Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill

I am very happy to take the opportunity to recap on some of the previous points I made in an earlier contribution—I think last week—because I want to express how deeply concerned we are on this side of the House about this bill. Our concerns relate specifically to road safety. Although claims will be made opposite about the need for more investment in rail, what they’ve been silent on, actually, is the effect on roads around the country.

Taking $5 billion out of the State highway network, which was one of Phil Twyford’s first acts when he became transport Minister, wasn’t enough. He claimed that we had over-invested in roads for decades, so he took $5 billion out of the State highway network to instead put into Auckland rail and cycle projects, and now what this bill does is formalises that raid. This says that wasn’t enough; we now need to raid that piggy bank of money even more—take more money out of roads to put into rail.

Unfortunately, what that means is roads up and down this country will be made less safe. I ran through some of those. There’s Woodend, where they’re in desperate need of a bypass to make that community safer. There’s the Waikato Expressway, in Tim van de Molen’s part of the world—a much-needed road for that community. There’s the Northland motorway. They’ve been screaming out for four lanes there, and all the Government does is wants to put money into all sorts of other Shane Jones projects, not the one that’s actually needed to unlock the Northland economy. And then, in my part of the world, the road between Ashburton and Christchurch—by the Government’s own data, the second-most dangerous stretch of highway in the country. When we get back into Government, we’ll fix those roads.

After nine long years, this Government inherited a rail network that was in a state of managed decline. This bill is about enabling this Government to show its commitment to revitalising rail in all of New Zealand, and on those grounds I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.