Special Debates — Transport

Thank you, Mr Chair. It gives me great pleasure as the chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to begin this debate. I want to acknowledge the current and former member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee across the aisle and, of course, fellow members on this side of the aisle as well. A very hard-working committee. [Coughs.] They do say you choke if you’re not telling the truth, but I’m sure there’s no truth in that at all. It’s just my dinner.

So anyway, the committee heard from the Minister through the appropriations, and I might say that the entities involved in the vote are the Ministry of Transport, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, KiwiRail Holdings Limited, City Rail Link Limited, the Civil Aviation Authority, Maritime New Zealand, and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission. In 2021-22, $7.906 billion was sought for vote transport—this is about 3.8 percent less than the estimated actual spending of $8.22 billion under the vote in 2020-21.

Permanent appropriations for the National Land Transport Programme make up 50 percent of the vote at $3.97 billion. This includes funding for improvements and maintenance on State highways and local roads, infrastructure for public transport services, road safety, the rail network, walking and cycling improvements, the coastal shipping. This is administered by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, and the agency works with councils and other approved organisations on the projects in the plan.

Appropriations totalling about 22 percent of the vote are allocated to rail in 2021-22. This includes ferries and the Crown share investment in the Auckland City Rail Link. It’s interesting, since these appropriations, just how much has actually happened in this space, and you’ll see announcements recently around rail improvements in the Hutt Valley. A big part of what we heard was around the need to reduce the carbon emissions in transport. The Minister drew our attention to the challenges climate change presents to the transport system, which accounts for 47 percent of New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions and around 20 percent of the country’s net emissions. These emissions have risen by 90 percent since 1990.

In May, the ministry released a report that proposes policies and other actions which could lead to the transport sector with net zero emissions. Again, just an example of how things have moved, the committee is now hearing the submissions into the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. So, again, what we heard back in July has certainly come to fruition. Part of that, of course, is to bring the carbon dioxide emissions of light vehicles entering New Zealand down by almost 40 percent, to an average of 105 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2025. The current average is 171 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.

We also went on to talk about heavy transport and the challenges that there will be in reducing the emissions from heavy transport. The question I’d like to put to the Minister, perhaps, is the focus on heavy transport and the work that is going to be done there to reduce emissions in that area.

This is a very topical part of the whole New Zealand scene, particularly around the climate change, and so the committee is looking forward to doing a considerable amount of work. And I’ll just leave one more question for the Minister, perhaps. The New Zealand Upgrade Programme and the infrastructure package there—some details on that. So with that, I’ll hand it over to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I’m very pleased to make some opening remarks in this debate, and I’ll respond to Mr O’Connor’s questions as well in due course. Firstly, can I just thank Mr O’Connor, as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and, indeed, all the other members of the committee who are here in the Chamber this evening, for their engagement in the Estimates process. I find this a very constructive committee to work with, and, actually, really enjoyed the Estimates hearing that we held, I think it was back in about June of this year. We had a good dialogue about a wide range of issues, and I do appreciate that interchange. I’ve read through the report of the committee as well, which I think is a very fair reflection on those discussions and, again, canvasses a wide array of some of the challenges and opportunities that we face across the transport sector.

In terms of the Estimates for the year ahead, I just want to focus on a few highlights that I think will be of interest to members of the committee and the public. The first one that I want to touch on is just to give people a sense of the scale of investment that is going into the transport sector, because it really is quite striking, the increased investment that we’re seeing. This is reflected very helpfully on page three of the committee’s report, where they identify that the increase in appropriation going into transport between years 2018-19 and 2019-20 was a 15.9 percent increase. But then the increase between years 2019-20 and 2020-21, the Estimates that we’re considering now, was a further 48.8 percent increase. So that’s an increase over two Budget cycles of an appropriation from $4.768 billion to $8.222 billion. So we are seeing that under this Government, there is a significant investment that is going into the transport sector.

Probably what’s most significant about it, from my point of view—and this is very much about the Government’s objectives, as set out in the Government policy statement on transport—is that it’s going in across the modes in transport. We’ve got to look after all the modes. So we see significant investment going in over this year and the next three years of the National Land Transport Programme inter-road maintenance. Record levels going in there to deal with a real challenge and a very important issue right across New Zealand, but particularly for our rural communities. I’m really pleased with the outcomes that we’re going to see there.

But we’re also seeing investment going into the other modes. As the chair of the select committee just said, a significant investment going into rail. We’re beginning to see some of the fruits of that, things like the Trentham station opening that we saw this week; the fact that over the last month it’s been confirmed that we now have daily services on the Napier to Wairoa line to bring logs from that part of the country to the port, taking many truck movements off the road. So that multi-modal investment is really beginning to bear some fruit.

Mode shift is an explicit part of our policy, and this is reflected in the appropriations this year. We do see significantly more investment going into public transport and also into walking and cycling. There is simply no way of New Zealand reaching our ambitions to reduce emissions if we don’t give people real transport choices and the opportunity to travel around New Zealand in a range of different ways: better public transport, good quality walking and cycling options, and, in our bigger cities, mass rapid transit as well.

But we do also recognise that a large number of New Zealanders now and in the future will continue to drive vehicles. And so that’s why in these appropriations, there are also important investments that are going into the critical area of how we improve our existing and future vehicle fleet. That’s why investments in Budget 2020 in the Clean Car Standard, the Clean Car Discount, and work to establish a new biofuels mandate are enormously important. These investments will palpably reduce the emissions that come out of our fleet. This is enormously important. As Mr O’Connor said before, transport is 47 percent of New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions. We don’t decarbonise New Zealand, we don’t get to net zero, and we don’t play our part in limiting catastrophic climate change unless we address it in transport. So these investments are important and they’ve got to start now, because if we don’t make them now, it’s only going to get harder into the future.

As the chair of the select committee said, important investments are going into a number of significant infrastructure projects, which are reflected in the appropriations this year as well. Auckland light rail and Let’s Get Wellington Moving are two that I’m sure will be of interest to members of the committee and that we’ll have a discussion about this evening. That investment in mass rapid transit is absolutely essential, from my point of view. This is the main kind of trunk line of how we give people the opportunities to move around our growing cities, to have frequent, reliable public transport that gives people opportunities to move around, to access work, to access housing, to access education, without always being car-dependent.

The investment in the New Zealand Upgrade Programme is also enormously important, and members of the committee will be aware that that programme was rebalanced this year. It is important to note that it wasn’t just rebalanced, but, actually, there was further significant investment that has gone in through Budget 2020. And the overall appropriation for that programme has increased from $6.8 billion for the whole programme to $8.7 billion, to enable us to deliver really critical projects. And it is now moving ahead. Six projects in that programme are completed, 10 are under construction, 14 are in detailed design and consent, and more than 900 New Zealanders up and down the country are employed in those New Zealand upgrade programmes as well. So it’s been an important part of the economic recovery as well.

The final comment I want to make is on some of the investment that’s going into some of the challenges we face in the New Zealand supply chain. International supply chains are under enormous pressure in every country around the world because of the impacts of COVID and imbalances in the supply, particularly of sea freight, around the world. New Zealand is not just not immune but is particularly exposed to that, as a small trading nation at distance from our markets. So it’s been really important that we step forward with a range of policies and support. I note that the Ministry of Transport—and I acknowledge the Secretary for Transport, Peter Mersi, who’s here tonight—have played a huge role here, but there’s also been a direct role for the Crown to come in and provide funding and support. The key policy here I’ll draw the attention of the committee to is the Maintaining International Air Connectivity scheme, which has been absolutely essential in enabling critical airfreight to continue that would not have been able to happen, given the collapse in the international passenger market for air traffic. So that’s been a hugely important investment and a key part of the appropriations this year.

So those are some opening comments and, I think, a few key things that might be of interest to members of the committee, and I’m very happy to take questions. And just for the benefit of members of the committee, I’ll probably just allow a couple of questions and contributions to come from members and then I’ll pop up and provide answers.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you for the introduction. We’d prefer if the Minister would actually answer the questions directly, because we want to keep them tight.

So my first question is, the Minister said that across the modes of transport there’s been an increase. However, in written questions, the spend on State highway improvements and regional improvements activity class in 2016-17 was $1.3 billion and in 2020-21 is $240 million lower, at $1.1 billion. Would the Minister explain that, if there has been an increase across all modes?

As I said, I’ll answer a couple of questions at a time, and I’ve got questions from Mr Greg O’Connor and then from Mr David Bennett here.

So Mr O’Connor asked a couple of questions, firstly, around that work that we’ll do in order to support our reduction in emissions in the heavy freight sector. This is a really important area of work as well; it’s something that’s been highlighted in the emissions reduction plan. The technology that we’ve got available to support emissions reduction in the heavy freight sector is not quite there in the same way that it is with the light vehicle sector, but there’s a lot of work that’s going on with the sector at the moment to explore, in particular, the potential not only around our battery electric technologies but also hydrogen technologies. A range of investments that have been made, not out of this appropriation but out of Minister Megan Woods’ appropriations in the low energy vehicle fund, which was increased at this Budget, that is providing a lot of support for emergent technologies there.

The member also asked about the New Zealand Upgrade Programme. I’ve provided a bit of commentary there in my opening remarks, and happy to follow up with any specific questions there.

In terms of Mr Bennett’s question, I’d ask Mr Bennett just to examine the way the appropriations as they occur across each three-year cycle of the National Land Transport Plan—that is, how we fund land transport in New Zealand. I think what he will see, if he examines that, is that we’ve seen a significant increase across those categories, particularly in the maintenance category in the 2021-2024 National Land Transport Plan that we have confirmed in recent months.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry, just before I call the Hon David Bennett, can I just say we’re operating under the new rules. So in fairness to Mr Bennett, under the new Standing Orders, we should have—and he’s had a short call before this one. If we can deal with that exchange first, and then I’ll go to another member.

Thank you, Mr Chair. We’re talking about State highway improvements, not maintenance, Minister, so would you please answer the question as to why that is. And also, relative to the fact that the number in 2020 will indicate Labour policy in the last four years of having done a National Land Transport Plan, whereas prior to that those earlier years reflected some of the National transport plan.

I’d encourage the member to look a little more widely across the appropriations. I think what he is referring to is the specific activity class figures that are represented in the National Land Transport Plan, where there is significant investment across all of those classes this year. But, of course, that is not the only way that we fund improvements, including roading improvements. So the New Zealand Upgrade Programme is direct Crown funding which is going into a range of really important projects; for example, the Ōtaki to north of Levin project, a whole range of projects around the South Island, Tākitimu stage one, and a range of others. So the total amount of investment that we are putting in across that sector is a significant increase, but it’s spread across both the money that comes from the National Land Transport Fund and direct Crown funding.

Well, how does the Minister explain that even the year before that, when the New Zealand Upgrade Programme was not in existence, it was lower than what was spent in 2016-17?

Well, I believe we’re here to answer questions about the Estimates of appropriations for the 2020-21 year, so I have not come prepared nor is it the role of this committee to consider what happened two or three years ago.

How much did the New Zealand Upgrade Programme give to State highway improvements in 2020-21, then?

There’s a considerable investment across the New Zealand Upgrade Programme in a range of roading projects. The way in which the money is structured is a little bit lumpy, because when investment in one of those projects start there’s an initial phase, as the member will appreciate, that goes into the early engagement, the route protection, detailed design, and consenting. So it’s a little bit difficult to actually break it down year by year, but what I will say is that a significant portion of that $8.7 billion is going into a range of important roading projects.

But I would just encourage the member to recognise that there is also a shift in Government policy which is quite a deliberate shift, which is that we no longer see it as simply adequate to plough the lion’s share of transport funding solely into a small number of gold-plated roading projects. That’s what we’ve been doing in recent decades. It’s led us to the situation that we’re in, and we believe in a more balanced approach to investment across the transport sector. So that’s why the member will see, in addition to investment in State highway maintenance, which that side of the House let go on their watch, there is investment in improved roads, but there’s also significant investment in making sure that the rail network, which suffered years of managed decline under their watch, is improved, there’s investment in the coastal shipping activity class, because we believe that has an important part to play in building a resilient supply chain. So, yes, there is good investment in important roading projects, but there is more of a spread of investment across other modes.

The Minister tried to say that the previous Government reduced State highway maintenance. The Minister has in written questions indicated that the first two years of this Government actually had lower State highway maintenance expenditure than the previous National Government. How does he explain that then?

My recollection of the answers that were provided to the member to that particular question—and I think he’s referring, effectively, to the amounts that were applied to State highway maintenance in the 2018-21 National Land Transport Plan—is that there was an increase in year one, a small decrease in year two, albeit still to a higher figure than was there previously, and then a further increase in year three. And that over the course of the three years there was a good increase in the total amount that was funded.

So when the Minister says that his preoccupation is now with a balanced transport spend with a movement away from roads, has he started any major roading projects under his Government other than the Manawatū Gorge upgrade?

The short answer to that is yes. And I do just want to provide a little bit of context for this discussion by just going directly to the all-up National Land Transport Plan (NLTP) figure for road maintenance under the 2015-18 NLTP, which was the last one that that side of the House was responsible for. And the total figure across that three-year period was $4.8 billion. In the NLTP that we have just announced, the total figure is $7 billion. That’s an increase in 46 percent that this Government has delivered for road maintenance over and above the figure that that Government provided in the NLTP that they delivered at the last reasonable point.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s a joke statistic.

It’s a significant investment—and Mr Brownlee, I’m sure you can do the maths. A 46 percent increase over a six-year period is a very significant increase in investment.

And I just say to the member, and I’d repeat it, that it is indeed our position that it is appropriate to be investing across a wider range of modes. When this Government came into power, we had a national rail network that was on its knees, with bridges over a hundred years old that couldn’t be run on at full speed—real safety concerns. So, yes, we do believe it’s important to spread the investment—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Who sold it off?

Oh, who sold it off were the ratbags who left our lot and set up the ACT Party.

I’ll be going mode shift as well, myself. Just some context. Recently a campaign has been launched for free public transport for community services card holders, students, and anyone under 25. Reducing public transport fares is a quick way to encourage mode shift and reduce emissions. It also provides lower-income people with more affordable transport options. Does the Minister want to see public transport fares reduced to encourage mode shift and to give low-income New Zealanders better transport options?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, making sure that public transport is as accessible as possible to all New Zealanders is really important, both in terms of increasing patronage and in terms of our broader objectives around equity and fairness in our society.

There’s some really important things that we’ve done over the last year there. Over the course of COVID-19, the Government’s provided additional funding to support what’s called farebox recovery, which has meant that as patronage has dropped off because of the effects of COVID, we’ve provided additional support to make sure that services can continue without local councils having to increase fares.

But, really importantly, we’ve also started work in this year on how we can directly target reduced fares for people on the lowest incomes. I did announce a little earlier this year, and there’s funding in Budget 2020, for an initial pilot of what we’re calling the community connect card, which is programmed to commence next year, which will provide 50 percent lower fares for people with community services cards in Auckland. My hope and ambition is that we will be able to expand that out over time to give the benefit of lower cost public transport to more New Zealanders, and I’ve received the petition the member refers to. I will continue to look at that and we’ll make further considerations as a part of our response to the emissions reduction plan consultation.

Will the Government commit to advancing free fares for transport disadvantaged groups such as community services card holders, under-25s in Budget 2022?

The Minister of Finance wouldn’t be too happy if I made a commitment on behalf of the Government prior to the Budget process making its way through. But I’ll certainly be continuing to make representations to ensure that we do have good funding. And as I’ve just said to the member, I was very pleased that the Minister of Finance did see fit to support the community connect pilot that we are planning on running next year. The other comment I’ll just make on this, of course, is we do have the emissions reduction plan consultation under way now, and we do think it’s important that we consider the feedback on that, look at the range of proposals and ideas in the round, and then make some good decisions as to how we support a better and more accessible public transport system.

Why are SuperGold card holders provided significant public transport fare subsidies nationwide, but not community services card holders and under-25s?

I think that the institution of the SuperGold card, which occurred under a previous Labour-led Government, was a really important advance, and it provides a particular benefit to seniors who, without easy access to transport options, can become very isolated and really have their options cut off. So I’m a strong supporter of the SuperGold card, and it’s something that I’m proud that it was this side of the House that instituted it some years ago and has made good efforts to retain it. So I think there are good reasons for retaining that.

But I do take on board the member’s point that there are other groups in our community who do have very fixed incomes. And that’s why in that initial piece of work, we’re focused on people on the community services card who, by definition, are people from households with low income who often do suffer from transport poverty, often really struggle with the running costs of a vehicle, but might also struggle with what others of us might see as relatively small public transport fares. So that’s why we’ve started the work there. And as I say, I’m keen that we expand that out as much as we can and subject to me getting the support I need through Budget processes.

Thank you, Mr Chair. And thank you, Minister, the Hon Michael Wood, for coming here tonight to answer some questions about this really important portfolio. I’ve been a civil engineer, and I’ve worked in construction and project delivery for over 20 years. One of the reasons why I’ve come to Parliament is because I want to see things get built faster. I want to see infrastructure delivered with a more sustainable funding model. And, while the Minister and I might disagree on the particular mode where that investment is made or on a particular project, actually, it should not be for politicians to decide on the mode and to decide on the project. The ACT Party believes that we should take the political influence out of decisions around infrastructure and transportation spending.

One of the risks of having a political influence over decision making is that, while this Government has chosen to invest heavily in rail, the previous Government had established a direction of travel with major roading projects that had engaged designers, planning consultants, environmental specialists, and, of course, the physical works contractors themselves to build a sequence of roading projects, to use their resources in a sequential manner. And, unfortunately, under the 2017 Labour-led Government and this current Government, there’s been a loss of confidence because there is no certainty about which projects will get delivered. And we’ve seen that with the New Zealand Upgrade—initially $13 billion worth of projects scoped and announced and then a radical cut, with very little notice, to $6.5 billion. And we know that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on scoping, on investigation, on planning, and, potentially, on consenting some of these projects, including the Auckland Harbour Bridge cycle path, the Northern Pathway—$51 million spent to date. The meter is still running on that terribly expensive project as the design continues for a project that will never be delivered, Minister.

But I want to come back to this aspect of this Government’s programme. The Auckland light rail project has been promoted as solving a problem, city centre to Māngere, to provide part of a transportation network and to open up land for housing development between the city centre to Māngere. So I would like the Minister to answer: when will the Minister approve the project to start? And when can Aucklanders expect shovels to be in the ground?

A further question, Minister, if you could consider these together: how will the Auckland light rail project be paid for? Will it be paid for out of the National Land Transport Fund or from other Government funding? Will it be paid for largely by fares? And over what time frame could it be paid for? What is sustainable in terms of recovering the costs for that project? Who will pay—will it be Auckland ratepayers? Will it be a targeted rate for those living along the corridor? Or would the Minister consider a public-private partnership or a special purpose vehicle to fund and deliver the project separate from Government and separate from Government interference? Because we’ve seen quite clearly that a project like City Rail Link, which is a Government project, initially costed at a billion dollars, has suffered from enormous scope creep at the hands of both Ministers and mayors and has now blown out to in excess of $5 billion.

So, in the ACT Party, we’re very concerned not with decisions that a group of professionals like the New Zealand Transport Agency or other project delivery specialists might make—whether they choose a particular mode or project—but that the governance is established and working and remote from political interference, and that the funding and financing is sustainable and that all of those costs are not lumped on current or, potentially, future generations or a group of people who don’t necessarily have the ability to pay, and also that all the benefits, if it’s an increase in land values around a transport corridor, don’t accrue simply to the people who own land there now, when the Government project starts, and they get to gather all of the benefits in terms of the uplift in land prices while the Government, the taxpayer, the ratepayer pays all the costs for the infrastructure.

So, Minister, look, I’ve sketched out ACT’s concerns with the current direction of travel of this Government, with the fact there’s an Auckland light rail project which has been announced—it was announced four years ago—and it has not been delivered.

I call Penny Simmonds.

Point of order, Mr Chair. Thank you. I would appreciate it just in terms of the Standing Orders that you described before, given that I have asked a series of questions that could have been asked one at a time, I think they’ve set the scene for a Minister who’s very well versed in his portfolio, always a master of the detail—if he could just respond to my question first, I would appreciate that. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Yeah, that might be a reasonable expectation, but unless members stand to take a call, I can’t allocate it to them.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m very pleased that the Minister made mention of 100-year-old bridges and his concern for them. I wonder if he could tell us how many of the 80 old, at-risk bridges in the Southland District Council area, which can’t be maintained because of the constrained funding for that district council, have had to be closed in this financial year—closures which have increased the kilometres driven on a daily basis by rural people, who don’t have other modes of transport available to them?

Thanks, Mr Chair. Just picking up on a couple of points made by the previous speakers.

First around the Auckland light rail project, I’ll start at the end of Mr Court’s comments and just note that the report of the establishment unit has confirmed that value capture is something that we’ll be exploring. I note his enthusiasm for that. I do think it’s important that where there is significant public investment in these sorts of projects there is a consideration given to those who economically benefit from them also making a contribution.

I agree with the point the member makes, as well, about appropriate governance over significant projects like the ones that we’ve canvassed tonight. And I do note that no one is immune from the challenge of cost increases that we face. So in respect of the New Zealand upgrade projects that the member referenced, they were, in fact, projects that were being delivered and overseen by Waka Kotahi and KiwiRail. So they face the very same challenges in terms of increases to labour material costs and geotechnical costs as anyone else does. They’re not projects which are run out of the Minister’s office. There were decisions made to invest in them. But, ultimately, the delivery is with those agencies and the professionals within them.

In answer to Penny Simmonds’ question, I mean, this comes down to the question about adequate road maintenance. I would note that for the regional councils in the area that she references, there have been increases provided, both to State highway and local road maintenance under the National Land Transport Fund. The challenges of significant aged infrastructure haven’t just turned up on our doorstep overnight; they’ve built up over a number of years, and the increased funding that we’re providing will provide a pathway. But there are real challenges. There are many needs that we need to meet, and choices do need to be made. But we’ll continue to give good support to the regions.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Could the Minister advise if he has had an indication from the Southland District Council of how many of the 80 old, at-risk bridges will have to be cancelled over the next three years, given the projected funding, and what sort of increases to daily kilometres by rural people in services that might bring about?

I don’t have any specific information about bridges that’ll have to be closed, which I think is what the member is getting to, but if there’s a specific concern there I’m happy to take that up from the member and look into it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. And thank you Minister for being here with us this evening. I really appreciate you fronting like this.

Can you confirm that the actual cycling and walking bridge is actually dead, buried, and finished and not going to come back at us? And can you give an account of just how and why it actually broke down, and what happened in the 120 days from “It’s all go” to “It’s all been stopped.”? And if you did it all again, what would you do differently? This is, I guess, one cluster of thinking.

The second is that I’m very conscious there’s been $14 million spent on four houses to support that project, which is now no longer going ahead. And I can imagine it’s pretty disruptive for those families and stressful for those people involved. What actually happens now for those folk and for those people, is sort of the first bit of questioning.

As the member will be aware, earlier this year, when the Government made decisions around rebalancing the New Zealand upgrade programme, we did make indicative decisions around how we wanted to improve walking and cycling access across the Waitematā. We said at that point that we would receive further business case work and advice from officials, and we received that. That information led us to the conclusion, in combination with the fact that it was not a project that received wide support, that it was better to invest the majority of that funding into other projects. Projects like the Eastern Busway, which the member is familiar with, the Glen Innes to Panmure cycling way, and an excellent project to give a rail freight hub to the community of Ashburton that’ll take a large number of roads off that very congested part of the State highway network. So we made a balanced decision there, but we’re going to continue working to make sure that we give Aucklanders better access as they want to walk and cycle around the city.

I’m sort of thinking about a more comprehensive second harbour crossing. I know when we spoke last time you were saying there was—you know, working through a range of options as to what the alternatives actually are. What progress on a second harbour crossing has been made since those comments were made? Am I correct in that there’s sort of $60 million, I think, put aside for business case and property acquisition? And I guess the question is, given the importance of the project to sort of enable growth and development and housing and other transport in North and South Auckland, when I think about the speed of development—say, like on the Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden and how fast that went from idea to execution to completion—what can we do to make it a bigger priority, and how much faster could we go, and how could we accelerate the development of that project?

It is an important strategic project for Auckland. We’ve already taken steps to bring it forward, and the previous iteration of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP)—but I think Minister Simon Bridges was responsible for it—was tagged as a project for the 2040s. We’ve indicated that needs to be brought forward to the 2030s and in this version of ATAP, as the member has identified, we’ve invested $60 million into that business case work and initial property acquisition. We’ve got further work going on at the moment to understand what the options are, and it’s something I am keen to see that we proceed with as soon as we reasonably can, recognising that it’s a complex project that needs to tie in to other important parts of the network.

One of the areas that the Auckland Light Rail Establishment Unit has explored is the importance of making sure that we develop a linked-up mass rapid transit network for Auckland, which involves a bit of planning as to how the city centre to Māngere line, a North Shore line, and a north-western line could potentially intersect to create a really great network for people. So we’ll be bringing that work together in the next phase of work around Auckland light rail and the business case work around the addition of a Waitematā Harbour crossing will continue into next year.

The Minister mentioned the North Shore and north-western line. Why are they less of a priority than the Auckland rail link at this time?

Firstly, because it was a manifesto commitment that we campaigned on and received a mandate for at the last election. Secondly, because of the significant growth potential and congestion challenges along that corridor.

Well, if there are suggestions of a growth prospect on that corridor, the business case talks about 36,000 houses available with the potential of 66 if there is an investment in large, renewable urban centres along that route. Has the Government put any money forward to enable that investment?

The Government’s already putting a lot of investment into the Auckland Housing Programme, and that’s one of the reasons why this route is important, because it goes through the Auckland Housing Programme areas in Mount Roskill, Ōranga, and Māngere, where there’s already significant urban growth occurring. In the next phase, as we move into detailed planning for the route, the establishment unit recognises and recommends that we bring together the transport planning and the urban development planning. That’s why we’ve had Kāinga Ora and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development involved in this project, and I expect further work to be done at the next stage.

So the Minister said just before that the growth was a big part of the reason for our Auckland rail link, at 36,000 houses in that area. How many houses are expected to go into the north or the west of Auckland individually?

The member would be better to address that to the Minister of Housing.

Would it be more than 36,000 when his business plan for Auckland light rail indicated 320,000 houses in total in Auckland? Wouldn’t he expect that the west and the north have a significant command of that increase when you look at what the Auckland Plan said, say three years ago, which would indicate that there were significantly more increases in housing in those areas than his route.

Well, I can help the member there. The establishment unit identifies that, with the investment of Auckland light rail, between 19 and 25 percent of Auckland’s urban growth could be catered for along that corridor, which will be more significant than any other.

But in reference to those other growth areas, we are making continued investments. We’ve turned around the singularly stupid decision of the previous Government not to enable bus lanes on the north-western busway, and construction is already under way to create that so that the people of the north-west have access to mass rapid transit. The northern corridor project, which our Government is funding, is extending the northern busway up towards Albany and creating better roading connections as we speak.

So Minister, how can he say that it’s 19 or 20 percent when 35,000 or 36,000 houses, which is what the project business case says, out of the 320,000 houses, which is in its initial paragraphs, of the total number of households—that’s close to 10 percent. The 20 percent figure you’re using is only if there is that huge development along the route, which is not funded by this Government.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I went to visit the Let’s Get Wellington Moving project consultation team a few weeks ago at the Basin Reserve. I’m interested in that project, Minister. Four options have been proposed by Let’s Get Wellington Moving. A couple of them involve putting a tunnel through Mount Victoria and relieving the congestion around the Basin Reserve. That’s a similar outcome to a project put forward by a previous Government and, unfortunately, shot down in 2015.

What I am concerned about, though, Minister, is the amount of time that the project management team believes it will take to start the project. They’re proposing, with additional rounds of consultation in between design and consenting, that they won’t put shovels in the ground till 2028.

So my question to you, Minister, is: what on earth could be done to get any mode, any project, of Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s four options up and running sooner than 2028? And has the Minister taken any actions to designate, protect any of those routes or to acquire the land that will be needed to build that project? Thank you, Minister.

A few quick points there. The first is that I would have to point out that the proposals put forward in this round of consultation are significantly different to the 2015 proposals, which were roundly rejected by the people of Wellington, which would have had a fly-over structure that would have destroyed the ambiance of the Basin Reserve. This proposal focuses on a grade separated solution around the Basin Reserve, and it’s focused on mass rapid transit as compared to the previous proposals.

I take the member’s point on board about the need to advance solutions more quickly. It’s not a bad position for us to be in with this programme, where the main criticism is that people want us to do what’s proposed more quickly than is there. What I can indicate to the member is that across the partners—being Greater Wellington Regional Council, Wellington City Council, and the Crown—I’ve initiated discussions with the chair of Greater Wellington and the mayor, Andy Foster, about steps that we can take to bring that forward, and we’ll consider that further as a part of the consultation process. We obviously wouldn’t get into designation and acquiring land until we have made final decisions on the preferred option.

Thank you. So it’s seven years since Let’s Get Wellington Moving was proposed as a grouping of council and the New Zealand Transport Agency and the regional council. It’s quite shocking that even though there are many options available, they all seem to follow the same route or series of routes and yet no work has been done to designate or protect the route or acquire land. I think the people of Wellington would like the Minister and the Government to at least make that commitment, even while all of the other planning and design matters are worked out, because, in the end, it doesn’t matter to the people of Wellington whether it’s a bus or a train or where the trees are planted along the route, they just want to get Wellington moving and to be on a bus or a train. So is there anything that the Minister or this Government could do to get Wellington moving?

As I said to the member before, designation and land acquisition wouldn’t occur until parties have decided preferred options, and there are actually some quite important differences between the options that are chosen, including in terms of the route. The other point I’d just make to the member is that Let’s Get Wellington Moving, to a large extent, is publicly focused on the mass rapid transit options but, actually, other work is already under way. Improvements to pedestrian facilities are currently being carried out in the Wellington central city at the moment and quite good work in terms of advancing improvements to the “golden mile”, and Hutt Road and the quays is advancing, with expected delivery before the end of this term. So there is progress that we will see before we get into the really big piece around mass rapid transport.

Thank you, Mr Chair. With the Government planning to invest billions of dollars in large motorway projects, and the Minister did touch on that, and with the New Zealand Upgrade Programme refresh in June, it did remove some of the worst proposed new motorways but still includes projects like the Ōtaki to Levin—why does why the New Zealand Upgrade Programme that has funding allocated to it in Budget 2021 include significant new motorway projects like a new four-lane highway from Ōtaki to Levin, and how is that consistent with no longer funding projects that induce more vehicle travel and increase our emissions?

It is a real focus of our Government, particularly in light of the independent climate commission’s recommendations that we reduce our emissions and decarbonise the transport system. The rebalancing that we engaged in around the New Zealand Upgrade Programme earlier this year was significant in this regard, and the overall impact of the New Zealand Upgrade Programme now is actually to reduce emissions on the whole. So I’m really pleased with the progress that we’ve made there. But we know that we need to continue carefully considering the projects that we invest in.

In the case of Ōtaki to north of Levin, very strong representations were made, which I do accept, that there is a real and pressing need to make significant improvements to that road in terms of the safety and resilience. It is a road that has a very high rate of deaths and serious injuries, and I think on that basis that is an investment that’s justified.

Why is the Government building a four-lane highway from Ōtaki to Levin when there is a rail line right beside this route that could be upgraded and provide for low emissions travel? And will the Government support rapid regional rail across New Zealand?

As per indications given, the rail network improvement plan, we are also considering improvements to passenger commuter rail along that route.

The Minister, the Hon Michael Wood, in select committee last week, said that there were a number of electric vehicle ute alternatives that would be available in the next year. In fact, one of them, he said, was being trialled in New Zealand at the moment. Is that vehicle that’s being trialled going to be available next year?

The member is referring to the Rivian, which is being road trialled in New Zealand. And, as I said to the member the other day, it will be up to the manufacturer and distributors when it comes on to the market. What I did say to the member is that the sector itself has said that they’re working hard to get supply into the New Zealand market in the next year. And the signs are very good. For example, just this week, we’ve seen that the Ford Ranger range is likely to include a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that will be available on the international market by next year.

Yeah, but that’s on the international market. We’re dealing with the New Zealand market, which is a right-hand drive market. Is the Minister still going to stand by his statements even though car manufacturer after car manufacturer has come in front of the committee disputing his very facts?

Yes, I stand by my comments, and I note that, because New Zealand doesn’t manufacture cars, cars for the New Zealand domestic market come from the international market.

Yes, they come from a market that is based on the Australian manufacturing criteria, which isn’t the Ford Ranger and other vehicles that he’s talking about. Will he stand by those comments in the face of complete opposition from the sector, which says that there are no alternatives to a ute in the near future on the electric basis?

I’ve already responded.

He won’t respond—OK. When the Minister makes decisions around projects, does he take an environmental impact assessment—or business case, effectively—on those projects when he evaluates the spend that he makes, especially on something like the Auckland rail?

All of the investments that the Crown makes go through our normal processes: business case processes, regulatory impact assessments, and, more recently, climate impact assessments.

So, when he makes bold statements around the environmental impact of a project, what basis does he have to use, and what reporting can he do? Because nothing in the business case would indicate that there is science around the environmental outcomes that he actually advocates for?

Well, I’ve just indicated that the Government uses climate impact assessments to make those decisions, all of which become available after Cabinet has made its decisions. I’m not sure which project the member is referring to?

So, if the member looked at the train from Hamilton to Auckland, for example, that’s a diesel train. How would that pass any climate impact statement?

Well, for the same reason that a diesel bus will generally be more climate friendly than all of the passengers who travel on that bus would be if they travelled by vehicle. It’s a more efficient mode of transport.

Is it a more efficient mode of transport when there’s limited patronage on that train—that, actually, a bus would cover anyway?

I’d encourage the member to carry on down that line. His constant bagging of that project is, I think, probably going to add another 2,000 votes to his opponent’s majority at the next election. It’s a very popular project in Hamilton, and I’m very pleased that we’ve made improvements to it that have been announced over the last couple of weeks that, I think, will increase patronage further.

That popularity is showing through the patronage, isn’t it, Minister? So, Minister, when he talks about Transmission Gully—and last year he had to make an extra payment to the contractors because of the COVID lockdown—what is the stage of negotiations with contractors now under a new extra payment to reflect the last lockdown that we’ve had?

Well, as the member probably knows, the arrangements for delivery of Transmission Gully were established under the previous Government. There’s a very interesting report that was released several months ago that reveals how flawed that process was and how the desperate rush to set up a public-private partnership (PPP) meant that the project was under-costed, and that was why we had to come to the rescue and provide significant extra funding for it this year. The nature of the PPP, of course, is that there is a contract with Wellington Gateway Partnership. There are currently commercial negotiations with the partner around claims that they have around the effect of COVID restrictions, and I think members of the committee would appreciate that it would be inappropriate and unwise of me to comment on what might be happening in those commercial negotiations before they’ve concluded. But Waka Kotahi is working very hard to bring them to a conclusion and to make sure the project gets opened.

Mr Chair, I wasn’t going to, but I could not resist.

If Mr David Bennett wants to regain the Hamilton East electorate—as I’m sure he will in two years’ time—he’s going to need a damn sight more votes than the number of people who are travelling on the Te Huia train, because there’s only 30 a day on average. Thirty a day. And if this is the example of the sort of value-for-money proposition that Minister of Transport is trying to convince the committee he go through, then I worry that the state of the Government’s finances is even worse than I—as the finance spokesperson—thought.

Let’s look at those numbers. At 30 people a day, the service is losing $24,000 to $25,000 per day. Now, the Minister talks about that being an environmentally friendly option because it takes cars off the road. Well, we could actually put dozens of four-wheel drive diesel utes on the road, have each passenger drive one from Hamilton to Auckland and back, and still have fewer emissions than the Te Huia train, a diesel train, is emitting every single day it runs. So this party, the National Party, wants environmental impacts to be positive on the environment, and if trains make sense, that’s fine. But Minister of Transport has got to come up with a much better value-for-money proposition if he is going to solve climate change through his policies.

The Minister in the chair, Michael Wood, said before that Auckland rail was a manifesto commitment. Does he think that that is how he should be running transport, or should he be making investments that are in the best interests of New Zealand and New Zealand commuters going forward?

I acknowledge it is a significant contrast for this Government to be committed to implementing its manifesto commitments, but that is something we feel quite strongly about on this side of the House. Auckland light rail was a project the Government very specifically campaigned upon, received a mandate for, and I’ve no doubt that, were we not to proceed with it, there’d be criticism from the member.

I do also need to respond briefly to Mr Woodhouse, who referenced figures around Te Huia patronage that were wrong by a quantum of 400 percent in terms of patronage per day on average. [Multiple members interject] It could be that the homeless man’s travelling on there as well, and that’ll add one on.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I can’t resist, again. Now, we could argue about the numbers, but even if the Minister is right—[Interruption] No, no, let’s just assume for a moment that the Minister is correct—I don’t believe he is, but let’s say that my numbers were out by a factor of four, it still means—

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Don’t talk about numbers!

Oh, are we going to talk about numbers now. It’s a pity the Minister of Finance isn’t in the House, because with one—[Multiple members interject] Oh, here we go—here we go. Let’s talk about numbers. Let’s talk about 12: the number of Labour MPs that on the Colmar Brunton poll who won’t be here in two years’ time. And let me tell the Minister of Justice, because he’ll be one of them anyway—he’s probably going to go voluntarily—that that number will be a damn sight larger. So I’m very happy to talk about numbers. The Minister of Transport is wrong, but let’s assume just for a moment that he’s not, and that my estimates of average patronage were out by a factor of four, that makes the service 65 percent lower, nearly two-thirds lower than the business case that he says made it viable said it needed. It isn’t viable. There’s no amount of dancing on the head of that pin, Mr Wood, that is going to make Te Huia work. It’s not Te Huia; it’s a white elephant. What we would have—and the good people of Hamilton know that a service that leaves at the right time, that gets to Auckland in the right time, and isn’t slower than the cars they’re trying to get out of—would be supported. It’s not. It’s a bad idea, it needs a better Minister of Transport, and I think the next member for Hamilton East would make a very good candidate for that role.

It’s the same arguments that that side of the House makes about every investment in rail. It’s the same arguments they made when they ran down the investment in the Napier to Wairoa line, which is now running every single day, taking log trucks off that road. It’s the same arguments that they made against the Capital Connection, which started off from a low base and is now an essential connection for the people of the lower North Island. And the final thing I can say to that member is that there’s one guaranteed way for any of us in this House, no matter what side, to avoid not being here after the next election, and that’s to actually win a seat. As I look over to that side, there’s only one man sitting there who was capable of doing that.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would just remind the Minister of Transport, who’s just sat down, that I also won my seat. The Minister announced a Clean Car Discount and tax system earlier in the year, commonly known as the ute tax. At the time, a number of figures were put out for how much various cars would be taxed under the system, but since then he has changed the design of the mechanism, including shifting the method of even measuring the emissions of cars. Will the Minister be releasing new information on how much various models will be taxed under his revised clean car tax? Or ute tax, as we like to call it out on the farm.

I’m not quite sure which changes the member is referring to. Changes that were made in the consultation period, for example, actually resulted in a lower charge being applied to the Clean Car Standard. We made changes to the Clean Car Discount in the policy design to allow a wider range of vehicles, including hybrids and some cleaner internal combustion engine vehicles, to also be eligible for that scheme. And, of course, the full schedule of both discounts and fees will be made available to the public before the scheme comes fully into effect.

The Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw, has made commitments about New Zealand and 50 percent by 2030 recently in Glasgow. Will that affect and increase his desire to have more transport spend associated with public transport and walking and cycling, and will it increase his appetite to go even harder on the clean vehicles requirements to meet those new challenges and targets?

Of course, the original target of net zero by 2050 was actually signed up to by the Hon Paula Bennett when she travelled to Paris some years ago. If we actually want to achieve that, we’re actually going to have to start reducing emissions along the way. So if the member opposite is suggesting that we can’t have a target to reduce our emissions by around about half of that by 2035, he’s going to have to explain how we get to net zero by 2050, because I don’t see how that will happen.

The answer to the second part of the question is: of course. It’s the Labour Party’s policy, and one that we’re very proud of, to continue increasing investment in good-quality public transport for our growing cities and safe walking and cycling options. It is a contrast to the previous Government, but it’s one that we’re not shy about.

I understand the Minister of Housing is now available.

Housing