Infrastructure Bill

I am speaking to Part 3 of the Infrastructure Bill, which amends the New Zealand Railways Corporation Act 1981. This amendment was relatively uncontroversial at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. In fact, we did not have much by way of submission on it.

Essentially, Part 3 seeks to amend the Act by removing some of the statutory restrictions that negatively affect the running of New Zealand Railways Corporation business. Those changes include normalising the appointment and dismissal of directors, changing the number of directors who can call a meeting to a simple majority, establishing the power to appoint a deputy chairperson, and streamlining arrangements for changes to Railways Corporation capital. Part 3 also removes the requirement to annually provide the Minister with a programme of capital works, removes the limit on how much the Railways Corporation can expend in one year, and permits it to effect insurance cover for, or give an indemnity to, a director or employee. Those amendments are consistent with the equivalent provisions in the Crown Entities Act 2004.

For this side of the House, anything that streamlines the operation of the Railways Corporation and ensures that it is modern and well managed is important. As members will know, Labour strongly supports rail; we bought back rail, and we want to see more use be made of rail. Rail has many advantages for our country. It is environmentally sustainable in comparison with roading, it is safer, and it has provided really important service to primary producers.

What is happening with the Railways Corporation is interesting. We are all aware that a former Prime Minister, Jim Bolger—a good man—was not reappointed to his role as chair. What was that about? He obviously—I give him due respect for this—believes in railways. He believes in the role of KiwiRail. Removing him has removed any impediment to the sale of KiwiRail in the second term of this National Government—if it gets one. We are worried about the sale of a whole lot of assets, if the National Government is returned at the next election. I know that this will be a really important issue in the next election campaign. Across on this side of the House, we will do everything we can to expose what is a clear agenda to start privatising in the Government’s second term, if the Government gets one. KiwiRail is right up there on the blocks. That is why, we believe, Jim Bolger was not reappointed. He believes that there is a future for KiwiRail as a publicly owned organisation.

Why would the Government want to remove the requirement to annually provide the Minister with a programme of capital works? What possible motivation could there be for that? Well, from our perspective, the Government is hiding the real state of the asset, and is preparing KiwiRail for sale. Labour is very apprehensive about the future of KiwiRail.

It is terribly worrying to us that this Government seems completely fixated on highways. We heard it again today in the House when Steven Joyce talked about highways. He was saying once again that there had to be so much investment in highways—we were talking about the Auckland scenario—because something like 85 percent of transport movements are, in fact, by road. Well, nobody would dispute that figure, but what gets me is that every time he is asked these questions, he trots that figure out as if it is a given, as if it is something we cannot control. [Interruption] As if it is something we cannot change—exactly. We can do something about it, but the only way we can do something about it is by investing in public transport, investing in rail, and ensuring that it is a viable option for both the movement of freight and the movement of people.

We all know that the relative share of funding between public transport and roading has changed under this Government. It has changed from what was planned by the previous Government. That is another significant difference between the parties: on this side of the House we believe in investing in public transport and investing in robust infrastructure. Thank you.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 151 in the name of the Hon Bill English to Part 3 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Amendments relating to affordable housing