Estimates Debate — Vote Transport (continued)

When I was cut off in full flight the other night, I was talking about travelling by public transport—by the train, in fact. I had hoped that the motorists who were clogging the highway outside were sufficiently grateful to me, my fellow travellers, those who happened to be walking or cycling on the day, those who work from home, and the car-poolers. The benefits of public transport are for everybody who travels on our roads.

The Green influence was obvious in last year’s release of the national walking and cycling strategy, and in the public transport strategy. Thanks to the New Zealand Transport Strategy and the Land Transport Management Act, we are heading in the right direction, but too slowly. The big transport issues now are climate change and the end of cheap oil. When I spoke about this issue last week the price of oil was US$58 a barrel. This morning it was US$62 a barrel and heading upwards.

We are looking at spending a vast sum of money on roads, and the idea that it is business as usual just will not do. The fact that 80 percent of the transport budget, which went from $285 million in 2000-01 to a record $518 million this year, is targeted at roads in the form of new State highway construction spells to me that it is a case of business as usual. Our children will not thank us for white elephant motorways, which will be memorials to our lack of foresight when we can no longer afford to drive on them.

We have to move away from building infrastructure that perpetuates behaviour that, even if it were sustainable, can only be described as bizarre. Instead, we have to change people’s behaviour. I have spoken about my concern for my grandchildren, and it puzzles me that people in this generation persist in living far too far from all the places they need to be. The future may look bleak, but sitting in slow-moving queues of traffic day after day, travelling to destinations that we should have lived much closer to, is not exactly a bundle of laughs, either.

The Greens want a fairer deal for alternatives to cars. Urban and rural State highways receive 100 percent State funding. Urban public transport requires matching funding from local rates. To get real investment in public transport, we need to level the playing field; otherwise, the money allocated to public transport depends on weary ratepayers coughing up the funds. The Greens are committed to changing this outdated system. I want to talk about where we need to be. It is about redesigning our lives.

Given that we are debating the transport estimates, I will keep the focus deliberately on road funding. I very much want to talk about how the current Government has used something called “smoke and mirrors”. A year ago, the Government announced the huge figure of $18.7 billion for roading over the next 10 years. I have to say, quite honestly, that as an Opposition member I was gobsmacked by that figure. That is the biggest number for roading that I had ever heard under any circumstances, and I said: “Wow! How do we counteract that?”. I thought that we simply could not counteract it and that we had better be silent, because that is what one should do in Opposition if one cannot counteract something. But then I went back to my office. I sat down with an Excel spreadsheet, I looked at the last 10 years of road funding, and I looked at what the average amount of growth had been, which was around 6.9 percent per annum—and I ask members to remember that that is just growth from petrol tax, road user charges, and so on. It is nothing to do with the largesse of the Government; it is just that as people use, so they create the revenue. So I took that average 6.9 percent, I took last year’s base figure, I put in growth of 6.9 percent for the next 10 years, and it came out at $19.1 billion. In other words, this huge number, which, to be fair, was bigger than ever before, was actually slightly less than the historic growth that we have been experiencing. I have noticed ever since that the current Minister, Pete Hodgson—and I would like to hear his comments on this—often says that the Government is spending more on roads this year than ever before.

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: Not true.

No, no. My colleague from the North Shore says that it not true, but Pete Hodgson is correct. That is true for every year in the history of the country for the last 20 years—for any one year and for any Minister of Transport. I have here the table that was developed for us by the researchers in the Parliamentary Library. It shows all the subsidies and spending. There was, though, one big year when it jumped, and I wondered how it went up in 1990 so much. But it turned out that that was a 15-month year, because we realigned the accrual accounting. But in every other year that was the case.

Let me give members the figures. I will start with the next year, 1991, when the amount was $503 million. In the next year it was $528 million, the next year $541 million, then $581 million, the next year $601 million, the next year $624 million, the next year $637 million, the next year $757 million, the next year $813 million, and the next year $884 million. Do members get the pattern? Every year the spending on roading was more than the spending in the previous year. So it is no great claim when Pete Hodgson comes into this House and says: “We’re spending more on roading than we have ever spent.” That is true—but it has always been true. The real test is what percentage of the economy the Government is actually spending on roading. That is the true measure. As the economy grows—and the GDP has grown every year along the way—so should what the Government is spending match it.

I want to go through a few tables. Here is a chart, and I think that Paul Swain, when he was Minister of Transport, answered the first 3 years of it, and then Mr Hodgson filled in the last ones. This graph is called “Auckland Roads: Capital Expenditure on New State Highways and New Local Roads”. If we listen to the Labour Government, it would have us believe that what it was spending in Auckland, compared to the spending of the National Government, was huge. Well, members should have a look at the graph. The blue tower on the left represents National’s last full year in office. The purple tower, the next one up, is a part year—it is 7 months of National and 5 months of Labour. The rest of those towers for the next 4 years represent the Labour Government in full. Now, these are the Minister’s answers to written questions on how much money was spent on Auckland roads. Only in the 2003-04 financial year did the spending actually get above what National had been spending back in 1999. So I tell the Minister that he should forget the smoke and mirrors, and forget the argument: “Well, we are doing better.”

What do members think of this graph? Here is a graph that shows the spending on roading, right back from 1990, as a percentage of GDP. Now, everyone who is involved in road funding overseas—such as the big financial houses or other Ministers, such as the roading Minister in New South Wales or Victoria—will say that the real test is what percentage of GDP is being spent on roads. If members look at this graph, they will see that spending actually peaked back in 1999 at about 1.1 percent, and that for the next 4 full years under the Labour Government, and not the part year—it did change last year; it came back to where it had been—it was less, as a percentage of the size of the economy. So no wonder we can use—

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Labour lies!

No, no. My colleague is not being fair. This is a case of using smoke and mirrors. Let me tell members once again that the figures can be used as the Minister uses them. One can say that every year there has been more spending than in the year before.

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: You had nothing ready to go.

I challenge Judith Tizard today to tell me of one year in the history of road funding where the amount of funding was not more than in the previous year. I have the answer; it has happened once. Members should listen to this, because they will love it. In the first full year of the Labour Government—that is, the 2001 year—spending went from $884 million, the year before, to $846 million for its first full year. It is the only time, I tell Ms Tizard, in the history of the National Land Transport Programme, and right back to the time of the National Roads Board, when the funding for roading dropped in actual terms—not in real dollars, not in percentage of GDP, but in actual dollars.

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: You are telling lies.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to the member on my right that there were two indiscretions there. The member brought the Chair into the debate, and she used a word that is unparliamentary. I ask the member to desist.

I ask her to withdraw and apologise for the sentiments.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: I withdraw and apologise.

And, in case the member for Auckland Central does not know the figures—

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: Tell the truth!

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON:. Well, I am going to go through the list of them. They are here—here is the total amount of money spent on roading. They are the Government’s figures and, to be fair, I note that they have gone up in every year. But, as I pointed out to my colleagues, there was one year where the spending dropped in actual dollars. [Interruption] Could someone get her some medication—she is having another one of her fits, over there. It is unfair to leave her unattended. Someone needs to help her.

💬 Hon Judith Tizard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. There was an extensive interchange where a member on this side of the House told a member on the Opposition side to take pills, and that member was required to withdraw and apologise. I require the same. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There is a point of order on the floor, and both members are interjecting. It is wrong to imply a personal reflection in the way the member did. I ask him to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am not a person who normally does that, but I am a person who gets sick of someone continuously shouting all the time. You, Mr Chairperson, often say that interjections should be rare and reasonable and, hopefully, witty. You would like them to be that way, but during the second part of my speech Ms Tizard has not stopped yelling the whole time. I ask you to call her to order, too, Mr Chairperson, or you will bring this Committee to disorder.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Williamson. The member had been called to order, and I am sure she was coming to order.

I get back to the focus. As I said, this is smoke and mirrors. Now, my adoring drive-time audience in Auckland will be listening right now, and the real test would be to ask them whether they think that Labour has fixed the problem in 6 years. In 6 years, a helluva lot of roads can be built. Members should go to Sydney and look at what had been built in the last 6 years, or go to Melbourne and look at what has been built in the last 6 years. There is kilometre after kilometre of tarmac all over the place and cross-Sydney tunnels, and the Citylink’s Mitcham-Frankston spur is now under way in Melbourne. So nobody should say that we cannot do that in 6 years—others do—but the reason we have not done so has been the shortfall in funds.

We saw how worried the Government got when National announced that it would take all the petrol tax and move it to fund the roads. The first response from Dr Cullen was that it was an outrage and fiscally irresponsible. The second response was to say: “Hey, this is helping them in the polls.” The third response was that Labour would spend some more money, as well as the normal funding for land transport, and that it would be called Crown funding. So there is “N funding” from the National Land Transport Programme; there is “R funding” from the regional—the little special pot—there is “JA funding”, which is Jim Anderton’s special thing, through which he likes to give away some money to the regions, and now there is “C funding”.

The Government announced just a couple of weeks ago $660 million extra for Wellington. It had already announced $225 million extra, and there will be a little bit of largesse coming for the Bay of Plenty this week. We will also see a lovely Waikato package announced just before 17 September—just watch! Mark my words! When Don Brash said National would build the Waikato Expressway, Labour said that it was an outrage and talked about how fiscally irresponsible it was. You watch how Labour will find that money—like the $500 million and the—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Actually, Mr Chairperson, I am speaking to you—you watch how they find that money, sir, because I can tell you that it is just like the $540 million Dr Cullen found under the mattress the other day, by chance, and then said it was all for roads. Have we ever seen a panic button like that?

💬 Dr Wayne Mapp: There will be more.

There will be more. But where is the certainty? The contractors want some certainty. They want to know that in the long term the petrol tax will be committed to road funding so they can gear up their capability and capacity, but we are not hearing a mutter nor a murmur from the current Government on the issue. Well, hang on; help is on the way. National believes that what comes from the roads should go back to the roads—including Judith Tizard. I say to members of this Committee that that is what National will do. It will take every cent of petrol tax—

💬 Hon Member: Put it down the highway.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON:—and put it down the highway for a number of them, actually—and start building some roads.

💬 Darren Hughes: Yeah, right!

And Darren Hughes should be out there fighting for that money. That is what he should be doing, instead of sitting in here carping away like a schoolboy who has not yet started shaving. He should be out there fighting for the money so the people of Kapiti can get some decent roads in their electorate and not end up with the shambles that is out there now.

I am very happy to say National believes that there are other barriers to roading. The other barriers are the things like the Resource Management Act, and we were told at the select committee that it now takes longer to gain consent for a new road than it does to construct it. I will repeat that, in case members did not hear. It takes longer to gain consent for a new road than it does to construct it. That is an outrage. I asked Transit afterwards whether there was any other—

💬 Darren Hughes: Nine years and you didn’t do it!

That member says: “Nine years and you didn’t do it.” Actually, in 1999 National introduced quite substantial amendments to the Resource Management Act to fix those barriers. Guess what—the incoming Labour Government made Jeanette Fitzsimons chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, and it bowled them. Well, they are coming back. Let me tell Mr Hughes that those amendments are coming back. The only good news I have for that member is that the people of his area will start to see some good roads built. It will require funding. That will come from $4.5 billion on top of everything that is in the current National Land Transport Programme announced by Labour. The funding is on top of that. It is extra, in addition, over and above, and more—let us get the words right—than what is currently in the National Land Transport Programme. National is committing another $4.5 billion, because that is what the petrol tax would come to.