Land Transport Management Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention to nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill.

This bill will amend the Land Transport Management Act 2003. The Act provides the planning and funding framework that channels around $3 billion of central government funding each year into road construction and maintenance, and public transport. The bill is part of the Government’s ongoing efforts to cut unnecessary red tape and create a better, more effective legislative framework for transport. The bill will lead to streamlined decision-making and fewer prescriptive planning processes for those in the transport sector. It will allow councils greater flexibility to plan for the needs of their region, and it will ensure that both central government and local government get better value for money from their investments in public transport.

The bill has three main components. First, it will remedy some problems with the planning and funding framework for the Land Transport Management Act 2003. That framework imposes processes that are duplicative, repetitive, and prescriptive, which leads to uncertainty, excessive paperwork, and unnecessary compliance costs. The bill will make the Act easier to use and understand by focusing its purpose and decision-making criteria on achieving an effective and safe land transport system and replacing the regional land transport strategy and the regional land transport programme with a single regional land transport plan. It merges the national land transport strategy and the Government policy statement on land transport funding into a single Government policy statement on land transport. It also removes the obligation on regional transport committees to include representatives of sector interests, instead leaving it to elected representatives to decide whom they need to hear from.

The bill will also amend the Act’s funding and planning provisions by enabling future projects to be funded by borrowing, where there is a good case to do so and the Minister of Transport and Minister of Finance agree. It is worth noting that in the last year more than 5.5 million journeys have been taken on the Northern Gateway—a toll road funded by debt through the previous Government. By repealing the regional fuel tax provisions we acknowledge that this form of taxation needs to go, because its costs would end up being spread across all regions.

The second significant area of change is the Act’s tolling provisions. The bill will replace duplicative statutory tests applying to the approval of toll road schemes with a single, high-level test requiring them to be efficient and effective. It will also rely on the Privacy Act, rather than on an anonymous method of payment, to safeguard privacy. It will reduce potential barriers to public-private partnerships in toll road building and management by removing the requirement for special concession agreements. The final change in this area is to enable the existing toll road in Tauranga—Route K—to be brought under the toll road regime that applies to other toll roads in the country.

Finally, this bill establishes in legislation a new policy framework for planning and contracting public transport, known as the Public Transport Operating Model. This follows a review of the Public Transport Management Act 2008 that found there was little incentive for operators to invest in public transport services or for them to come up with innovative ways for improving services. The legislation will require all public transport services in a region to be segmented into units and provided under exclusive contract to the regional council. Regional councils will be required to identify in their regional public transport plans the units, the policies on units, and the other public transport services the region intends to financially assist. Services that are not part of a region’s core public transport network will be exempt from operating under contract, and will be identified on an exempt-services register held by the relevant regional council.

This bill will repeal the Public Transport Management Act 2008 and carry over relevant provisions into the Land Transport Management Act.

In closing, may I say that Parliament, in passing this bill, will ensure that New Zealand has a durable piece of legislation that promotes an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system. It also recognises that New Zealanders want such a system. Thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

The Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is a bad bill. National has corrupted the decision-making and resource-allocation process for building new State highways. It is spending $1 billion a year on seven hand-picked motorway projects. It has politicised the whole business of building State highways in this country. Secondly, by pouring so much money into these white elephant motorway projects it is locking this country into a high-carbon, fossil-fuelled dependent transport future. In the process it is neglecting public transport, and it is neglecting the maintenance of our State highways and our local roads. It is doing this country a disservice. Those two qualities—the politicisation and corruption of our decision making and resource allocation for building State highways, and its obsession with roads at the expense of every other part of our system—are the two qualities that define this wasteful and mismanaged transport policy under this National Government.

This bill reflects that policy, and what it does is it sets in concrete the wasteful and mismanaged approach that National has taken to transport. It sets up a gerrymandered, decision-making process for new transport projects. It puts into concrete its obsession with roads at the expense of everything else, and it centralises more and more decision-making power in Cabinet, away from communities and away from the Public Service. How does it do this? For a start, it gets rid of the existing purpose statement in the Land Transport Management Act. Currently, the Land Transport Management Act’s purpose, in section 3(1), is “to contribute to the aim of achieving an affordable, safe, responsive, and sustainable land transport system.” Well, under this bill that is gone—it is gone. Let us apply the “Holiday Highway” test to this provision in this bill. Is the “Holiday Highway” affordable—$1.7 billion for a duplicate route that, at best, will slice 5 to 10 minutes off the journey between Auckland and Wellsford? Is it safe? No, because a $400 million job would actually fix the accident black spots much more cheaply and much faster. Is it responsive? No, it is not responsive to our country’s transport needs. Is it a sustainable transport solution? No, it certainly is not. It is an overpriced, gold-plated, duplicate motorway route.

OK, what else does it do? There are five transport objectives that also appear widely in the Land Transport Management Act. They are set out in section 14(a)(ii): “(A) assisting economic development: (B) assisting safety and personal security: (C) improving access and mobility: (D) protecting and promoting public health: (E) ensuring economic sustainability;”. They are five criteria that should be the guiding principles of our transport system. Under this bill they are gone; they are gone by lunchtime. Let us apply the “Holiday Highway” test again. Does the “Holiday Highway” assist economic development? The Minister of Transport likes to say that it is going to solve all the economic problems of Northland. For $1.7 billion you could buy a lot of high-quality economic development in Northland. Would the “Holiday Highway” assist safety and personal security? No, we have already talked about the fact that the Operation Lifesaver alternative for $400 million would solve the safety problems on that road. Does it protect and promote public health? No. Is it a model of economic sustainability? No, it is the opposite. If the Act was used properly, these principles, these criteria would mean that projects that meet those criteria would be prioritised. But this Government’s approach is to make the land transport management legislation less sustainable, less economically viable, and less concerned with sustainability and with public health.

The project level decision-making criteria under this bill—the criteria that we have been discussing—are swept away, and they are replaced with three criteria that this Government is using to drive its agenda of the roads of national significance. What are those criteria? First, to give effect to the Government policy statement—all right? So if Gerry Brownlee says: “Yes, we’re going to build the roads of national significance”, he has a tick in the first box. What is the second criterion? Effectiveness. Well, what is the definition of effectiveness? It is whether it will deliver on the strategic fit. So the second criterion is whether it will deliver what Gerry Brownlee wants! OK, two ticks in the first two boxes. The third criterion is efficiency, or the benefit-cost ratio. That Minister does not even believe in the benefit-cost ratio, because the other day in this House he gave an entire speech to the House saying: “Actually, don’t pay too much attention to the benefit-cost ratio, because it is not very important.” So the three criteria are—first, what is the Government’s policy statement? Let us build the roads of national significance. What is the second criterion? How good the project is at delivering on the Government’s policy. What is the third criterion? The benefit-cost ratio. The Minister does not even believe in it. So the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” rates on the first two criteria very poorly, and on the third criterion it is not even very good either, yet it can still be funded.

This is how Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce have totally gerrymandered the decision-making process for how they spend $1 billion a year of our taxes on white elephant motorway projects. That is what this bill is about. It enshrines a circular and self-serving politicised decision-making model for how we spend billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. Any pretence of rationality in the decision-making process has been dispensed with. Any expectation that our transport system will be integrated and multimodal has been done away with, because under this bill the references to rail and coastal shipping are being deleted from the purpose statement of the Land Transport Management Act.

We have two other big objections to this bill. One is that it takes power away from local communities. Does that surprise anybody? This is the Government that killed democracy in Canterbury and it does not give a damn about the democratic rights of communities. Look at the local government legislation that is before the House at the moment. It is all about taking power away from the elected representatives and local communities. So it should not surprise us that in this bill the Government abolished the mechanism that would allow communities to use a regional fuel tax that was introduced by the last Labour Government to ensure that communities at least had the potential to raise money in their own communities and to exercise some autonomy about their transport priorities. Even though the current legislation keeps power in the hands of the Minister, that is not enough for him. That Government wants to abolish altogether the right and the opportunity to institute a regional fuel tax. That provision is all about giving the two-fingered salute to Auckland, because that Minister has not only already said it cannot have a regional fuel tax to fund its transport agenda but also already ruled out network charging—congestion charging. The Government does not want Auckland or any other community to have any autonomy in their transport priorities.

The bill also reduces the obligation to consult communities on regional transport plans, but that is academic because under this Government there is no money available to fund local transport projects anyway, because he has spent it all on the roads of national significance.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s utter rubbish.

It is virtually impossible to fund a new State highway project in this country because there is no money left in the kitty. The third objection that we have to this bill is that it allows the New Zealand Transport Agency not just to borrow for cash-flow smoothing, as it can already do, but to borrow to increase the size of the transport budget. It makes toll roads easier to implement and it also makes it easier to use public-private partnerships for big transport infrastructure projects. Although we on this side of the House are sceptical about whether public-private partnerships can even deliver value for transport infrastructure projects, we are not in principle opposed to any of those three mechanisms. But we are opposed to a transport policy that blows the budget on gold-plated, low-value projects, and then comes back asking to use the credit card. This is a bad bill. It is entirely consistent with this Government’s wasteful and mismanaged transport policy, and Labour will not be supporting it.

First, before I talk too much about the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, I just want to say that a lot of the information that that last member, Phil Twyford, said was simply incorrect. There has been an increase in maintenance funding, and many of our transport networks are doing well because of the investment this Government has made into transport. I would like to commend our Minister of Transport for the hard work that he is doing, following on from the good work the Hon Steven Joyce did in this area in setting up a very strong network for New Zealanders in transport going forward.

I want to take just one example, and we can use this example to look at the arguments put forward by the Opposition here. Let us have a look at the Waikato Expressway. The Waikato Expressway is the best thing that has happened to the most productive region in New Zealand, and that is something that this Government should be very proud of. It took 30 years—a generation of advocacy—to get that road. This Government is building it, and we are building it on time and within budget, and that it good for the people of the Waikato.

I want to see those Opposition parties come to Hamilton and say what they say in this House to the good people of Hamilton, because we know what this road means. I will tell you what this road means. What is the biggest asset that Hamilton has? The biggest asset is our proximity to Auckland. That is our biggest asset. What does this road do? It makes us closer to Auckland. It links us to the fastest-growing city in New Zealand. That is what it does. What else does that mean? That means that Hamilton can be a hub for services in the north half of the North Island. You see the investment in the hospital, you see broadband, you see the work at the university. All those things are leading to jobs and they are leading to a future for the people of Hamilton, and they are dependent on that road.

That road is crucial for the growth of our city going forward. We will fight in this House and we will fight in election campaigns, and we have fought in election campaigns and beaten the Labour Party in Hamilton on that issue. The Labour Party has come to Hamilton and said: “No, we’ll give you a train to Auckland instead of an expressway.”

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: What?

A train to Auckland. An expressway worth $2.4 billion, or a train worth $2 million—go figure what the people of Hamilton decided to choose. They want the expressway because they know what it means. We hear the Labour Party, and you will get it from the Greens next, saying that there is this utopia of public transport that will solve all our issues around transport: “Don’t worry about the costs of it; we do not need to work out the costs around public transport. We don’t need to work out what the subsidies actually will be around public transport, because we say it is public transport. It works, it’s cheaper, it’s greener, it’s better.” That is rubbish, and we look forward to hearing that from the Green and Labour Party members as we go through.

I will tell you about the train to Auckland—the train to Auckland that the Labour Party wanted and the Greens would love. They put it on during the Rugby World Cup, and guess how many people went on that train at a time when it had an event—you know, people were travelling from Auckland to the rugby in Hamilton.

💬 Hon Members: How many?

Nine people! Nine people went on a train—nine people. The better part of this is that this train is going to have a subsidy of $15,000 per commuter per year. So 90 people go on this train, apparently—that was about all it could carry—and it would have a $15,000 subsidy for each of those people. New Zealanders would be paying $15,000 for 90 people’s travel plans for the year. That is a great deal! It is a great deal! That is the Labour Party. That is the Green Party. That is the reality of public transport. When you put it on, how many people went on it?

💬 Chris Auchinvole: How many?

Nine—nine people went on it. That is the reality of public transport. That is the reality of what the Greens and the Labour Party will talk about.

But let us have a look at what Hamiltonians actually want. They want growth, they want jobs, they want a future, and they want direction, and what are we giving them? The road to give them that. They are getting the link to Auckland, and they are getting the link to their economic prosperity. The Labour Party is very quiet now, because it cannot win a seat in Hamilton and it knows it cannot. The reason it cannot is that we are delivering for that city when the Labour Party did not and never will. If you do not win Hamilton, you do not win Government. That is how simple it is in politics. We are delivering for that city, as we are throughout New Zealand.

This is a good bill, and I implore anybody who has any problem with that to come to Hamilton and see the reality of what this bill means. For the productive heartland of New Zealand, the future economic base of this country, you need to invest in infrastructure, this Parliament needs to invest in infrastructure—and this Government has invested in infrastructure. It is delivering, and you can see the results. So come to Hamilton. We welcome you there.

This piece of legislation, the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, is typical of a Government that is either ignorant of, or deliberately blind to, the long-term consequences of the decisions it makes today. This piece of legislation does nothing to support good-quality transport infrastructure in New Zealand. Normally with the National Party what we say is that it narrows its view simply to a thin economic analysis of anything—anything the National Party does. It overrides the social implications. It overrides the environmental implications. But in this legislation it has narrowed things so far that there is not even economic criteria any more in its decision making around transport infrastructure. The only criterion is whether these projects fit National Party policy. That is the only criterion that the New Zealand Transport Agency will have to consider when it is deciding whether it should be building transport infrastructure. But that is wrong, because not only do we need economically sensible and viable infrastructure but we need our infrastructure to be socially viable and environmentally viable as well.

I want to go through the criteria that are currently in the Act and that this National Government is going to get rid of, and consider what the impact will be on our nation. The first criterion is to give effect to the Government policy statement. That one gets to stay, and, as my colleague Phil Twyford pointed out, the only thing that that means is “Does it fit the Government’s policy?”. Whether the Government’s policy makes any sense at all on economic, social, or environmental criteria, does it fit the Government’s policy? Tick—that one fits. Is it affordable? That is a question the National Party should always be asking. Is it affordable? Well, we have already seen what this Government’s view is on transport infrastructure. It does not matter whether it is affordable. As long as it is a road, then build it. Build the darn thing, whether we can afford it or not. Its view is “Gold plate it, build it with eight lanes or 20 lanes, who cares! As long as it is a road, we will build it if we are in the National Party.” Is it integrated? Well, it does not matter any more whether the transport infrastructure is integrated, because there will be only one form of transport infrastructure, and that is the roads.

Is it safe? We have already seen what this National Party thinks of road safety and transport safety. Mr Bridges should be interested in this. He is, of course, the Associate Minister of Transport. I was in his electorate the other day, and I was talking to people about transport infrastructure and transport funding. Do you know what the council told me? It told me how its funding for road safety promotion had been cut, as 75 percent of its work had been funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency and now barely 50 percent of the work is being funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency. That has resulted in a net cut in road transport safety promotion activities by the council in Mr Bridges’ region. Those activities are not undertaken just for fun. They are undertaken because there is an evidence base behind them that says that they improve road safety. This Government has no interest in road safety. It is cutting the funding already, and it is going to take the criterion that building transport infrastructure should be safe out of the legislation. Is it sustainable? Well, we know that the Government is not interested in sustainability. Does it assist economic development? Well, as my colleague Phil Twyford also pointed out, the Minister of Transport does not even care about benefit-cost ratios. He does not care about economic sustainability. He does not care about affordability. He cares just about building roads.

Here is the one that I am really upset about. It is the criterion that asks whether it protects and promotes public health. This may sound like a bit of a tangent, but there are four huge looming costs to our health system. They are confronting us right now and they are going to confront us even more in the future. One of them is cancer, the second is cardiovascular disease, the third is diabetes, and the fourth is respiratory disease. I am not sure whether there is much of a link between transport infrastructure and cancer, although I would not be surprised if there is one, but there certainly is a link between transport infrastructure and our ability to tackle cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease. We need more investment in active transport. Cycling and walking as genuine transport options need to be invested in. If we want people to change their behaviour, if we want people to move to rail or walking or cycling, then we have to build decent infrastructure that actually entices them and makes it useful and worthwhile for them to undertake those forms of transport.

So, in the interests of public health, in the interests of saving our health dollars and making sure that our health resources are available to the people who need them, we need to be building transport infrastructure that supports good health and supports people so that we can reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease, and the same with diabetes. Respiratory disease is an issue that this Government completely overlooks in its health policy, but, again, the emissions from vehicles and the location of transport infrastructure is an important factor in the incidence of respiratory disease. If we could do more with that, again, we would be saving our nation a lot of money and we would be doing a lot of good. We would have healthier, more productive, better-off people in our country. But these are things that this Government is either ignorant of or deliberately blind to.

Social responsibility—Mr Bennett talked about his pet transport project and his hatred of a rail link between Hamilton and Auckland. Well, my pet transport project at the moment is the rail link between Palmerston North and Wellington, which is very similar to the proposed link between Hamilton and Auckland. Many people use that link every day. For many people that is their sole way of getting to work and getting to the job that happens to be in Wellington when they live further up the line. For many of those people, the loss of the train will mean the loss of the ability to have that job. They will either have to move from where they are at the moment into Wellington, or they will have to give up that job and get a job somewhere else. Not everybody has a driver’s licence. Some people—and this might come as a bit of a shock to this Government—have disabilities that prevent them from being able to drive a car; therefore, they need alternatives, choices, options in transport infrastructure. But this bill is not about options or choice in transport infrastructure. This is about the National Party’s narrow focus on its roads of national significance.

Finally, there is environmental responsibility. Well, we know that public transport, particularly rail, uses significantly fewer resources than private car-based transport. So in the long-term environmental interests of this country, we need to be building better public transport infrastructure. But this Government simply is not interested. It is a conservative Government that is not interested in trying to lead change. It is not interested in trying to improve our nation. It is not interested in trying to improve our economy. It is not interested in trying to improve the nation’s health. It is simply interested in supporting the status quo and continuing on with tired old ways of doing things.

This is not a piece of legislation that will take New Zealand forward. It is a piece of legislation that simply reinforces the Government’s desire to pursue a policy that makes no economic sense, no social sense, and no environmental sense. We need better thinking from our Government on transport infrastructure. We need a Government that is thinking about the future and is interested in building an integrated and responsive transport system, not one that is stuck in the old ways and the ideas of the past—the think-big projects that the National Party is so well-renowned for. We do not support this legislation.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. I do have quite a lot to say about this bill. I will start by saying that it is really a shame that the Government is missing this incredible opportunity that we have in transport policy to achieve the goal that it says it wants to achieve, which is economic productivity. We have the opportunity to build a consensus, really, across Parliament to achieve what all New Zealanders really want from their transport system.

But, unfortunately, as was well articulated by David Bennett, this Government is stuck in the past. It is stuck in 30 years ago. He said that he was so happy that finally the Waikato region was going to be getting the Waikato Expressway, a project that the region has been advocating for for 30 years—30. I think that speaks volumes about where the Government is placed in terms of its transport thinking. It is stuck in the past.

The Green Party will not be supporting this bill—not because everything in the bill is bad; some things are, arguably, quite good. But when you take it in the context of the current evidence-free transport policy and priorities, the changes that this bill makes could allow some monumentally bad projects to go ahead. That is, firstly, because the bill allows for additional borrowing to pay for transport infrastructure. It allows for borrowing over and above covering cash flow. At a time when the Government is arguing that we need to sell strategic assets that are providing a healthy return, in order to supposedly pay down debt, the same Government is gearing up to borrow billions to pay for uneconomic motorways. It is really tragically ironic that it is going to be borrowing to pay for motorways that will not even deliver the economic development that it says it wants. The idea that the cost of infrastructure with long-lasting intergenerational benefits could be spread over the years through borrowing is not a terrible idea in and of itself. However, this Government is prioritising very bad State highway projects that simply do not make economic sense. They certainly will not substantially benefit future generations. So in this context, borrowing is extremely dangerous. It is going to saddle future generations with debt for projects that they will not even benefit from.

The proposed legislation also opens the doors to public-private partnerships, and, really, this is just a back-door way of borrowing. It is definitely still borrowing, but it is keeping that debt off the Government books in the short term. I think that when we look overseas at examples of public-private partnerships, particularly in respect of transport infrastructure, what we find is that they are extremely damaging for the public sector and they are extremely costly for the taxpayer. We compiled research on Australian public-private partnership roading projects that should be highly relevant to the Government’s plan to use public-private partnerships to fund some of its roads of so-called significance. Here is just one example: the CLEM7 Tunnel in Queensland. The initial forecast cost was $1.2 billion. The actual cost was $3 billion. The traffic forecast at opening was 60,000 vehicles. The actual traffic during a lower toll period—this is the peak—was 34,000 vehicles. That is about half of what was forecast. The forecast for 2012—this year—was 100,000 vehicles. And if you can believe it, the number of vehicles using this project has fallen even further to 28,000. That is about a quarter of what was forecast to use the project.

If you look at all of these Australian public-private partnership roading projects over the last few years, you will see that they are all, basically, debacles. If you look at the literature from Europe as well, you see consistently that there is an over-prediction of the benefits of roading projects through public-private partnerships and toll roads, in particular. The reason for this is actually really understandable. It is that the entire methodology that we have used in our transport planning for the past 50 years or more is actually biased towards cars. It overestimates the benefit of improvements that allow more vehicles to flow through an area, and it underestimates the cost.

If we look at the actual evidence, then what we can understand, in a way that really the National Party should be able to understand, is that there are a large number of market distortions in our transport network. That has led to an extremely unbalanced transport system, which, in the case of New Zealand, is very, very costly, and it is going to become even more costly as we face rising fuel prices. We have the opportunity to do things differently: to spend less money and to achieve the transport outcomes we want—the efficiency and the effectiveness. We have the opportunity to reduce congestion—spending less money and investing more in trains and buses. I am really sorry that David Bennett is not here, because I think that if he actually looked—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

Excuse me. Sorry, Mr Speaker. The previous speaker, David Bennett, mentioned that the reality of public transport was that people did not take it and it required huge subsidies. But I think he has not actually looked at the numbers, because in Auckland, for example, public transport patronage has been growing extremely fast, and patronage on the rail network, in particular, is almost 30 percent higher than what was modelled by Auckland Transport’s model 2, which is the public transport four-stage model’s demand for public transport and road projects.

At this point in time, when the Government is arguing that we need to reduce debt, at the same time it is taking the exact opposite approach to transport infrastructure. There could not be a more opportune time to actually reduce the amount of money that we are spending on transport infrastructure and make it smarter, make it more effective, and make it more targeted.

There were a few interesting observations in the board paper that went to the New Zealand Transport Agency about public-private partnerships, which are quite relevant to this bill, as this bill is going to allow public-private partnerships. Now we see that the New Zealand Transport Agency is actually already preparing a business case for public-private partnerships for certain roading projects. One of them was that Transmission Gully obviously is not a good option for a public-private partnership, even though the Government has been talking about it being an option. The reason it is not a good option for a public-private partnership is that it does not have a good business case. Every Government analysis of that motorway project has shown that there simply is not the demand to justify the tolls that would be needed to pay for the project. So what does that tell you? It tells you that, actually, the project is not economically viable. Going to the private sector is not going to make viable a project that is not economically viable. All it is going to do is take the risk and put it on to the public. Actually, we have seen that the model of public-private partnerships that the Government is actually investigating does exactly that. It is called the availability payment model, which means that tolls go to the Government, and the Government pays the private companies an annual payment for building and maintaining the road. This model puts all the risk of low patronage on the Government and on the taxpayer, which we have seen in Australia and in Europe, where, consistently, toll roads have less patronage and lower revenue than what was forecast in the business model.

All the Green Party is asking for, really, is some economic rationality and evidence to be applied to transport policy, in a way that, really, the Government should be quite open to. I would be quite happy to sit down with the Government and help it, because I know that I have more expertise in this area than it does. I am really interested in working with the Government, because I genuinely believe that Government members are going to live to see the day when everyone in New Zealand realises that these projects were a terrible waste of taxpayers’ money. They are going to regret ever supporting them. These roads will be like the motorways in Greece, which are completely empty, cost billions of dollars, and did nothing—nothing—to create economic growth. That is very understandable, because once you have an existing road network, the benefits of replacing or duplicating a link diminish as time goes on. If you were putting a brand new link in where there was no road before, maybe there would be some economic benefits. But there are already roads between Auckland and Hamilton. There are already roads between Pūhoi and Wellsford. The marginal cost of duplicating that road is enormous, and the benefit is so tiny, because it is only a few minutes saved.

I would like to conclude by saying that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill, until such time as the Government can demonstrate that it is capable of an economically rational transport policy. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. I think it is a bill that will go down very well in this House once it has been through the full select committee process, once all parities have had an opportunity to fully consider the exceptional benefits that can come from the bill, and once we have had an opportunity to go out there and consult with the public on the benefits of the bill.

Approximately $3 billion annually from central government is spent on transport, and from local government approximately $1.5 billion. We need to ensure that we are getting the best value for money with our transport regime that is in place. We need to also ensure that we lower the compliance costs where we can, and this bill seeks to do that.

I want to pick up on a few comments about the roads of national significance, and particularly on one I heard from Julie Anne Genter just before. She was making some comments about Greece and about how we may run into a situation where we end up with motorways that are empty. I have to say that I realise she is a little newer to Auckland than I am, but I do not know any motorways in Auckland that are empty, except in the dead of the night.

Aucklanders, in particular, along with many, many New Zealanders around the country, are crying out for even greater investment in infrastructure—transport infrastructure—around the country. They are crying out for greater investment in roading infrastructure around this country. New Zealanders have endorsed our plan for the roads of national significance. They have welcomed the roads of national significance policy.

As David Bennett has spoken about, people in parts of the country have been waiting years for some of these projects to go ahead. Let us remember that 92 percent of freight in this country moves on roads. Let us remember that we want to build a stronger economy in this country. Let us remember the economic potential that these roads of national significance will help to open up. Let us remember the New Zealanders who rely on good quality infrastructure to operate their businesses, to get to work, and to get their families to and from engagements around their cities and around the country. New Zealanders are welcoming this policy, and we are proud to stand behind it.

The great panacea, the great project that the Opposition and some people in Auckland are proposing to solve all the transport problems in Auckland is the central business district rail loop. Let us remember that in 2041 the central business district rail loop will remove only 1,400 cars from the road out of 29,000 cars that will be travelling on the road. Let us remember that their great hope for transport change in Auckland would see transport benefits of only about $300 million to $400 million, based on an approximately $3 billion project.

💬 Phil Twyford: What’s your alternative, Jami? What’s your alternative?

It is the projects that we are spending money on, Mr Twyford, the projects that we are putting funding into. It is the $12 billion that this Government is investing in roads of national significance, the $3 billion that we spend on transport every year—the $3 billion that is going into better quality infrastructure, something that the Labour Government underfunded, underspent on, and did not put a priority on, which New Zealanders are crying out for and are looking to this Government to continue. The roads of national significance policy is worthwhile continuing. It has been endorsed by the voters at election time, and they will be able to see it implemented further through the passage of this bill.

There are other important provisions in this bill around changing the purpose, and getting a more effective, efficient, and safe transport system. By combining planning documents, we will see more efficiency gained. By giving the New Zealand Transport Agency the opportunity to borrow further if the opportunity arises for future projects to be looked at earlier than expected, and by simplifying the tolling process that organisations have to go through if they wish to consider a tolling project, the bill will enable more cost-effective tolling projects to be proceeded with.

This is a good bill. It deserves to be supported by Opposition members. If they do not support it tonight, they should at least look at it properly through the select committee process. If anyone will be ashamed at the end of this process, it will be those people if they do not support a good piece of legislation that allows greater investment in important transport infrastructure around the country.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’s not this bill!

I must say after listening to the honourable Mr David Bennett speaking—do not worry, Mr Bridges, we will get to you. We will cross your bridge when we come to it. I will say that after listening to the honourable David Bennett I am sure that Vogel would be rolling in his grave to see the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee so blinkered, so blinded, so averse to common-sense transport infrastructure such as rail. It is very interesting, because the honourable David Bennett has obviously been taking note of the Prime Minister, “Mr Spray and Walk Away”. He has certainly given a big spray to those KiwiRail workers who are losing their jobs, and to those people in Gisborne, the 10,800 people who signed that petition that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee decided to just ignore. His comments really do cast serious doubts on the competency of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and its ability to be fair and true and to deliver something other than party-based outcomes, because we all know that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is heavily weighted in the Government’s favour.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Oh well, that’s why there are rotten sleepers!

As I said, Mr Bridges, we will talk about rotting sleepers. I will talk to you about them later.

But let us talk about tolling, because this bill is intended to facilitate and, in fact, ease the facilitation of road tolling. We in New Zealand First have real concerns about expanding the role of toll roads. The notion of streamlining the process to introduce more toll roads, we see as being against the wider public interest. Imposing tolls upon key roads inhibits New Zealanders from travelling on them. We already know about all the people who are living in poverty, although that side of the House tends to turn a blind eye to that. Similarly, the more toll roads in New Zealand, the greater the impact—and that is an adverse impact—on domestic and international tourism.

This Government needs to front up as to why it is relaxing mechanisms surrounding the introduction of toll roads. Could it possibly be for its Aussie mates in the Macquarie Group? [Interruption] I notice in the bill—let us get around to Mr Simon Bridges. In the bill, we see Route K there. I was hoping to see in this bill that the Government would be taking over the debt from the Tauranga ratepayers. There was its opportunity to do something for the people of Tauranga, but, no, it is not in there.

Let us talk about borrowing, because within this bill is a fundamental change allowing the New Zealand Transport Agency to borrow to build roads. This is a very significant change, and not one to be made lightly. What is missing is the justification for this profound change. Where is the evidence that this is necessary? Where is the cogent argument? Where is the compelling case for doing this? What is actually behind the move? Earlier tonight, the members on that side of the House criticised this side of the House for our attention to detail. We know that the devil is in the detail. Given the state of the economy and our level of debt, giving the New Zealand Transport Agency more borrowing powers needs to be fully explained and justified. It is quite simple. All borrowing powers need to be carefully considered. The Government needs to be quite clear. It needs to front up and tell us what is really going on.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Didn’t you listen to Gerry’s speech?

Well, I heard Gerry’s speech, but I was wondering what happened to the $12 billion set aside for the roads of national significance. What has happened to the petrol taxes that we pay? What has happened to the exorbitant prices that New Zealanders are now forced to pay with road-user charges? What happened to the jobs? Less debt, more jobs—was that not what the National Party campaigned on? Now it is pushing forward with a bill that allows greater borrowing for the New Zealand Transport Agency. So what are its priorities? The bottom line is this: as it stands, New Zealand First cannot rubber-stamp the New Zealand Transport Agency having additional borrowing powers without a full and proper explanation by this Government.

Let us go on to public-private partnerships. This bill will reduce potential barriers to the use of public-private partnerships, and the public should be very worried at this development—very worried indeed. Private business is there for a profit, and usually a handsome profit. Much-touted public-private partnerships have been one of the great ways, in fact, of hoodwinking the public. They have often proved to be a bonanza for private interests, but usually at the public expense.

💬 John Hayes: What a string of clichés.

Well, what private business would want to get involved in a public-private partnership if there were not a great profit in it for them? But when it all goes bad, the taxpayer of New Zealand is left footing the bill. When things go wrong it is us, the taxpayers, who pay. We oppose the privatisation of New Zealand’s roading network by stealth. The last thing we need or want is for New Zealanders to be paying some overseas corporation for the use of the roads here in our own country.

This bill does have a couple of merits, however. New Zealand First supports the Government’s aim of reducing needless bureaucracy, which often impedes large-scale transport projects. However, New Zealand First cannot support this bill as it currently stands. New Zealand First will not stand for relaxing regulations around road tolls, nor will we idly stand by and allow this Government to implement further public-private partnerships at a greater cost to the taxpayer. Therefore, New Zealand First opposes this bill.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: No, don’t sit down—there’s more. But wait, there’s more!

There is more coming, Mr Bridges. You are going to have to wait for that one, but it is very soon.

What a pleasure it is on this occasion to follow Brendan Horan. He has asked some questions. He nearly redeemed himself—nearly redeemed himself—by saying that there were two points that New Zealand First would support in the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. He got one out, but could not bring himself to say the other. He could not bring himself to say the other, so I will have to canvass a few, just to see whether these are what he would have supported. We are not doing just roads; we have invested $4.6 billion in a 10-year KiwiRail Turnaround Plan—

💬 Simon O’Connor: How much?

—including $250 million—$4.6 billion, billion with a “b”—over 2012-13. We have committed $1.6 billion to improve and electrify Auckland’s rail system, and invested—wait for it—$500 million to upgrade Wellington’s rail. We are already working well.

Why, we are asked by Mr Horan, is National doing this? It is because National is committed to building a more competitive and productive economy, and we must get the infrastructure right. We are building a better transport system, which is vital in order to transform New Zealand’s future and to create more jobs with higher incomes. We are committed to simplifying and to modernising New Zealand’s transport system so that it is efficient, cost-effective, and fair for all users. I ask you, if this were an election year, would these be things that New Zealand First said it would espouse? Yes. Yes, they are in keeping with its policy. I cannot see where Mr Horan’s objections are coming from. And the suggestion that somewhere behind it all there is a conspiracy does not quite ring true. It does not quite ring true.

Let us just reflect on how well we have done with our infrastructure. I think back to our forebears, our predecessors. I remember Mr Holyoake saying—I am sure it shows what age I am, I suppose—that we would have a road to within 5 miles of every primary producer. I used to go for a haircut 30 miles into Hokianga, on a metal road—not much fun. We should enjoy what we have got in terms of good roading. New Zealand has done remarkably well. I believe, and I stand to be corrected, that in terms of mileage we have more sealed roads than Japan—certainly more per head of population.

New Zealand has done very, very well with its infrastructure. This bill will improve things even further. It seeks to deal with what is an important issue for all communities, ensuring that our transport system is efficient, cost-effective, and fair for all users. I remember Mr Anderton finding, to his horror, that there were insufficient roads in Gisborne to get the timber to the mill. We need—

💬 Brendan Horan: There’s insufficient rail in Gisborne, thanks to the National Government.

Well, we have heard about rail. We heard a very, very lucid piece from the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, Mr David Bennett, who spoke—

💬 Phil Twyford: I wouldn’t call that lucid.

Well, it was lucid, actually.

💬 Phil Twyford: I think you mean loose.

No, no, no, it was lucid. He really got it together, and he gave us the figures. He told us what was happening. Rail has a way to go. Well, I believe in rail. The West Coast needs rail very much indeed, such as the Midland Line for taking the coal out. But it is a bit disturbing to find that it does not actually make much money on the job.

💬 Phil Twyford: Talk about the bill, Chris.

Well, we will talk about the bill, and I am glad—I am glad—that there is such a demand to hear about it. The bill will require improvements to central government’s planning and funding framework for land transport activity, as well as changes to streamline the assessment of toll road schemes and the creation of a new policy framework for building long-term partnerships between regional councils and public transport operators and the public-private partnership system, which the previous speaker had such a fear of. This bill handily covers those particular things.

The bill shows this Government’s commitment to getting the best value for dollar and to removing ridiculous duplication, which has been allowed to clog the arteries of public transport. I support this bill, and I want to leave room for other National speakers to be able to speak about it. So I will close by saying that I am supporting the bill because I believe it to be noble of intent, forward of thinking, and realistic in its goal seeking. Its goal is to ensure that the people of this nation get the best services. Thank you.

I am pleased to take a call on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. It is not the first one I have taken a call on in my time in Parliament. I think this is No. 2. There was the Public Transport Management Act as well, which the Labour Government implemented and which this bill actually repeals, as I understand it.

💬 Phil Twyford: I think this is the worst one.

Well, I am sure it is the worst one. I am going to talk about how good the other ones are.

As always, we had a fantastic speech from David Bennett. One of the things I really like about David Bennett—you know, he has got a lot of flaws, but one of the things I do like about him is he does try to promote his own area. He does like to talk about the Hamilton expressway an awful lot—an awful lot—but I was really interested, because what he does not talk about is the problems with public transport in his own city. I was really interested to see a press release from the Waikato Regional Council today saying that passenger transport bus fares are going to rise by 5 percent for children and adults on the council’s rural services, which include Te Awamutu, Cambridge, Huntly, Raglan, Paeroa, Morrinsville, and Taupō. I know this goes into the areas of some other members. There are other National MPs who are electorate members—

💬 Andrew Little: What does the member for Taupō think of that?

Yes, well, the member for Taupō is involved in that. But, anyway, the reason I was saying this is that throughout New Zealand, public transport is operating in an extremely constrained funding environment, and as a region we are being asked to do more with less, because the Government has capped funding for the next 3 years and has told the council that it expects the amount of money recovered from fares to increase to 40 percent by 2017. So, you know, I would really like to hear from the National members, the electorate MPs for those areas. They should stand up and justify this bill on the basis that in their areas poor people who live in rural communities—the rural communities that they say they represent—are going to be having to pay more for public transport.

What this bill does, of course, is repeal the Public Transport Management Act, which had a lot to do with public transport and a lot to do with making sure that we had better public transport through councils. As I said, I would like to rehearse the history of the Labour Government, because we had the first Land Transport Management Act, in 2003. That was the biggest change in land transport funding and management since the 1980s. Prior to that, the framework of land transport management and funding was incredibly flawed. There was no strategic direction. It did not allow an integrated approach to be taken to land transport because it focused on roading, and—hello—here we are back at the beginning again. What was happening before that Act was we had no long-term planning and the rules regarding the funding of public transport were constraining and inflexible. So that Act, along with the Public Transport Management Act and also an amendment to the Land Transport Management Act in 2008, made significant strides in our land transport systems, including public transport.

One of the significant things about the Land Transport Management Act was hypothecation.

💬 Hon Member: Hypothecation?

Hypothecation—that is right. That changed the way that fuel excise is used to provide more certainty for future investment. It was a Labour Government that brought about hypothecation. It augmented central government transport funding through regional fuel taxes, which allowed regions to fund more projects, which of course this bill does away with. We increased investment in public transport tenfold and funding for passenger transport services.

In case anyone forgets, it was Labour that initiated double tracking in Auckland, electrification, the extension of passenger transport to other parts of Auckland, the reopening of railway links, and the North Shore busway, which has been such a success. I know my colleague Phil Twyford is keen to see that success replicated in his electorate of Te Atatū. Going down the western motorway it would be a wonderful thing, but I fear we may have to wait for a Labour Government for that to happen. But he will campaign. He will have—

💬 Maggie Barry: Long time away, then.

Well, that is very nice of Maggie Barry, given that her—

💬 Phil Twyford: Maggie, you got one; we want one too.

That is right. That member’s electorate has one, so why can west Auckland not have one? If this was not such an ungenerous Government, it would consider that.

So this bill undoes much of that really good work that was done over several years under a Labour Government, under some fantastic transport Ministers, including the Hon Annette King and others. Instead, it is being framed as being about streamlining and increasing value for money, but all it does is open the door for borrowing for more State highways, tolling, and public-private partnerships. It is also about increasing central government control over the transport system and making sure that local people have almost no say. It is also about sharpening the focus on economic efficiency by removing social and environmental criteria.

All you have to do is have a look at the difference in the purpose statement in this proposed bill. Under the previous bill, there were a number of things, and my colleagues have gone through them. Under the previous purpose statement the legislation had to give effect to the Government policy statement; it had to be affordable, integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable; it had to assist economic development, safety and personal security, access, and mobility—I have not heard the words “mobility” and “access” mentioned at all tonight; it does not matter, does it—it had to protect and promote public health, ensure economic sustainability, and it talked about social responsibility. Public transport is a public good, and transport and access to transport is also a public good.

In respect of environmental responsibility, I would have thought that in this time of 2012, even a National Government could bring itself to say the words “environmental responsibility”. Instead, what we have is a purpose statement that is reduced to so-called streamlined project level decision-making criteria. Three things: give effect to the Government policy statement, be effective, and be efficient. What a disgrace!

💬 Phil Twyford: That just means: “Does Gerry want it?”.

What?

💬 Phil Twyford: It just means: does Gerry want it?

Oh, does Gerry want it? Well, that seems to be the only criterion that we have had for all of the roads of national significance. Of course, the Government has realised that those roads are far too expensive and it is going to have to borrow to pay for them. It just will not accept that some of the decisions it has made around those are just ridiculous.

I suppose you could almost call this bill the “Gerry Brownlee - Steven Joyce Justification for Roads of National Significance—

💬 Dr David Clark: “Gerry-mandering”.

A “Gerry-mandering Bill”. It is a “Gerry-mandering Bill” that is all about sort of post—what is it? Post facto—post—

💬 Dr David Clark: Ex post facto.

That is the one. It is a justification for a real disaster of a policy—a disaster of a policy—which is seeing gold-plated roads being built up and down the country. There is that smell of bitumen in the Minister’s nostrils.

What this bill is about doing is justifying the policy of roads of national significance, doing away with the very balanced approach that we had under the previous Land Transport Management Act and the Public Transport Management Act, doing away with a balanced approach to transport, and doing away with important things like reference to integrated transport, coastal shipping, and rail. The only thing that seems to matter to this Government is that everything has to go by road. It is so short-sighted—

💬 Phil Twyford: So 1950s.

So 1950s, that is right. It is so last century. It is so last century, as one of the Ministers said once, and I think that is a disgrace.

I am part of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I am looking forward to having a debate with David Bennett about why the people in his electorate are having to pay more for their buses and why he keeps justifying the roads of national significance, when the poor people in his area, the people in rural areas whom he says he represents, will not be able to afford to go on buses and will not be able to afford public transport.

In electorates like mine in the Coromandel we like roads. Unlike the Greens, we like roads because we need roads. Roads are what provide us with the wealth and the productivity efficiency that we need in our provincial and rural electorates around the countryside. The National Government is committed to making a brighter future for all New Zealanders and we do that partly by building a strong, bold, big, bright infrastructural network around the country that involves roads.

I want to commend my colleague David Bennett, who happens to be chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which will shortly consider this very good bill, the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, for his passionate advocacy on behalf of the Waikato Expressway. What a good local MP he is. What a good local MP he is, that David Bennett. He spoke so vigorously, so passionately, about the benefits that the Waikato Expressway will bring, unlike the Green member Julie Anne Genter, who seemed to want to create for us a nirvana of a Green-inspired vision of the world that sounded to me something akin to the Amish state of the South Seas. It was going to be an Amish society without the Bibles, however, but one where we were on horses and carts, with those red safety triangles on the back of the little buggies. That is what we would be driving around on, on our unsealed pathways around New Zealand, if Julie Anne Genter and the Greens have their way.

So this is a wonderful piece of legislation, and the second good piece of legislation that has been introduced tonight under the name of Gerry Brownlee. It is about growing a better future, a better infrastructure, for New Zealand. I rise to support the bill. I commend this bill to the House, and I am looking forward to participating in the debate at the select committee.

I understand the next call is a split call. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill, and to reiterate Labour’s opposition to this piece of legislation, which will only ever take us backwards. If ever there was a concern about why the New Zealand Transport Agency should be given extra borrowing powers, one does not have to look too far back in history to understand why, because this was the Government agency that made a financial error in the last financial year of—wait for it—$182 million. It miscalculated $182 million and had to get additional Crown financing to cover that gap. That is the level of mistake the agency made, and this Government now wants to give it greater powers to borrow to cover its mistakes.

The principal question for me, in this legislation, is how will this bill help the regions? How will this bill help the regions? Coming from working actively in a regional area, the region of Taranaki, home of the Ranfurly Shield and home of the brave, I can say that it is a region that has suffered hugely from this Government’s transport policies, or lack of priorities in roading and in transport. It has had little support. There has been little support from this Government for regional roading. This bill represents a greater concentration of power, when the issue for regions at the moment is just how much input and how much power local authorities and their transport committees can actually have. This bill represents a greater concentration of power in the centre and in the roading agency, and that will not help a bit.

Let me talk about a couple of examples in Taranaki, which are issues that have been longstanding, and where the local committee and the local community have long expressed a need for priority and a need for funding. They are safety issues. One is the Normanby Overbridge in South Taranaki. They put up their submission to get it on the plan this year and it was knocked back. This is a bridge that is a death trap. It has killed a couple of young chaps already—in fact, just recently. This is a community that is hanging out for roading improvements. It will not be that expensive. They have already attempted to divert local money into what is a State highway to fix the problem, but they cannot get it fixed and they cannot get the New Zealand Transport Agency on board to fix it. The most recent long-term plan that the New Zealand Transport Agency produced has not fixed the problem at all. Then there is the road north of New Plymouth, State Highway 3, which goes for about 100 kilometres. It has major problems with paving, there is no shoulder, there are issues about the bridge abutments and the uneven surface, and there has been no money at the centre for it. The region has tried to use regional funding to fix up bits of that road, but it simply is not enough. What will happen now, if this bill goes through as it is, is that we will just see an even greater concentration of power in the centre and less voice for the local community.

Let us have a look at one aspect of this bill: clause 61, which amends section 96. Under section 96 at the moment there is a quite explicit and clearly set out approach to be taken when the agency is considering the funding of roading. It requires the agency, in terms of its operating principles, to “exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility”. That includes a host of things: that it avoids, to the extent reasonable, adverse effects on the environment; that it ensures, in relation to its functions and to the extent practicable, it consults with persons and organisations in the region; that it takes into account the views of the local community; and that it meets the requirements of consulting with local Māori. All of that goes in this bill—all of that goes in this bill. If this bill does one thing that is bad, amongst everything else, it is that it guts the opportunity for local communities to have a say and an input into the priorities for their transport needs, and that is wrong.

It is characteristic of this Government in so many respects. It is not just in Canterbury; not just in the Canterbury Regional Council. Now we are seeing it in this legislation too—taking away the local voice, and taking away the voice of the people. It has happened so commonly with this Government, in the way it operates and the legislation that it is passing, and we are seeing it here now too. It is unnecessary and it is bad. It is one reason why the Labour Party will be opposing this legislation.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill or, as it more accurately should be called, the “Land Transport (Put it on the Credit Card and Pray for a Brighter Future) Bill”. This bill—this bad bill—simply does a few bad things for New Zealand. It does not go about transport the key way, which is that we should be discussing how to get around. Let us not make up stuff and exaggerate, as we heard from the National backbench, about horse and carts. Let us have a discussion around how we design our transport systems that work for us in 2012. How do we design a transport system that is going to work for the future? How can we have a multimodal system, where we have a role for road safety improvements, rail, coastal shipping, walking, and cycling to boost our economy and to get us around our cities cheaper and faster, and how can we provide it?

The Government has not gone from that approach. It has gone from the Steven Joyce, “Colossus of Roads”, transport approach, which is to put it on the credit card. He has gone around the country spending $14 billion on just seven new, uneconomic motorways, and now he has found that he has dug himself a fiscal hole. He has left the mess for Gerry Brownlee, the current Minister of Transport, and now the Government has to put it on the credit card. The bill also streamlines toll roads in New Zealand—and I want to quickly touch on the privacy implications there—and then reduces local input in decision making, when it comes to it. It is simply incredible that in a time of austerity, when we are facing nearly $70 billion in gross national debt, and when we are seeing the Government cut various Budget lines, this Government is quite prepared to put more uneconomic motorways on the credit card. It is simply mad, when we know that some of them have negative benefit-cost ratios.

Take Pūhoi to Wellsford. Independent consultants found that it had a benefit-cost ratio of 70c. This means that any member of the Government would get laughed out of a board meeting if they were going to borrow a dollar and get only 70c in economic return. It does not make sense. What we are seeing is a time of record high oil prices, declining road traffic, and public transport patronage breaking records and going through the roof. This Government is looking towards the 1950s to borrow more for motorways. It is like Julius Vogel in the 1870s borrowing billions to build bullock tracks, not the high technology of the time. It does not make sense.

But what this bill also does is reduce the privacy of New Zealanders. This bill, quite deliberately, in its streamlining of toll roads removes previous legislative requirements for personal information to not be collected. It has raised the Privacy Commissioner’s red flag. She is concerned, and we look forward to her submission to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. The question is why the Government is doing this. I have not heard a single member on that side of the House talk about this issue. It is likewise with the Public Transport Operating Model changes. I have not heard anyone on the Government side say why they are doing it, because the truth is that they want their mates—their mates who donate to them—to cherry-pick the most profitable routes and leave the least profitable routes up to the councils.

At the same time, this Government wants to take away the local community representation—the non-voting members on regional transport committees. It wants Steven Joyce and Gerry Brownlee to tell all of our cities, including Coromandel, which has had its local road budget slashed to pay for Auckland, to pay for Wellington, and to pay for Waikato, that there is no money for Coromandel. This is what we are seeing going forward with road safety.

We could be spending that money on road safety improvements. We could be spending that money saving the Gisborne rail line. We could be saving that money getting a rail link between our first-biggest and third-biggest city, but we cannot, because Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce have raided transport money and raided the transport pantry. They have run out of money and now they have to put it on the credit card. Now they are saying that your privacy will not be respected, and your local decisions will not be respected—in fact, they are going to take those people off the regional transport committees.

At the same time, they are also saying to Auckland: “We are not going to let you decide what you do with your transport money.” They are explicitly stating in this legislation that we cannot have regional fuel levies. If Auckland wants to do it, if Auckland wants to go forward, it should be able to do it. This Government is the block to Auckland going forward, and it is going to get punished down the line.

At the last election the Green Party went to the New Zealand electorate with a modern plan for smart transport that would have saved the taxpayer money, that would have paid down debt, and that would have invested a considerable share in the central business district rail link, in light rail for Auckland, in rail, and in coastal shipping. What we lack from this Government are road safety improvements, which would actually save Kiwi lives now. There is a better way of doing it, and this bill is the absolute worst way you would go about it. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Look, the heart of this Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is about efficiency in transport, and I can think of no better way to honour that than by supporting the bill and asking that it go to a vote.