Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider the bill.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the introduction of this bill, the Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill. This bill will update the Land Transport Act to ensure vehicles responding from lines companies to electrical emergencies are able to display lights, and that other vehicles must make passage for them.

This is my second bill which I’ve had the privilege of having pulled from the ballot, and one which seeks to create a solution to what is a very serious problem, particularly in our bigger cities, where congestion is becoming a bigger and bigger issue, not only for New Zealanders going about their ordinary lives and getting home from work but also for those who are responding to emergencies and needing to be able to move quickly through traffic. When an emergency occurs in New Zealand, our fire, ambulance, and police services have the ability to be able to turn on lights and sirens and have traffic move out of the way so that they can respond quickly to emergencies, whether that be a crime, a traffic incident, a fire, or a medical emergency, or often to what is an incident resulting in more than one of these services being required at the same time.

This bill seeks to create an additional category by allowing vehicles responding to electrical emergencies to be able to have flashing lights installed on their vehicles, which will enable them to move through traffic more quickly and better support other emergency services in situations where there is damage made to the electricity network and which poses a risk to public safety.

Electrical emergencies can be very serious and lead to life and death consequences. In Auckland, on average, a car hits a power line every single day, with fire and ambulance services often unable to respond to the person in the car until lines companies have arrived to the scene and disconnected the power. While the fire and ambulance services are able to display lights and use sirens and move quickly through traffic to arrive at the scene of the accident, the vehicle responding to the electrical emergency or issues is stuck in traffic, with the fire and ambulance crews unable to respond until the power is disconnected.

A good example of this was on the Mount Wellington Highway in Auckland in 2018, when a car collided with a power pole which not only left 1,416 customers without power but where the electrical response crew was stuck in traffic trying to respond, with a delayed response due to traffic, as the incident took place at 4.40 p.m. in Auckland, one of the busiest times on the roads in Auckland. Another example was in the Auckland suburb of Saint Johns, where there was a fire in an electricity pole on one of Vector’s electricity assets. Whilst there was minimal disruption to the electricity supply for customers at the time, there was a wider safety risk with the electricity assets being on fire. In this case, the incident took place in the morning, with the response vehicles taking over an hour to be able to get there due to the morning commute.

These cases not only highlight the issues with the incidents that must be responded to where there is an emergency event, and the fact that getting through the traffic delays the response time, but the fact that this also impacts the speed at which customers who are affected can have their power restored, many of whom are medically dependent customers of electricity.

Medically dependent consumers of electricity are people who depend on mains electricity for critical medical support such that a loss of electricity may result in loss of life or serious harm. People who qualify for this may require ventilators, oxygen concentrators, or ventricular assistance devices, with electricity suppliers having things that they must do to ensure that these people have the best possible access to electricity. Responding to electrical outages more quickly could mean the difference between life and death for some electricity consumers who are medically dependent on these machines. This highlights the fact that people’s lives and businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on an uninterrupted supply of electricity. If response crews had access to flashing lights in every situation where congestion is a problem, response times would be reduced and would speed up power restoration considerably, particularly for those whose lives are put at risk.

There are also already exemptions where other responders to emergency situations have the abilities to display lights so as to navigate through traffic. Doctors, midwives, and some nurses are able to use flashing lights, which allow them to move more quickly through heavy traffic while keeping to the speed limit, saving precious time in situations where there is a medical reason to do so. It makes sense that similar powers be given to those responding to electrical emergencies for the reasons given above.

Not only are there already similar provisions for doctors, midwives, and some nurses but the issue that this bill seeks to address has been recognised by Auckland Transport, where they have allowed vehicles in Auckland responding to electrical emergencies to be able to use bus lanes in the Auckland roading network. Whilst this makes a small difference, this benefit only exists where a bus lane exists, and only exists in Auckland. This is a problem not just in Auckland. Congestion is something which is becoming increasingly worse across New Zealand, with TomTom Traffic Index statistics listing Auckland as having the second-worst traffic in Oceania, with congestion also increasing in other cities across New Zealand. There have also been many recent examples where storms in Auckland have caused significant damage and significant congestion. Recent storms and the Auckland Harbour Bridge clogging our roads across Auckland only highlight—

💬 Shanan Halbert: Good example.

—this issue even more frequently. I see the member for Northcote there is very keen on a cycle bridge, which won’t fix this problem. We actually need a new second full crossing if we’re going to actually fully unlock that particular issue.

According to Auckland Council, Aucklanders are spending about 20 working days stuck in traffic each year. Traffic congestion costs up to $2 billion a year in lost productivity. These statistics simply demonstrate how difficult it is for Aucklanders to get around a city, and then when you put on top of that where there’s actually an emergency, it really highlights how challenging it is for them to be able to respond as well.

So this bill I’ve brought to this House is very limited. It will not allow lines companies to use this power without cause. The bill is tightly confined to only allow the use of this power to be used where there is damage done to the electricity network and there is a risk to the public safety. We’re not going to see electrical response vehicles constantly seeking to get around Auckland faster for their day-to-day business. This is tightly confined as this is about situations where there is a risk to public safety and to life.

I hope that all members of this House will support this bill. This bill seeks to make a positive difference with which the average Kiwi will see is sensible. It is an easy change and could indeed save lives. Passing this bill seems to me, to use a colloquial phrase, a no-brainer. As such, I have great hope in commending this bill to the House and, in particular, the Labour Party giving it its full support.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I’ll start, as we traditionally do on a Wednesday, on a members’ day, by congratulating the member Simeon Brown for having this bill drawn out of the biscuit tin, and I’ll congratulate him on his enthusiasm for the bill. He looks at it and thinks “This seems like a good idea”, and like so many things that do come before this House, they looked like a damn fine idea. But when they are actually giving some scrutiny, and I’m afraid, Mr Brown, some history, then things look a little different.

Now, I sometimes do tend, when I see these things come in, to dig deep into my memory, which, I’m fortunate, looking around the House, is a longer memory than anyone else in this House—even your own, Mr Speaker. But I can remember a time when police cars didn’t have sirens; they only had little red lights. Now, I’m not sure if anyone in this House will actually remember when police cars just had little red lights on their grey cars, but that was the police which I joined. They had previously had sirens, but, as a result, the folklore was—whether it was true or not—that a certain inspector had raced home for lunch using his siren and had been caught and prosecuted, and so, as a result, the commissioner of the day said, “Right. No more sirens.” So that meant that a generation of police officers like myself were then forced to try and get their way through traffic with little red lights, or, actually, subsequently, little blue lights, in the middle of our Holden Kingswoods and Holden Belmonts—when we weren’t stopping because the gears had jammed—trying to actually get to where we were going.

In fact, I do recall in the Evening Post—again, showing my age—a reporter wandering down Lambton Quay had heard a police car with apparently a siren going as it raced to a job down Lambton Quay. Now, I happened to be in that car at the time. I was the driver, but my passenger was on the PA, or public address system, whistling and trying to emulate a siren so that we could actually get to where we were going as quickly as possible, because it was pretty hopeless trying to get there just with this little blue light.

Just as an aside, when the blue lights were introduced, I can say that I was in the first police car that crashed that ever smashed a blue light, in racing to a major incident in the Newlands Arms Hotel. We hit a fog layer, went through the fog, and my erstwhile companion Dave Potaka didn’t know there was a curve in the road and we ran along and smashed the blue light. Again, another little pat to fame. But I digress, Mr Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: You certainly do.

I know we are here on this serious matter of why we should look at the possibility of these particular emergency vehicles having a flashing amber light.

Why I did take some time to get to this position is that the reality of it, this history of how we’ve got a number of vehicles around there with amber lights, and why it is not a good idea to put another amber light there with rights—it is not a particularly good idea. I would invite all these members, when they leave here and return to their electorates, to actually have a look out and see how many vehicles there are out there with amber lights on the top of them at the moment. There are a considerable number. If you happen to be anywhere near a major construction site, if you happen to be anywhere near a mining site—locally, in Wellington, you will see that every single vehicle that actually comes off Transmission Gully has all got an orange light. They haven’t got any ability or any powers with them, but they have these lights because they are safety devices. So were we to put another vehicle on the road with a right or ability to use these particular lights, it would just add to confusion.

The other thing, if you are ever in a vehicle without a siren and with a light on, and even with a siren, is to just see how motorists actually react to it. Again, I’ll invite anyone who sees an ambulance, a fire engine, or a police vehicle approaching an intersection to just see how the public behave. Actually, if you have an inexperienced, ill-trained driver behind the wheel of the vehicle with a siren, as you will know, it could actually create more danger—create more of a peril situation if you don’t actually approach it properly. Just imagine the scene where you are sitting on the motorway, as described by Mr Brown, and all of a sudden you’ve got this orange light flashing behind you. I suggest that any driver who is in that situation, trying to get to the sort of situations he described, is not going to get very far just with a little amber light going on. No, what they will do is they will put their hazard lights on, as I have seen many a dog control officer do, racing off to a scene. They’ll probably be tooting their horn, and they may even be—going back to my little situation down on Lambton Quay—having some sort of PA system emitting all sorts of noises trying to attract attention.

The other thing that happens, also, is you’d probably find that if this vehicle is required to go to an emergency, there will have been a lot of emergency vehicles on their way there too. So there will be considerable sirens; there will be considerable lights. Now, there is American research that actually shows that when motorists are confronted with flashing lights, they will intuitively go towards the flashing light. So when you look in your rear-view mirror, or if you are approaching an intersection and you see flashing lights, what people intuitively do is actually go towards them.

Now, again, I’ll go back to the member here who has brought this bill. There is a very good reason, and looked at in isolation, without dissecting your arguments, Mr Brown, I can see that there are reasons. Without taking into consideration, out of context, and just looking at it alone without any history, it may actually seem on the surface a very good idea, like many pieces of legislation—particularly members’ bills—that come before the House.

So what I’ll be saying is that we have to ensure that if we’re going to put another set of flashing lights—particularly if it’s someone’s rights on the road—we have to be very careful, firstly, to educate the public. Now, that would be quite interesting.

The previous debate was about making sure that we look at the regulatory consequences of any legislation. Well, one of them would probably be having to rewrite the road code, for a start, and for a party supposedly worried about the Government spend, just be very wary when you do, because the other thing with the orange light—at the moment, no vehicles with orange lights actually have any powers. We have red lights and we have the police vehicles with the blue lights, and I’ve already explained the change from red to blue. Apparently, there was some science at the time that showed that with blue lights, people do notice them particularly, much more than they do red lights. You’ll see also that most cars now have blue and red flashing lights. Again, the important thing is that they go with a siren, because it is the siren that will actually attract you first, so then that allows them to go through the traffic.

In my experience and the experience of many of my colleagues, where an emergency vehicle is required to get to somewhere like the Auckland Harbour Bridge, the smart thing to do is to actually get a police car to escort them, in the same way that often happens—and already the member spoke about midwives. There’s many a midwife—in fact, there may even be, statistically, someone in this House who was born in the back of a car, because it is not an uncommon occurrence, and generally, when that happens, the first thing that we’ll do is that a police or other emergency vehicle will actually be dispatched, despite the fact that they actually have the ability not to go through or break any law or to speed, but to just have the ability, currently, to put their lights on. Essentially, it means that they’re unlikely to be charged.

Like all these things, it’s when something goes wrong that, really, it will be tested, and “going wrong” means that it would generally be an accident. Sadly, even with experienced fire staff, police staff, and ambulance staff, serious accidents still occur, because, actually, having the ability to go through red lights, to go to speed, or to go into lanes or places where the general public would not be expecting to see a car, does create issues.

It may well be, again, some of the rationale for allowing, particularly, people going to electrical emergencies to get there quicker—it is something that will not be solved and it never should be solved by a member’s bill in this House. It is something that, again—as I’ve spoken about previously—the law of the unintended consequences in a situation like this will be considerable. So I am not going to stand here and say that it is necessarily a bad idea, but without taking into consideration the implications for other road users, this is a bill that if it is to be considered, it should be considered within a package of other proposals to ensure that we do actually understand the consequences. Therefore, I cannot support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am slowly moving towards the light of illumination, and I would like to thank Greg O’Connor, the previous speaker, for all the lights that he has provided on that road to greater wisdom and illumination. We heard amber lights, blue lights, red lights, I was waiting for purple lights, and it actually reminded me of—

💬 Greg O’Connor: In the Green Party room.

Ha, ha! It reminded me of “blue light” discos, actually. That’s quite appropriate, since the member probably hosted and ran a couple of those “blue light” discos—and I know that will be meaningful for those of us around the House that are kids of the 1980s.

But holy road congestion! When I took a look at this bill, it looked like it had been dreamt up in an Auckland traffic jam, because the word “congestion” just leapt off the page to me. I looked at it, and, as a previous Aucklander, I know that for those of us who have been in those Auckland traffic jams, you kind of get caught in it. Google Maps says it’s about five minutes away, but actually it’s 50 minutes away, and you have all these sorts of ideas. You have all these sorts of daydreams. But what I would suggest is that if we sorted out the congestion problems, we could dream about other things—we could dream about other things. We could get back to fantasising, maybe, on some of our more favourite subjects, like gangs or so on and so forth, giving more room and ability to dream those bigger dreams.

As the Greens, we support public and active transport, because we know that when you get people out of cars and into other modes of transport that, of course, actually deals with the congestion issues. It reminds me of a quote I saw on a TED Talk by Enrique Peñalosa, where he said, “An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather where even the rich use public transport.” So viva public transport—long live public transport.

I was heartened by a bit of the media around the new Puhinui transport hub there in South Auckland. As someone who used to live in South Auckland and often returns to the sacred soils of South Auckland to rejuvenate my wairua and spirit, I was glad to see that Puhinui had actually been changed around. So I look forward to giving it a go and giving it a whirl, because I remember in the mid-1990s, when I used to go past Puhinui, there wasn’t much to look at. So, hopefully, when those sorts of initiatives get people off the roads and on to rail—because rail is good—and other ways of public and active transport, that means that there will be less congestion and we can think about other things.

This bill requires the Minister of Transport to make regulations that allow vehicles which are responding to electrical emergencies to be able to display lights which require general traffic to pull over and let the vehicle through. My understanding is that the bill is specifically trying to address an issue that Vector brought up that they were having in Auckland. We know that traffic congestion is consistently causing material delays to crews accessing sites in order to restore safety and, ultimately, power to customers in unplanned outages and safety events. Emergency responders are sometimes waiting for electric crews to show up to turn on their locations to turn the power off so they can safely respond to an emergency. That’s a good thing. I think all around the House we would say that’s a good thing. But the thing is, do we need primary legislation to be able to do that? Do we need primary legislation to do that? Could this actually be done in the regulations?

It is also not clear how significant this problem is. My understanding is that Vector are already closely working with Auckland Transport and have access to bus lanes in the city. Vector says that while this has been a significant help, there are still issues with congestion in the way that they want to have red and white flashing lights, but I think that conversation needs to continue. It needs to continue because that seems like a more appropriate pathway in order to sort this issue out.

Then there is also the safety issues that were picked up over here as well. We’ve already got a tonne of people on the road with flashing lights, different amber lights, construction companies, mining companies—all these other different vehicles. So that would actually cause a potential safety risk by allowing too many vehicles to have flashing lights.

This is the thing, and I want to end with this: there are other ways to deal with this issue. We could pick it up in the regulations. There could be more bigger and broader conversations with the agencies involved. We don’t need more lights on the roads—it becomes a safety issue—and we don’t need our roads looking like a discotheque, because that’ll just keep things too busy. So, unfortunately, we cannot support this bill.

Meitaki maata e te Vaa Tuatua, and happy ‘Epetoma o te reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani, Cook Islands Language Week, Mr Speaker. And if I can just take a second, just to say that the theme for ‘Epetoma o te reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani is ‘Ātuitui’ia au ki te Oneone o tōku ‘Ui Tupuna, which means, connect me to the soil of my ancestors. And to my Kūki brothers and sisters and the mamas, I hope I didn’t butcher that too much. Happy Cook Islands Language Week to everybody.

It’s always a privilege and an honour to be here in the House of change but also to have the opportunity to talk on bills and legislation and possible legislation that comes through this House. Being on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee is why I’m speaking on the Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill tonight.

Can I first acknowledge the member Simeon Brown for your member’s bill being pulled and for bringing this to the House tonight. My understanding, having read the bill and also hearing from the member Simeon and others in the House, is that the member proposes that the Minister makes a ruling to have a fitting and use of a “make way” beacon, essentially for electricity utility vehicles responding to network supply emergencies. I understand that the function of that beacon would be similar to what we have now in our other emergency response vehicles beacons and people on the road would move out of the way essentially when those emergency beacons come through. I know that there currently is no beacon for this purpose.

I understand that the member wants to put this through as a bill, as a legislative change. However, my understanding is the same as the member from the Green Party, that Waka Kotahi already have discretion under section 166 of the Land Transport Act to grant exemptions to the rule, as deemed appropriate, and have reached out to Vector to have a discussion around how they can better assist utility vehicles navigating the heavy peak traffic of Auckland, as this is essentially where this is probably the most needed, if at all. So for me, that tells me that there’s another way than going through the legislative route.

And when you do that, you’re looking at this being your first reading, taking it to select committee, the time and the resource that’s involved in that and then, on top of that, having the time for people to be able to make submissions on that, using the resource and the time of our awesome parliamentary staff as well as our own time. If there was no other option, if there was no other way, absolutely take it through that route, but for me, there is another option rather than using the resources that we have limited now—being able to save those for things that don’t have other options, don’t have other ways, and that need to go through a legislative select committee and reading process.

So for me, I believe that you have another option here in terms of Waka Kotahi having that discretion under section 166 of the Land Transport Act. My hope would be that we have Vector reach back out to Waka Kotahi, have that kōrero, have that conversation around how they can work better together to be able to navigate that really thick peak traffic in Auckland. Then that’s kind of also saved, like I said, time, resources here in the Chamber with our amazing parliamentary staff, the clerks—and actually it probably would be quite a lot faster if they were able to have that kōrero and start to look at other ways, rather than relying on tying up really valuable time and resources here in the House.

So for that reason, I believe and I hope that Vector or Mr Simeon Brown can maybe go back to Vector and encourage them to talk to Waka Kotahi and take them up on their offer of working together. That would be a better way to be able to get through this issue, which is important to you, Mr Speaker, as well as to Mr Simeon Brown. For that reason, unfortunately, I won’t be supporting this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So we’ve heard a proposal from the member as to why we need vehicles responding to electrical emergencies to have special powers—the same powers that are afforded to others responding to emergencies. It’s because the traffic delays the response times. It’s because customers need power restored quickly, particularly to businesses and families and those who are medically dependent on electricity. It’s true: electrical outages have real impacts. The Eaton annual blackout tracker, an Australian company that tracks the performance of electrical networks—their data shows that in the 2017-18 year across New Zealand and Australia, there were 327 blackouts affecting 1.7 million people. And in 2018-19, the most recent year they have data, there were 167 outages affecting 1.1 million people. That is a large number of events.

However, most of these events are caused by storms or other actions which are not human induced. And what I understand the member’s concerns to be, in particular, are around those events that occur because of an accident during peak traffic times and where it is very difficult for a contractor to get there and fix it. And so the member proposes the contractor to be given a special flashing light to go to the emergency. Well, I’ve managed teams of contractors, men and vans, and I tell you, they are not the same quality of driver as professional Fire and Emergency drivers. I would not want them to be upgraded from the orange flashing light to a green, red or blue. They are not qualified and the member has not outlined how these drivers may become qualified.

But I want to offer you a personal perspective. There are options. Now, some years ago I could have benefited from a midwife with special emergency powers when I was standing knee-deep in a birth pool in my home in Titirangi; begging my wife to keep the baby on hold until the midwife got there; getting those phone calls, “I’m nearly there. I’m stuck in traffic.”, 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. I wished my midwife had had that green flashing light. But it turned out that a quick rally around—a phone call around friends—produced a fire officer and a police officer who came to my home and stood by to give me the assistance I needed.

My proposition to the member is, whether you’re trying to be a midwife or you’re waiting for someone to come and put your power back on, if it’s a real emergency Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) and the ambulance service will be there to help you. If there’s an accident or an event and you can imagine there’s a power line across a car or somebody is suffering because they’re trapped in their home because of an electrical fault, then the network companies have the ability to disable the circuit in your area and once it’s made safe, they can very, very quickly come in and fix it. The other thing they can do is they have a register of people who are medically dependent so in the event of an emergency which knocks out the power, they can send suitable people—ambulance or FENZ—to go and help the people who are medically dependent and make sure that they don’t suffer.

So the ACT Party believes that there are, in fact, existing provisions for organisations that need emergency-like powers to navigate their way through traffic, to seek those powers from Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency, to seek an exemption. The ACT Party believes that the existing provisions are adequate and for that reason we will not be supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always a pleasure to be speaking on members’ bills, and tonight it’s the “Land Transport (Lots of Different Coloured Lights) Amendment Bill”, because that’s what I was reading when I got the notes. I went, “Never have I seen a bill that has described all the different coloured lights.” I really think that the member for Pakuranga really wants a light for his own vehicle downstairs or in East Auckland there to run around in. I wondered whether that was the true thing, whether he’d like a little blue light or an amber light, some white stripes, some stars on it. I don’t know, but I think there may be some underlying hope that he can slip a little light on the old electric vehicle—Parliamentary Service logo, all the rest of it—a little bit of a light on top. I’m not sure.

But more seriously, we’ve heard lots tonight about these lights, and I’ve learnt a lot. One thing I’ve learnt is that there’s a real Auckland problem. The last time I was in here, we were talking about second-hand dealers and issues with things like that. That was an Auckland problem. Now we have the second Auckland problem bill, around lights, around electrical trucks.

Can I just share a wee story about an electrical truck. The last time I was on the Chatham Islands, I saw Chatham Islands Electricity and I thought “Oh, there’s a truck.” It’s the only truck on the island. There was a cow stopping it from getting into a fence, but no light needed for that, just a simple wooing of the cow on the side of the road, in the new truck—funded by the Provincial Growth Fund, I might add—and in through. So I thought, “Well, maybe even on the Chatham Islands they don’t need a light, and therefore this is really just an Auckland problem.” Maybe once some fabulous work happens on Auckland’s transport networks, together with the discretion—and it’s happening—of Waka Kotahi, then there really is just no need for this bill.

I know, as I said at the start, there’s some excitement around lights, and it brings back memories of little lights. I think of my six-year-old with little police cars driving up and down the lounge and other places. Obviously, the member got a little excited and then picked this bill up, thinking “Yep, this is a good idea.” Clearly, I’m really not sure. When everything else is already sorted with the rest of the emergency services, Waka Kotahi—the rules are in place for granting exemptions, and we’ve heard that they can turn power off at substations.

Always good to listen to all the speakers before you, because they actually build the picture up, and then you get the answers. In fact, I believe the member is probably feeling a little embarrassed now even putting this bill forward. You are—I know. So, really, there’s not a lot more I can say, other than that those unintended consequences about putting forward to have a different coloured light, all the marketing, and all the pain and all the resources—I’m thinking of the campaign that you’d have to do to even teach Aucklanders how to drive properly.

💬 Ingrid Leary: Lost luggage.

Lost luggage—anything. I wonder what colour the light would be. We haven’t really discussed that, but who knows. It would have to fit in terms of the rainbow-type colour range.

💬 Hon Member: Pink ones.

Maybe pink lights. The member for New Plymouth has suggested pink. It’s not a bad colour. My shirt is raspberry, so maybe a raspberry-coloured light could be OK.

In all seriousness, what we’ve heard tonight is the fact that there is a good intention, but like all good intentions, there are some unintended consequences. Those have been explained tonight, and I’m repeating myself if I said that the provisions are there already and to say that this is really not needed. So I want to commend the member for having good intentions, but in all reality, we can’t waste any more time and resources of this House, and we will not be supporting it. Kia ora.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. That was a little bit of a surprise to stand up and take the National Party call.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it’s a Labour call.

I want to congratulate Mr Brown on putting a bill forward that was pulled out, but it appears that maybe not many of his colleagues are keen to stand up and support him on this bill. So I’m looking forward to hearing from some more National Party MPs tonight on why this bill is just so necessary.

Look, as my colleague Terisa Ngobi pointed out, this bill is a bill that is a solution looking for a problem. I do accept—

💬 Simeon Brown: But there is a problem—there is a problem.

—that in Auckland there are challenges, Mr Brown. Interestingly, he may like to know that I lived in Auckland for eight years and didn’t own a car, and managed to actually navigate my way around Auckland as a student and a worker using buses, trains, and a lot of walking. It wasn’t actually until I moved back into the heartland of the provinces that I started using a vehicle. So I would suggest that this is a bill that is designed around a challenge in Auckland that I acknowledge is a genuine challenge, but, actually, across the rest of the country it’s a bill that’s probably not needed.

I might just talk a little bit about why in my electorate of Nelson I don’t think this bill is actually needed. In the last few years we’ve had our share of natural disasters. We’ve had fires, we’ve had cyclones, we’ve had rain events. We’ve had significant incidents, actually, where people have had trees come down over their vehicles. Some of our journalists, people like Tracy Neal when she was working for Radio New Zealand, have actually been put in very, very dangerous situations. But this is not an issue that has then come up, saying, “Oh, and we had a problem in our community that vehicles who were going to deal with power and gas outages couldn’t get through.” It’s not something that’s been raised in a media story. It’s not something that’s been raised with me—

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s right.

—because, Mr Bishop, it hasn’t been an issue that we’ve had to deal with, actually. The issue has been one that appears in Auckland, and I would like to suggest that actually, rather than coming up and using the House’s time on unnecessary legislation, there’s some alternatives that we could look at, and I’ll get to that soon.

We’ve talked a bit tonight about unintended consequences, and one of the unintended consequences that hasn’t been raised but that I would be concerned about is we already have issues globally about people not actually pulling over for emergency vehicles. It’s actually one of my biggest bugbears. When I’m driving through the city and I see a police car or an ambulance come through and I see people not pull over, it really irritates me that people are not actually following the rules to ensure that people can be looked after safely.

💬 Chris Bishop: Do you drive down Rocks Road?

Ha, ha! We can talk about Rocks Road another time, Mr Bishop, but you guys never funded it. In nine years you didn’t, did you? No, no, no.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s true, but how are you going?

Oh, look, Mr Bishop, I’m feeling pretty confident about Rocks Road, but back on to this bill—back on to this bill. One of the challenges, as the Green Party member, Teanau Tuiono, who has now left has talked about, is if we add more complexity to the system—more coloured lights, more vehicles that people need to pull over for—it creates confusion, and I think it would have an unintended consequence of making the system far more complex for drivers and making them actually less likely to pull over for those vehicles.

I think there are two important solutions here, specifically for Auckland. One is that I think the members opposite need to embrace new forms of transport, such as improving our bus system, improving our train system, improving walking and cycling options—actually dealing with the congestion, because if you put more cars on the road, you get more congestion. So actually committing to reducing congestion, talking to your fellow Auckland MPs, talking to Waka Kotahi, talking to Auckland Transport, talking to other MPs to actually come up with an Auckland solution—that is actually what needs to happen here, rather than wasting the House’s time with unnecessary legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Well, Mr Speaker, thank you. Kia orana. It gives me a real buzz to be able to stand here today and talk about the Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill, and I am delighted to take a call on a member’s bill in the name of my very energised friend here, Simeon Brown, the great MP for Pakuranga, my neighbouring area.

What a fascinating evening it’s been, because what we’ve heard from the other side is really a series of excuses for why it’s just all a bit too hard. We’ve got Mr O’Connor who’s getting migraine headaches from coloured lights. We’ve got other people saying it’s just a little bit too much work for the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and the member for Northcote and I both know we spend a third of that meeting discussing what’s on the morning tea agenda and whether Mr Eagle has secured product from the Chatham Islands or not.

💬 Chris Bishop: Is that right?

Yep. And the third excuse was a classic: it’s just an Auckland-only issue. There are only 1.7 million people living there, but let’s just forget about that! I just think the average New Zealander watching this this evening is looking at this, going, “This is a pretty common sense, practical, no nonsense, straightforward sort of bill and we should be doing it.” And I think “Too many lights”, “Too much work”, and “Just an Auckland-only issue” probably really isn’t good enough.

If we cut to the chase, this is really, at the heart of this issue, an issue around road congestion, and let’s just be really honest: in the time of this Government, road congestion has gone from 77 hours in 2017 to 95 hours in 2019. That means the average Auckland motorway user is spending almost 2½ work-hour weeks per year in lost productivity, just sitting on the motorway, going nowhere—up 23 percent; so an incredible loss of daily productivity, a huge loss in terms of just inconveniencing people’s daily lives, as they go to work, as they go to get educated, as they do a bunch of things. And I can tell you the fine people out in East Auckland who are from Pakuranga and Botany know all about this, because they’ve been paying a regional fuel tax for the last three years and they’ve got no public transport options there. In fact, the only one that was being built was something called the Eastern Busway. It’s been going for almost 20 years. It got delayed another two years as a result of—

💬 Simeon Brown: Why’d it get delayed?

Well, I’m going to tell you why it got delayed: because this city is gridlocked but this Government isn’t actually funding critical projects. It likes to talk about it, likes to announce stuff, likes to allocate budget, but it doesn’t understand you’ve actually got to do stuff and how to actually execute things and get things done. But the good news is the $785 million cycle and walking bridge, which the member for Northcote has been so excited about for 61 days. I know Mr Wood is calling it a current proposal, but it’s had a lot of resistance. Did you get that one, Mr Seymour? Resistance—another electrical pun.

💬 David Seymour: I’m an electrical engineer; I know all about it.

Yeah, it’s good. But 61 days, and that’s now gone. So maybe there’s some hope that we can use some of that to get some things done, but until fundamentally the Government bins the bridge, until it starts investing properly in roads, there’s no way that we can get vehicles that are responding to electrical emergencies through that gridlock as quickly as we need to.

Over the weekend, we saw in Auckland some pretty extreme weather events. Trees hit cars, fences got blown down, power voltage lines came down. It was a really tangible example of what’s at issue here. And the bottom line is that this bill is pretty straightforward. When you just zoom out and take a look at it, this sort of legislation already exists in places like Sweden and France—very, very normal to help vehicles to respond to electrical emergencies really quickly. The proposals that my good colleague is recommending are very targeted, small adjustments to the Land Transport Act. We can work out the type of lights, we can make sure other motorists pull over and give way as they go through, and we’ve well defined what an electrical emergency situation actually is.

As my good colleague pointed out, there is a car crash, a car hitting a power pole in Auckland, every single day on average.

💬 Chris Bishop: Every day?

Every single day. A car hits a power line every single day, and that has some pretty grave consequences, and if you just think about—I know everyone’s being quite flippant about it this evening, but there are some really serious things here: people who are relying on power for their health reasons, people who are medically dependent on power. They genuinely create life and death consequences. First responders can’t respond to accidents until powerlines have been resolved, and having Vector trucks or lines companies stuck in traffic before they can actually get to the car or to the victim is a real problem. So, as Vector has said, this bill will actually save lives, and that’s quite a serious thing; that’s something that we should be really fixated on and we should be able to do something about it.

I’d just say to you that these lines mechanics don’t bike themselves over the new bicycle bridge—you know, for 61 days it’s been in existence. They can’t walk or they can’t catch the bus. So the public transport arguments that our Green member Teanau Tuiono made are interesting but are not particularly helpful. At the end of the day, I’d just say that this is an excellent, very practical bill. People watching this will say, “That is common sense. It makes sense. It’s a good thing that would improve my daily life and we de-risk the whole situation.” So thank you very much. We commend the bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity this evening to speak on the Land Transport (Vehicles Responding to Electrical Emergency) Amendment Bill. Coming out of that last speech, it just shows how the National Party are really focused on the wrong things, and this is just another example. This morning, we talked about Aotearoa New Zealand as a priority for a debate, demanding the debate; He Puapua; gangs. We’ve got all these things that are not relevant to everyday New Zealanders.

But I’ll come back to Simeon Brown with respect, and congratulations to you, Simeon, for pulling your member’s bill out of the ballot. There is, I guess, principle in this that I appreciate that you are trying to address—the wellbeing and emergency of certain New Zealanders, and, this evening, we’ve particularly talked about those in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, and I accept that and acknowledge that particular part. I guess the compelling evidence that you’re talking about tonight and the reason why you’re asking to support this is particularly the issue with congestion in Auckland. I accept the points of Mr Luxon that we have real congestion challenges in Auckland. Nobody’s questioning that. The question is: who’s getting on and doing the mahi, who’s doing the work, and who’s got the plan, actually, to get things done? I do find it disappointing, Mr Luxon, that you have a low view of the quality and time spent in our Transport and Infrastructure Committee and I suspect that you should possibly review your conversation in that meeting itself. But what I do know is that the important work that we are focused on in that select committee, as an example, is going through the process of important matters like the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill. That was a very good piece of work that we worked on collectively to ensure that New Zealanders are safer on the roads. Credit where credit’s due.

The challenge—and where I say that National is not focused on the right things at the moment and everyone knows it across Aotearoa New Zealand—is that why would we put this particular bill through a select committee process? Why would we take time up in the House to discuss something that we are already able to achieve, Mr Brown? And the thing is, is what we see in this is that, yes, New Zealand Transport Agency—there is a discussion that is able to happen to resolve some of the challenges that you’re raising. And I ask you: why have you not brought those parties together to come to a solution to work it out and why is it at this stage that Vector has not engaged with the Government agency to seek a resolution should those lives be so important? Because when it’s at the cost of lives, we just make it happen. We put the politics aside, bring the parties together, and come to a particular resolution.

But coming back to congestion, and we keep on talking about the things that we need to do, the reality is that the National-ACT Government didn’t do anything in transport in Auckland. There was low, low investment over that time and that’s why we’re in the space that we’re particularly in now. But congestion can’t be solved by shifting parts around. In Auckland, anyone that understands transport and congestion—roads are congested at particular parts or times of the day. They’re not congested 24/7, right? And so you’ve got to understand and read the data and read the evidence as to how you decongest our roads at that particular time. And our very important Transport and Infrastructure Committee, that I’m signed up to, is doing the work to address that particular issue.

So coming back to: is congestion the compelling reason why we should support the bright lights of this particular bill? No, it’s not. It’s something that we are able to achieve now, Mr Brown, and I reach out to you. Encourage these parties to come together. Stop using congestion as the issue; we can make this happen now. The work that we need to do is get on, build the infrastructure that we need across Auckland to decongest our roads and make way for those that need them. That’s what is important here. We’ve got to focus on the things that matter and taking up the time of this House, taking up the time of select committee is not the best use of the work that we are about to do.

I rise to take a call in opposition to this bill, and I do so having had a look at the Land Transport Act and also at the regulatory systems Act and thought about the best way to deal with an issue like this. Now, Simeon Brown says that he wants to have a bill that’s specifically about vehicles that do electric emergency work. What about the gas area? What about chemical spills? What about other people who might need this? Those are the types of people who actually go to the right agency, which is Waka Kotahi, and they go through a process and they actually are looked at in their merit. And that Act sets out the capacity for that agency to go through and look at the particular group asking for this kind of status and the needs of the community with regard to that. That is a process that’s set up, and for the life of me I do not understand why Simeon Brown would not actually use that process and why Vector Energy wouldn’t use that process. It does seem to be a piece of legislation that supports one particular lobbyist that has gone to the National Party, and Mr Brown has put up a bill specifically for that group. And I take my friend in the ACT Party’s view—

💬 David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order, David Seymour—I’ll just get Helen White to sit down.

💬 David Seymour: Learn the rules. Standing Order 121 says it is outside of the Standing Orders to impugn or impute an improper motive to a member. Now, what Helen White, the member for Auckland Central, has just done—

💬 Chris Bishop: She’s not the MP for Auckland Central.

💬 David Seymour: Oh, she’s not the member for Auckland Central?

💬 Chris Bishop: She lost.

💬 David Seymour: Oh, sorry.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you get to the point of order?

💬 David Seymour: Yeah, sorry, I apologise to the member.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: And, actually, before you do, I’m going to require Chris Bishop to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Chris Bishop: What, for pointing out the truth? I stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, no, not for that. I’ll tell you why: points of order are heard in silence, as he well knows.

💬 Chris Bishop: Fair enough. I withdraw and apologise.

💬 David Seymour: The accusation and imputation of improper motives on to the member responsible for this bill are unparliamentary. We can’t have our standards slip to where people are just slagging across the House telling people that they are corrupt and have impure motivations to bring a bill to this House. I think the member has to withdraw and apologise for that comment. It’s clearly in contradiction of Standing Order 121.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, that’s not what I heard, so that might be your interpretation of it. There are certain things that members can say, but that was not to the point that I believe that she has broken a Standing Order.

Thank you, sir. In fact, just to take that point, there is absolutely no way I would do that. I am lobbied all the time, and I don’t consider it corrupt to listen to the lobbying, but I do think it’s an important thing to point out that this bill only looks at one group of people who may be irritated by having to go through a process that actually respects the rights of everybody and balances them and weighs them.

We’ve had a lot of points made tonight about “What if everybody wanted this and everybody had a different coloured light, and would it work?”, and it probably wouldn’t. We’ve had actually one of your own colleagues in ACT talk—sorry, David Seymour’s own colleagues in ACT—very compellingly about the need for some people to get a better run than others in terms of things like midwives or doctors, and those people actually have been through a process. They don’t all have their own Act. They go through a process and respect that process, and that’s the way we do business, and it’s a good way to do business. In something like transport, those agencies have the best knowledge of those things, and we have delegated those kinds of considerations to them and given them rules in the legislation which they will follow to get there, and that seems a very sensible system to me.

I do wonder why these bills keep on coming up that actually just do something already in law. I wonder if there is a bit of a vacuum here, where people cannot come up with something that’s actually original. There’s so many gaps out there at the moment that we actually do need to fill, and on my side of the House, I believe that may of the backbenchers are coming up with really great new ideas. They’re fresh ideas. They’re bringing things to the table. So this is not something that I do think needs to be done or, in fact, would add to anything. In fact, I think it would erode the rights of others, who stand alongside workers like the workers at Vector and actually need just as much consideration and actually have gone through respecting the processes that are there. So I urge Vector to go back and talk to the right agency and go through the proper process and be considered and have a measured, weighed decision in the legislation that I trust will work.

I would just like to talk about the congestion in Auckland for a minute and the relationship to this. I don’t really think it’s relevant. I take the point from the ACT Party member who spoke before, Simon Court, where he talked about the fact that this is an issue really where you’d need to train people. You’d need to make sure that they were actually able to use these. You need wraparound in that way, and that is very important. Actually, in a congested city, that becomes even more important. So I don’t think that this issue is created by congestion; I think it’s an issue that has arisen because one particular group doesn’t want to go through the proper process for going and doesn’t want to be measured alongside other groups that may have a competing right and need for this. So I am absolutely confident that Waka Kotahi will look at this situation in a good and well-informed way, and I look forward to a process that is more appropriate, and for that reason we simply cannot support this legislation.

I rise disappointed with the out-of-touch members on the other side of the House who don’t even understand what’s happening in their backyards in Auckland, which is full of congestion, which is hard to get around, and this bill is trying to seek a solution to a problem which will and could save lives for people where there are electrical emergencies. The cases that I put forward are where there are people who—there are accidents where cars go into electrical power lines where the electrical response vehicles can’t respond quickly due to the fact that they are stuck in traffic while police and the ambulance and fire brigade are there and they can’t do anything until the power is off, people who are medically dependent on electricity.

This is the Government which is meant to be about kindness but has nothing to say about the people who are the victims in this situation. The Labour Party and the Government—all they had was excuses: “This is too much work.” Well, I’m sorry. Sometimes it actually takes a bit of work in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to actually do some work. Sometimes you actually have to do some work around the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

This Government hasn’t delivered on one single transport project in Auckland. Your cycle bridge over the harbour bridge—that’s about to be a “gone-burger”. It’s about to be gone. Just so you know, if you’re an electrical response vehicle person, you can’t actually get all your tools on the bus or train. You actually need a vehicle. And you can’t get them on your bike either. You’ve actually got to go down the roads and those roads are getting busier and busier in Auckland but also across New Zealand in our other major cities. This Government is out of touch with the needs of New Zealanders. This bill is about addressing one of the significant issues which needs to be addressed. I commend it to the House.

Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.