Public Transport Management Bill

That long voting process was very necessary. The reason is that this bill is an outrage. The Public Transport Management Bill has turned into the “Public Deception Bill”. That long voting process was necessary to show that National would never let the deceptive Labour-led Government get away with it.

Before this bill was introduced into the House it was subject to extensive consultation. Three options were put up for consultation: option A was the status quo, option B was to give public authorities like the regional councils more control over public transport planning and regulation, and option C was to empower the regional councils to prohibit commercial services. The explanatory note of the bill that was tabled in the House—the bill that had been agreed to by the Labour Government—had this to say about option C: “Prohibiting all commercial services in a region will reduce opportunities for public transport operators to innovate and would reduce the control operators have over their businesses, thus potentially undermining business confidence. For these reasons option C is not preferred.” When the bill was introduced into Parliament, submitters taking part in the public consultation process had the undertaking of the Labour Government that option C would not be introduced.

Well, we now know that that promise of Labour was as good as the promises made by Labour and New Zealand First to Mr Owen Glenn in return for his generosity towards those two parties. He gave half a million dollars to Labour and $100,000 to the Spencer Trust. And what did he get? As Mr Owen Glenn said, he is expendable. That is how Labour is treating passengers in this legislation.

That was the first deception. When the bill was introduced into Parliament, the submitters were promised that option C would not be adopted. So the submitters who came before our Transport and Industrial Relations Committee made detailed submissions for or against option B. They had done a lot of research, and they had gone to great lengths to make a submission for or against option B. The only submitters who were—and probably still are—in favour of option C were, without doubt, the Auckland Regional Council and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. Of course those organisations would support option C; which public authority would not support being given the total power that option C gives them? They have full control. They can remove bus operators that, through the years, have developed routes into being commercially viable. Option C enables those authorities to remove their right to operate. That was the first deception: the explanatory note of the bill stated that option C would not be introduced.

Towards the end of the select committee process, the chairperson, the Hon Mark Gosche, told the select committee that it would be a good idea for the select committee to amend the bill to include option C. That came as a total surprise to the National members on the select committee, because option C had not seemed remotely possible; the submissions we heard were debating option B. We asked the officials whether it would be possible to amend the bill to introduce option C. They were under huge stress, and they explained to the select committee that, given the time line, it was not possible to amend the bill to introduce option C. At that point, the Hon Mark Gosche informed the select committee that it would not be a problem, and that it would not be out of scope, because the Minister of Transport had agreed to it. I presume that was the same Minister of Transport, the Hon Annette King, who took the result of the first public consultation to Cabinet, which decided on option B. So that was interesting. Because she could not convince Cabinet to adopt option C, she was introducing it through a back-door measure, through having the select committee adopt option C. Well, even New Zealand First members can come to their senses once or twice in a term; they decided against it.

What happened instead? When the bill was being debated by the full Committee of Parliament, the Green Party introduced an amendment to introduce option C. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! Apparently, that was not the first time that happened. Mr Owen Glenn also said that he thought Mr Peters was using his power over Labour. His personal opinion was that “Mr Peters is well aware of his position in terms of leverage with the Labour Party and I think this has probably gone to his head and he feels he can get away with almost anything.” I think the same thing applies in this case. The Green Party understands its power, so it brought in an amendment to change the legislation, which we had understood favoured option B over option C.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)