk were very concerned that we may, as a result, have safety at unreasonable cost. Certainly, some of the commentary from Opposition members has been about that.

Let me assure members that safety has not been diminished. It is obviously a key part of the Government’s role. Indeed, the Prime Minister and Cabinet have appointed me to the new position of Minister for Transport Safety in order that we continue to have the focus on safety that I have voiced throughout my parliamentary career.

💬 Hon Pete Hodgson: Are you the first?

I am indeed the first-ever Minister for Transport Safety in New Zealand. This legislation is not only about continuing the focus on safety but also about broadening the objectives and functions of the Civil Aviation Authority and the Maritime Safety Authority, in order to align with the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy. Those who have been concerned about that development may like to note that we were a little on our own with regard to the wording that we had. Other countries have for many years had a similar approach to the one that our transport legislation now takes.

This legislation effectively dissolves the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund New Zealand, and replaces them with a new Crown land transport entity known as Land Transport New Zealand. It integrates safety funding with other land transport funding. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which I chaired in the previous Parliament, has a long history of acting very responsibly and, in most cases, in a united fashion in terms of processing legislation such as this. It took on board concerns raised during the passage through the committee of the Transport Legislation Bill. Where concerns were raised, the committee carefully considered them, made recommendations for improvement, and further refined the bill. It is pleasing to me that the changes have been largely technical in nature. The committee has responded to the concerns about the prominence of safety and has ensured that the full range of New Zealand Transport Strategy objectives are considered in rule making. Rule making is certainly an area that is a large part of the work I am involved with. The changes to the original bill are about ensuring that the policy principles underlying the legislation continue, rather than representing any significant changes in focus or direction. Safety will be retained at reasonable cost. Safety at unreasonable cost clearly will not occur because that would be challenged.

New Zealand in the 21st century has developed considerably since legislation on transport was first put in place. We have a huge number of competing goals that sometimes see complementary solutions. I am very pleased that this legislation will get New Zealand moving again. I am pleased that the Government sees that New Zealanders should be well served by an integrated, affordable, safe, and sustainable transport system. As the Minister for Transport Safety, members can be sure that I will do my utmost to ensure that safety remains at the core of that.

I am concerned that in an area where one would think we should have, for the greater good of our country, some unanimity in Parliament, we get at times into the business of seeing minority reports on what is essentially quite straightforward legislation. This legislation is about assisting economic development, assisting safety and personal security, improving access and mobility, protecting and promoting public health, and ensuring environmental sustainability. All of those, one would consider, are worthwhile objectives for any modern nation to espouse, adopt, and get on with. I see this legislation as doing exactly that. Those five objectives are very important for the future development of our country. I think that in the future we will look back in history and say that this legislation was a turning point for the better that ensured the continuing development, in a sensible manner, of our transport system.

I will take up a point that the previous National speaker raised about tolling. Mr Mapp pointed out that New Zealand First is against tolling. That is correct; we are against it. The issue he raised was quite irrelevant, really. I ask Mr Mapp whether he has forgotten his statement that North Shore residents have been waiting for a busway for 10 years. I remind him that his party was in Government for at least 5 of those years; for probably the full 9 years of the National Government, North Shore residents were waiting for bus lanes. In response to Mr Mapp’s suggestion that this Government has delayed the busway for 5 years, I suggest that his party also did that for at least 5 years.

I also point out that were it not for legislation that has just passed through the House, the Albany to Pūhoi realignment B2 would have been constructed by now. It was delayed because the opportunity to toll it was in the pipeline. Because of that legislation, the construction of that road has been delayed. About this time last year, Transit New Zealand had to apply to extend its resource consent in order to end the motorway in the middle of Ōrewa. It asked for an extension of 7 years, but the courts allowed it only a 1-year extension. That road still has not been built. It will be interesting to see what happens. It has simply been delayed because of the prospect of tolling.

The Transport Legislation Bill has been divided into multiple bills, but the main issue I will talk about is the change to the Civil Aviation Act. That legislation better coordinates the search and rescue organisations. It provides for a structure that is coordinated. Under new sections 14B(2) and 14C, inserted by clause 5, those mechanisms are put in place. New section 14B(2) states: “The Minister may authorise the payment, out of money appropriated for the purpose …” of search and rescue “… to—(a) any person who assisted in a search and rescue operation …; or (b) the owners of any vehicle, ship, or aircraft …”. It is all very well reimbursing people for the use of those vehicles, but there is a lot more to search and rescue than just using vehicles, vessels, and aircraft. I suggest that funding for some of the training of those organisations is sadly lacking and desperately needed.

I will give an example of a search and rescue organisation. I was fortunate enough to be invited out on the new Maraetai rescue vessel over the weekend. We went to the launch of the Hibiscus Coast sister ship. That was a search and rescue organisation that had been fortunate enough to obtain two of the support boats for the New Zealand Americas Cup team. It has had to fund those vessels, the fitting out of those vessels, and the manning of those vessels. The people are all volunteers. They do not get the funding they should. I do not believe they get enough funding, certainly for their training. They only get funding for fuel when they are out on operation, on a rescue. If they are out on a full training mission they do get some funding, but when they have to train people on the ground and on the water separately they do not get any funding whatsoever. I suggest that that is not the best use of our rescue organisations.

I would like to pick up on another part of this legislation: land transport. This legislation combines the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund into what is now Land Transport New Zealand. This is a good combination, because finally we get some coordination between the two. It means that the funding has not been landed with Transit. That would have been a disaster. This legislation provides for a much easier process for funding. Certainly it makes safety paramount. The safety part of the legislation is the main reason New Zealand First will support it, and therefore it is important that safety is paramount.

I would just like to point out one of the issues this legislation is leading up to—and I have witnessed it recently. As of 1 November, in the Clevedon electorate we have seen a reduction in speed limits. The speed limits on some of the highways around the Clevedon electorate have been reduced to 80 kilometres an hour. That is because the roads are of a low standard. Government after Government has failed to put funding into these roads. One of the excuses for reducing funding was that “safety at reasonable cost” has been removed. This, sadly, has left a situation where the Government has started reducing speed limits. I think Maurice Williamson suggested that the speed limit could be reduced to 5 kilometres an hour. That is a bizarre statement, but we have seen speed limits reduced to 80 kilometres an hour because the funding has not been put into those roads where there is a high growth rate.

I heard the Minister say, and I heard Harry Duynhoven repeat, that this Government is getting New Zealand moving again. I would suggest that it is getting us moving at a much slower rate than the rate we have been moving at until now. The Government is allowing speed limits to be reduced because it has not provided proper funding for the area.

Mark Gosche made reference to a huge undertaking in central Auckland, where they are completing the motorway interchanges. This is a huge task. It has taken over 40 years to complete. It is still not quite ready. I was one of the Auckland MPs who had the opportunity to inspect that area. It is a massive undertaking. There are motorways going underneath, over the top, and all over the place. “Spaghetti” is probably an understatement in describing that particular intersection. The Government’s provision for that is well placed. Certainly Auckland has needed it for a long, long time. But the rest of the motorway system does need to be completed, and it is a long way off yet. I hope the Government will allow the funding for that to come forward.

New Zealand First is disappointed that the “safety at reasonable cost” provision has been removed, but we will support the legislation, because safety is paramount to us. “Safety at reasonable cost” would have been a satisfactory way of getting it—we would have preferred it—but we are not going to knock this legislation back purely because that provision is not there.

I ask the Minister—and particularly Harry Duynhoven, who had quite a bit to do with the Maraetai sea rescue vessel just recently—to see that some more funding is provided for training the crews, particularly those who are volunteers. Funding is essential to make sure that the service is top class and that this legislation can come into proper being and provide the full service.

I am absolutely delighted to take part in this debate on the third reading of the transport bills. I have heard a number of speakers in this House, particularly the Hon Maurice Williamson, saying that National is not going to support this legislation. I am absolutely astonished at what Mr Williamson says out of one side of his mouth in Auckland and what he then says in this House when he is surrounded by his caucus mates. It is really sad that the National Party has yet again failed completely to grasp the urgency that the whole of New Zealand sees in this transport area.

💬 Darren Hughes: What, even Richard Worth?

No, okay, not all the National Party members! Dr Worth would not see urgency in anything. But Maurice Williamson has been Minister of Transport and does know what an appalling mess National left this area in. We had Transit, which had no plans for major projects in Auckland. We had the Land Transport Safety Authority, with very little money to do anything coherently about transport safety. We had Transfund, which seemed to be completely transfixed by the idea of legal risk and was trying to stop everyone, including local and regional government, doing anything in this area. This Government has got this whole sector moving. It has got New Zealand moving. It is particularly focused on the huge cost of transport congestion and transport problems in Auckland. That cost is not only to Aucklanders but to the whole country.

There have been repeated assertions that Auckland transport problems cause about $1 billion worth of problems for the rest of New Zealand. This legislation is the second part of the Government’s legislative programme. We have put in place for the first time a New Zealand Transport Strategy. That strategy talks for the first time about the level of infrastructure, the level of safety, and the level of services New Zealand needs, not just about what the Government is prepared to dole out to its mates on the basis of political support—like the old system whereby the National Roads Board had roading up to every National Party Cabinet Minister’s farm gate and county chairman’s farm gate and ignored the problems of the rest of the country.

I am really proud that for the first time in my adult life we are seeing a Government grappling with the whole of New Zealand’s transport priorities to deliver affordable, integrated, safe, responsible, and sustainable transport for the whole of New Zealand.

I congratulate the Greens, who have worked very hard on this. I accept that their priorities are not always the same as ours, but I absolutely recognise that their concerns are from the heart and that they recognise, for example, as National and ACT and all the others absolutely refuse to, that there are as many people dying as a result of the health effects of transport emissions as there are in transport accidents and incidents.

So I am absolutely delighted that for the first time we have a New Zealand Transport Strategy. We will have structures within the Ministry of Transport that can deliver good advice and good policy on that area. We will have coherent Crown agencies for transport. I look forward to working with Land Transport New Zealand. It will balance the need for safety, which was, of course, at reasonable cost, but “reasonable cost” was dictated by the previous Government—actually Maurice Williamson and Jenny Shipley. In many cases, as my colleague the Hon Mark Gosche pointed out, they did not put up any money, so there were no safety services. That was particularly the case in areas like marine safety, such as surf lifesaving and so on, where lives can be saved.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Or the coastguards.

Also the coastguards. But there was no safety, because there was no funding.

Land Transport New Zealand will take on the operating responsibilities of the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund and will provide better planning, better debate, and better delivery in local government; and regional government can expect better understanding of its transport needs and improved responsiveness to them.

What we had was a wonderful system of regional land transport strategies, which should have been bottom-up debates about what the priorities were in every regional area. But what did we have over the 9 years of the previous National Government? We had Auckland going through its fourth and fifth iteration of its regional land transport strategy, so we could say that all these projects have been examined, they are necessary, we know what the priorities are, but many other areas—for example, through the Horowhenua, Rangitīkei, and Wanganui—have had appalling floods in the last year. We saw that the regional land transport strategies in those areas had two or three roads, if we were lucky. The work was not being done, because those places had no hope of ever getting better transport systems, unless we got the work done in the major cities.

So I am delighted to see the New Zealand Transport Strategy in place. We are starting to get local and regional government working towards it. We are starting, for the first time, to get a realistic assessment of what it will cost to provide New Zealand with a good, integrated, responsive, safe, affordable, sustainable transport system, and we are looking at our five priorities for transport. Those priorities are: assisting economic development, assisting safety and personal security, improving access and mobility, protecting and promoting public health, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

This legislation will increase the scope of the Maritime Safety Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority to take account of the Government’s transport strategy. I look forward to seeing both of those organisations working in the public interest rather than just trying to fend off the vested interests, which were trying to downgrade safety, downgrade investment, and downgrade the services that New Zealand industry needs in places like Whangarei, Tauranga, and the South Island.

I am absolutely delighted to see this legislation well on its way through the House. I will address very briefly the concerns that the select committee heard from the National Party represented in the transport sector. We saw Tony Friedlander, who, I have to say, is very fair. He always says that he is a National Party bagman: he goes around and does the fund-raising for them. Frankly, I wish him well right now, given the state of the National Party. But he has been attacking this Government on the idea that somehow or other we should move away from the benefit-cost ratio. This Government sees the benefit-cost ratio as a very useful tool, but it is only as good a tool as what one puts into it. So if we place the highest priority on roads that lead to certain people’s farms, then that is what we will get.

Of course, we heard the National spokesman on transport, Roger Sowry, say that his answer to New Zealand’s transport problems would be a six-lane superhighway between Wellington and Auckland. That is going to solve the transport problems of Northland, of Southland, and of Wellington! It is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder that man is on the way out! We now see that Maurice Williamson has been reincarnated, I think for the third time, and I dread to think what state he is in, having been dead twice in the transport portfolio. But here he is back, and he is going to be in charge of the National Party’s interests in Auckland and the rest of the country. Well, who is responsible for the mess that the Labour-Alliance Government and the Labour-Progressive Government inherited? Maurice Williamson is responsible. I concede he was ably assisted by Jenny Shipley and Jim Bolger, and all of those who went with him, but he is the reason we have to deal with this huge backlog of investment, planning, and organisation.