Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill

So we’re up to call No. 3, which is a Labour Party call. Just for the attention of the whips, there is a note by agreement that Labour swapped their 10-minute call No. 2 with the Green Party on this bill. So I’m just noting that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill—as you correctly so stated—was a bill that we discussed last week, interrupted. So it is worth taking a couple of minutes to re-explain what the bill does.

The bill establishes the legal framework for time of use, or congestion, charging, a tool that, if used correctly and if implemented correctly can help us manage traffic flow and improve productivity on some of our busiest roads, which is really important. It allows local authorities working with Waka Kotahi to propose and to implement schemes, and these schemes will charge vehicles entering high-traffic areas at certain times of the day. It’s relatively straightforward, but the key is in how it’s implemented. The overall aim is to reduce congestion, improve travel reliability, and fundamentally just make better use of their existing infrastructure.

If we look at the international context, congestion charging is obviously not new; it’s already in places like London, Singapore, Stockholm, Milan, and very recently has come into play in New York. All of those schemes tend to work quite well, so there’s no reason for us not to have a good crack at implementing it here. In all of these cities, even a small reduction in the number of vehicles on the road has actually led to really big improvements in traffic flow, which is important, but also in things like air quality and in travel times. I’m sure that there are many people that can relate to the need to do something about some of our most congested roads.

Now, the Ministry of Transport’s modelling here, in this context, suggests that there’s no reason that we shouldn’t assume that we can’t have similar gains in New Zealand, potentially cutting peak-hour traffic in Auckland, for instance, by as much as 12 percent and bringing congestion down to what people could relate to as those “school holiday” levels.

Now, the Transport and Infrastructure Committee worked very diligently on this, and the committee received a range of submissions—as one would expect—from local councils, from the transport sector itself, from freight interests, from privacy experts, from everyday New Zealanders who were interested in this bill. The committee worked, I think, quite constructively across the parties. I’d like to acknowledge that and thank all of the people that took the time to make those submissions for their thoughtful engagement.

We will be supporting this bill because we support the bill’s broad intent. We did participate, obviously, quite forthcomingly in that select committee process and pushed quite hard for some of the amendments that were accepted to make sure that the framework, ultimately, is fair, that it actually does work, and that it’s locally driven—which we think is an important aspect of this bill—and that there’s a requisite amount of accountability, because it’s important for the public to be able to trust the system that they’re very much going to be a part of.

If we look at the key issues and improvements from that select committee process—and, in particular, focus a little bit more on the part where it was really important to look at that strengthening of that local decision-making—one of the strongest themes that came through in that submission process was a really genuine concern about local authority voice. As introduced, the bill gave Waka Kotahi significant control, including having the chair of each scheme board and, ultimately, also the casting vote. Through the select committee process, as is the way it should work, there was an opportunity to rebalance that somewhat. Also, note that a cap on board membership was removed, ensuring that each participating local authority, as you can imagine, can be configured in various different ways depending on the geographic location of the scheme under consideration. It’s really important to remove that cap to make sure that every local authority who had some skin in that game was able to be represented on that board.

Now, I think, quite importantly, the chair will also now be independent. I think that’s really important, because rather than being not independent, it’s important that it be appointed jointly by the local authority and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) so that there’s that proper buy-in and the proper neutrality and the independence of the chair.

Certain key decisions must also be ratified by a majority of local authority members before being sent to the Minister, so the Minister is able to have that information in full. These changes mean that local councils, I think, will have a real influence over the schemes, and that’s because they affect local residents, and it is hyper-local and it is situational. That seems only right and fair.

With the second aspect, there was a need to clarify the legal status and transparency. The committee agreed to clarify that scheme boards are not separate legal entities; they operate as collaborative governance bodies. We also ensure that the information is subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act—the LGOIMA—as a means by which to ensure that that provides that transparency and that accountability.

With respect to privacy and data protection, a number of submitters mentioned this—including the Privacy Commissioner—and they raised concerns about the use of camera and vehicle tracking technology. The committee responded by requiring that each scheme include an impact assessment on privacy specifically, so that’s something that doesn’t get lost in the broad range of measures that scheme boards have to deal with. The NZTA and enforcement authorities, it’s incumbent upon them to develop those privacy policies in consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. We think that those safeguards are important, and we think that should they be implemented properly, they’re important to be able to maintain that public confidence.

With regard to the use of the revenue, the bill now makes it clearer that revenue must first meet the costs of operating in the scheme and any surplus must be reinvested in the local transport improvements. Importantly, the amended clause ensures that funds are used in ways that “contribute to the effective, efficient, and safe land transport system in the public interest.”, which I think makes sense: if you’re collecting revenue from an area it makes sense to be able to reinvest back in the areas that are relevant in that scheme and do so in a way that doesn’t counterbalance what is the purpose of the bill, which is to reduce congestion. Labour continues to believe that the funds should support public and active transport, and help people shift away from cars where possible.

With regard to exemptions, there was obviously some debate on that because the scheme is only going to be as good as it is robust, and by definition that means that there should be few exemptions. Initially, only emergency vehicles were excluded, and the committee has now given the Minister flexibility to exempt public transport, buses, and school transport services, which I do think is important, recognising the role that they ultimately play in also keeping cities moving and freeing up those networks.

The themes of the submission, if we had to sum it up, were that people were concerned about equity. Many submitters stressed that congestion charging shouldn’t unfairly burden lower-income drivers or particularly when people have few other choices. It’s all very well to incentivise a change of behaviour, but those behavioural alternatives have got to be available to do so. Public transport was another theme: councils and advocates alike emphasise that schemes must be accompanied—and will only be as good as they could be—with requisite attention to those reliable, affordable public transport outcomes as well, and options. There was a strong call for meaningful community consultation and engagement—which is the theme of any good process really, isn’t it? It will only be as good if that is well implemented.

Going forward, Labour’s view is, as I said, we’re happy to support the bill. It is the right tool. It must be implemented in the right way, congestion charging absolutely has an opportunity here to make our cities more livable and more productive. As long as it’s fair and transparent and it gives people real alternatives, there’s no reason why it won’t work well.

We’ll be supporting the bill and we will continue our focus on making sure that when we’re having these conversations, we’re focusing on the quality of life for all New Zealanders, which includes their transport system.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill, in support because New Zealanders already face a high cost, sitting in traffic. We face that cost in many ways: time delays, getting home to family, getting to jobs, getting to work, getting deliveries on time.

This bill is about freeing up traffic so we can have a more free-flowing system. Look, it’s not a silver bullet; it’s—to mix your metaphors on projectiles—an arrow in the quiver. It’s not going to be the thing that solves all the issues in our transportation system, but it is an important hammer in the tool box.

💬 Francisco Hernandez: Now, that’s a mixed metaphor!

Yeah, now we’re really getting into projectiles!

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I’m waiting for one that will actually relate to cars.

Ha, ha! The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is, I think, the most collegial committee that this House has in its repertoire. We really did work quite well as a committee on this. As the previous speaker, Tracey McLellan, pointed out, working towards bringing councils closer to the decision making; giving a strengthening to the provisions on the way that revenue that is above operating costs will be used to improve traffic locally, because New Zealanders want to see the costs of this system—that they will pay in to make sure that traffic can move more efficiently—going towards ways to improve traffic in their area. That’s something the committee really did work together quite well on addressing, having investment agreement with the Minister to prioritise the spending in the area in ways that improve the experience of traffic congestion for those people using the scheme. I think it’s a great idea. I commend it to the House.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First and also as the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to speak on the second reading, and I’m delighted to do so.

As our resident builder, Cameron Luxton has just said, this is one tool in the tool kit to help reduce congestion. I’ve got to say that I thought this process was Parliament at its best. This is responding to an issue which local government has asked central government for many, many years—I’m looking across the aisle there at the Hon Phil Twyford. He’s acknowledging, I think, when I was both a councillor and the Mayor of Wellington coming to see him and saying, “Actually we want, as part of the Let’s Get Wellington Moving thinking, to have this tool in the tool box”—congestion pricing—“to reduce the time which people spend in traffic, and also to be a revenue tool towards Let’s Get Wellington Moving.” This is also very much in alignment with the Infrastructure Commission, which has encouraged us to price things so that it spreads peak demand. That doesn’t matter whether it’s transport or other forms of infrastructure.

The select committee worked really, really well together. We listened very carefully to the submitters. We asked good questions. One of the things I really like is that members on both sides are asking questions, and you wouldn’t know whether people were Opposition or Government most of the time. They’re asking good questions because they want the answers, and the submitters brought thoughtful, constructive submissions to us.

The other thing that we did is we proposed a number of, I think, very constructive amendments. The good thing was that, for some of those amendments, we got some push back on those amendments from, shall we say, across the road there. We went and argued for those amendments—the three particular ones that we argued for—and the Minister said, “Actually, after hearing that, I’m buying that.” I thought that was really, really good, because it showed to me what a select committee should be all about: hearing the evidence, hearing the submitters, giving advice, and arguing for that advice, and ideally that advice being accepted. I thought that was a really, really great thing. That’s how select committees should work, ideally, and maybe that’s one of the things constitutionally we ought to be thinking about.

I think also there was very much a desire on this—because it’s intended to be a long-term thing, dealing with long-term transport infrastructure—for multi-partisan agreement. Again, the more we can do that in any area, ideally without watering it down, the better that will be for “New Zealand Inc.” I want to say thank you to the Minister, I want to say thank you to the select committee, and I want to say thanks to the officials and to all the submitters for all your input.

We’re already used to higher charges at times of higher demand in lots and lots of different areas, whether it’s public transport, peak and off-peak fares, aviation, accommodation, energy. All of those things cost more at the times when they’re in the highest demand. Time of use charging is about trying to manage and spread that peak when there is high traffic use. It’s not about charging all the time; it’s about charging at the times when there is the highest traffic use. As I said, that’s something that local government has been asking for, for many years, asking for the empowering legislation to put that tool, that hammer, whatever it might be—that saw—in the tool kit.

The reason for time of use charging is to reduce congestion at peak times. Two ways: one is to encourage people to change the time at which they travel, and the other one is to ask them to change the mode by which they travel. It’s a way that induces less congestion, and doing this can enhance the efficiency of the transport network and raise economic productivity. I can recall, in introducing the second reading, the Hon Chris Bishop’s comments on the New York scheme, which he’d just been to see, which has just started, and saying, “This is working really, really well and people are actually going, ‘We didn’t like the idea, but now we like it—we see what it’s doing’ ”.

I often hear people say, “I’ve got to use my vehicle, I’ve got to use it at peak time, so why should I have to pay for it?” The reality is that, at the moment, you spend a lot of that time at peak time travelling and you’re stuck in traffic, so you’re paying a cost. That cost is in your time, in your fuel, etc. The idea of time of use charging is to encourage a few people—it doesn’t have to be a lot; it might only be 10 percent. If 10 percent of the people change the way they travel, it means that, instead of being stuck in traffic, you’ve got relatively free-flowing traffic. That’s what this time of use charging is all about.

Also, it potentially allows us to delay or to avoid expensive capital investment where that might otherwise be proposed just for the sake of relieving peak congestion. If you’ve got congestion all the time, sure you need to invest in something, you need to invest in new infrastructure, but if it’s only at the peak, if you can spread that peak, if you can avoid that capital cost, that is a good thing for “New Zealand Inc.”

It’s also a potential funding tool. The late Let’s Get Wellington Moving, as I indicated earlier, was predicated on a funding deal which included a local share, of which part would have come from a time of use charge or a parking levy, and I’ve already referred to discussions that I had with the Hon Phil Twyford at the time. I think, at the time, you said, Mr Twyford, that you didn’t want another tax before the 2020 election, but it might be worth revisiting after the 2020 election. That’s, I think, where we got to.

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: What goes on tour stays on tour, Andy.

Ha, ha! Well, I’m guilty there as well. I also submitted, as Mayor of Wellington, along with Greater Wellington Regional Council on behalf of the Wellington region, to the 2021 inquiry on congestion charging, which Greg O’Connor chaired on behalf of the Auckland area—but, obviously, Wellington was very, very interested in this.

What did we hear in terms of the changes that we recommended in the bill? I want to pick up on a few of those. First of all, the bill establishes a very structured process: it sets up scheme boards, which involve both councils and New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to design proposals; to consult with the public—that’s really, really important—on those proposals; to consider privacy issues—that is also really, really important; and to recommend those proposed schemes to the Minister.

Now, originally the governance structure that was proposed was that NZTA and councils would have, basically, the same weight but that NZTA would have the chair, so NZTA would be dominant. The councils, when they came to us and submitted, were very, very clear: “You do that, we’re out.” They were pretty blunt on that. They said, “We are not going to be beholden to NZTA, beholden to the Government. We are partners in this, and we need to be equal partners in this.” They, basically, said, “This is not just about State highways; it’s also about local roads.” So we proposed, and I think that’s had broad acceptance—it’s one of the ones we pushed with the Minister—an independent chair appointed jointly and unanimously by NZTA and by the councils, and that’s set out in section 65V(1)(d), in clause 4.

We also made some changes to ensure that every council that has joined the process is involved, is represented on the scheme board, and also some key points in the decision process that councils have to agree to or the scheme doesn’t proceed. Those are set out in new section 65ZAC. We’ve really listened very hard to councils. This is about treating councils with respect and working together in partnership. We’ve also said that we want to protect the NZTA in case a whole lot of costs get loaded on to NZTA, and that’s the addition of section 65W(cb), which means that NZTA has to agree where there’s a whole lot of potential costs imposed on it. NZTA has got to be able to agree with that or to say, “No, no, we’re not happy with that particular situation.” That’s the first area of change.

The second one that we argued for was exemptions for the time of use charge. Now, we started off with the only exemption being for emergency vehicles. There was some argument that, no, emergency vehicles should be covered too and they should have to be subject to the charge, but the vast majority of people said, “No, we don’t agree with that.” We had arguments on the other side, saying that things like freight should be exempt from that, but our view was that freight can choose to travel, to some degree, when it wants to travel, and it also benefits from having less traffic on the road. The one we did argue about was public transport, because the whole rationale for time of use charging is to change the time or the mode, and public transport is about the mode. We argued for that, and that is in there. Also, rural school buses are in there as well—not that there’s a huge number of them, but they’re also in there.

The third recommendation is about any surplus funding, if there is surplus funding—and that’s not the primary driver; the primary driver is about changing behaviour—and where it can be used. The original proposition was “Anywhere in the region”, but what we said is, “No, actually what we want is a much closer nexus between where the revenue is raised, the congestion area, and the area where it is spent.” That is included there, in section 65X(3).

Just to finish off, I think it’s been a very, very good process. I think we’ve got to a very good outcome, and I just want to thank everybody who has been involved in this. It puts in place something in the tool kit that local government has been asking for, for a long time, which hopefully should save the country a significant amount of money in congestion and, potentially, in capital programmes. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to support the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill, though I do have some significant reservations, mostly about missed opportunities to make this legislation truly transformative. I mean, let’s make no mistake: we’re in the middle of a transport cost of living crisis. New Zealanders are trapped in car dependency, with inadequate alternatives in public transport, walking, cycling, or even car sharing. This Government has made that cost of living crisis worse by halving the walking and cycling budget and increasing the public transport farebox recovery, which directly translates into higher bus and train fares. Our regional councils wear the blame for that, while central government escapes scrutiny. But in this dark transport landscape, time of use charging offers a wee glimmer of hope.

💬 Dan Bidois: That’s right.

So the fundamental—oh, you like the dark transport landscape? That’s great!

The fundamental problem with the transport policy is its obsession with building more roads and tunnels. These projects simply move the choke points, rather than solve congestion, although there are some necessary roading improvements to avoid slips and dangerous areas. We are not against all road improvements, by any means; we just think that the bulk of the billions ahead over the next 60 years are not the best investment.

I did support congestion charging at council, both as a councillor and as mayor—as did my colleague over here—and it’s actually quite nice to think that we’re going to get it. We’re going to be part of the solution together, so thank you. I caught the end of your speech, Mr Foster, and I agree on many points. I’m sure that you, as chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, made some great leadership improvements there.

I’m also glad that local government has a very strong role in the control and use of the funding generated, which is highly appropriate and necessary. I am particularly amazed and delighted by new section 65Z(2)(c) in clause 4, because it mentions economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts—long live the wellbeings, I say.

However, this bill could be much better. Expert submitters on a similar topic in the 53rd Parliament made some compelling cases for low-emission zones, which have proven successful overseas, not least in London. Because congestion is only one negative impact of our car dependency, the health costs from air pollution actually exceeds the cost of congestion itself, and yet this bill ignores that evidence entirely, presumably because it’s an inconvenient truth that air pollution from motor vehicles—and this is the 53rd Parliament, so no doubt the costs have increased, like everything else—causes approximately $10 billion in social costs every year, including 13,000 cases of childhood asthma prevalence. Now, we could actually invest in stopping health problems, and that might save in the long term some of our shared health costs downstream.

There are some problematic imbalances in the governance. As I understand it, Waka Kotahi holds disproportionate weight in decision making, and while I really appreciate that the Wairarapa has separate councils from the metro Wellington, the idea of having three Wairarapa mayors and one capital mayor on a board fills me with a little dismay.

I do think that the bill should explicitly require that the revenue fund public transport and active transport infrastructure, but this is legislation that we won’t oppose. We support its intent and recognise it as slightly watered-down progress, but progress none the less. Thank you.

This bill is a game-changer for tackling congestion in our major cities—Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, possibly Hamilton, city of the future—

💬 Hon Tama Potaka: “The Tron”.

“The Tron”. We’ve seen that in other jurisdictions—in particular New York, which my colleague Andy Foster mentioned, and which implemented the scheme and has had great success since its introduction in January this year. A 60-minute journey in Manhattan has now been slashed to about 15 minutes—

💬 Celia Wade-Brown: 15-minute cities!

15 minutes. Traffic reduction has fallen by 10 percent. The noise complaints in the city of Manhattan have fallen by 70 percent. The city raises $50,000—or $50 million, I should say—each month from the scheme that it can then plough back into public transport, and buses travel faster in Manhattan as a result. It’s been a real win all around for the city of Manhattan, and now we’re going to be able to trial it here in New Zealand, and that’s a great thing.

It’s been a pleasure to be part of the select committee process. In summary, we’ve made four broad changes that, I think, address the key issues that came from the select committee submissions. The independent chair, I thought, was raised by a lot of submitters and will go some way to making sure that the scheme board makes decisions in an impartial manner for the benefit of people in the city. There are strengthened privacy protections so that the scheme board must adhere to those protections to protect the privacy of people. It clarifies that the revenue gained must be ploughed back in for the benefit of public transport in the scheme, in and around and within—as we’ve discussed in select committee—the area, and it clarifies the exemptions that are basically allowed. For this scheme to be successful, fewer exemptions were considered, and, really, we’ve only allowed emergency vehicles, and public buses for particular schools as well. Look, that is it. It’s been a great bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

I was in the House for the previous debate on the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Bill, and it’s hard to imagine a debate that could have had a more deeply felt and visceral opposition, from this side of the Chamber at least, and a kind of implacable difference, really, between the Government and the Opposition benches, by contrast. I think we have to kind of celebrate the moments where there is a kind of constructive consensus across the House because it doesn’t always happen, and when it does, I think it’s a good thing. I’m pleased to see that time of use charging is in this kind of cherished category where there is quite a lot of shared agreement between the political parties and an ability to progress an important reform like this in a constructive way.

Good things often take time, and I’m very pleased to see that policy work that I started as transport Minister, probably seven or eight years ago, has finally found its way, through a succession of other Ministers, to this House in the form of this bill. It’s true what Andy Foster said before, that he beat a path to my door asking that Wellington should be able to implement congestion charging. It’s not that I said no because it was a bad idea; I said no because it was premature, and there needed to be a significant amount of thinking and policy work done before I think we were ready to implement a reform like this. I’ve always been of the view that this, alongside zoning reform that allows our towns and cities to grow, to grow up, to embrace density, to build the fabric of a modern city—that and time of use charging on our transport network are two of the most critical reforms that will allow our cities to grow.

We have some major problems to unlock, particularly in our largest cities, that have the legacy of really poor 20th century policies that, essentially, locked in the 1950s, very dispersed, urban form cities that are utterly dependent on motorway systems, that cannot efficiently move people and goods around. This reform, and zoning reform to allow more intensification, particularly around transit corridors, is going to help us move our cities into a much more efficient and livable 21st century form. The dirty secret of modern cities is that cities of scale that are growing cannot build their way out of congestion. It is simply not possible, because when you have a growth in population, a growth in demand to move goods and people around, every time you expand the roads, in that context, you simply induce more demand. Auckland is a textbook case study of induced demand. It is not possible to keep adding more and more road space and think that that’s going to reduce congestion, because it never does.

We have a problem, because congestion, if we continue to refer to Auckland as our kind of case study here, is dragging down our productivity in the city. It means that for people and goods to get where they need to go in our economy, it takes much longer. Time is money. It literally costs more money to get goods and to get people, to get tradespeople, to the jobs they need to do.

It also severely undermines the efficiency of our labour market. Cities are basically labour markets, and if you stop people getting to the jobs that they might want to do, you dramatically reduce the efficiency of the labour market, because firms cannot get access to the choice of workers and the number of workers that they need to do their jobs. Firms cannot get access to the customers that they need to do the work that they do. For individuals, when you’ve got a city that’s transport arteries are as clogged up as Auckland’s are, individuals cannot get access to the full range of opportunities that the employment market offers, so labour productivity gets dragged further and further down. Those are some of the reasons why this reform is so important for the future of our cities.

So time of use charging and this framework will allow congestion charging to be brought in by local authorities, working in partnership with Waka Kotahi, NZTA. They will be allowed to put in place schemes that will charge by time and use charging to add a charge to people either entering a particular zone with a cordon around it or a particular stretch of, let’s say, a motorway network. By adding a small charge to the use of that particular roading network at particular times of the day, it will incentivise people to change their transport behaviour, to take another mode, to get on the train or the bus or the ferry or to time their journey for a less expensive hour when they don’t have to pay that extra fee.

There’s now a really great body of evidence and research internationally from places like London, Singapore, Stockholm, New York, Milan, who have implemented these schemes. We can say with certainty that it has the potential to reduce 10 percent or more of drivers at a particular time of day when the charging is in place. For those of us who are used to the school mid-afternoon rush hour, you know—in my case in Auckland—when it’s school holidays, that 10 to 15 percent of traffic that’s not on the road before and after school makes all the difference. It’s not like we’re saying a reform like this raises the prospect of everybody being forced off the road and having to take public transport or bike to and from work. No, if you can shift 10, 12 percent of people, in terms of when they choose to travel and how they choose to travel, it’s a vast increase in the efficiency of the use of the network, and that’s what we want to see.

For a city like Auckland, I return to my theme, it’s simply not possible to keep adding on road space and building more motorways. In Auckland, if you look at the motorway network, it just isn’t possible. If you look at Spaghetti Junction, for example—you’ve got this radial network with motorways coming in to a place like Spaghetti Junction—you physically cannot engineer more road space there. That’s why reforms like this are really necessary.

There’s a really interesting sidebar to the story about time of use charging as a way of alleviating congestion, and that is that because of the electrification of the vehicle fleet, petrol excise, which for a long time through hypothecation has basically funded our transport system—because of the electrification of the fleet, that is no longer going to be the case and we face declining revenues from petrol excise. We have to find other ways to fund our transport system and the technology that’s in use here, and what will very likely be a shift to electronic GPS-based road-user charges for all vehicles—a technology that’s already in place for a significant section of our trucking fleet—will mean that petrol excise can be phased out and replaced with a much more comprehensive way of raising revenue based on people’s real-time use of the transport network.

It offers a way out of that problem. It’s actually very efficient and very fair. There’s also a third reason—and, actually, it’s quite an exciting reform for New Zealand—and that is that our cities have largely been based on the idea of universal car ownership, and dispersed suburbs where we built motorways, you know, an hour’s drive out into the countryside from the centre of the city or from where the jobs are, with the idea that people can drive to work, is, in effect, a huge hidden subsidy, those roads, to the transport costs that enable this dispersed pattern of urban development. Time of use charging on the network, which will ultimately replace the petrol excise, will allow those costs to be fully calculated and brought into the system.

My beautiful Mt Roskill electorate is home to many working-class families. Addressing congestion and improving our transport network is critical for Mt Roskill’s future development and wellbeing. The people in Mt Roskill actually face daily congestion and long travelling times. It impacts families and businesses alike. This actually drags down our productivity. This bill encourages travel outside the peak hours, which can ease congestion and improve travel reliability.

However, I made it clear in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that I only support this bill with one clear condition: if any revenue is collected in the Mt Roskill electorate, I want it to return to Mt Roskill—for future transport infrastructure. Our community deserves a real, lasting investment in a safer, more efficient transport network. I commend this bill to the House.

We’ve had a lot of technical talk about the nature of this bill tonight and what it does, and about congestion charging in the abstract. I think the comments from our colleague Dr Carlos Cheung just now about Mount Roskill is the first time that someone has tried to relate it very specifically to a particular area. I am going to reject one of Dr Cheung’s claims that the money collected in Mt Roskill should be spent in Mt Roskill. Of course, the Auckland motorway and roading network is a network, and the spending needs to go across the network to ensure that the network functions effectively, which of course will, in turn, help people in Mt Roskill.

I want to talk about the experience of living in Auckland. Now, I live in West Auckland and I try to stay in West Auckland because, frankly, getting out on to the roads is a nightmare. The length of time it takes to travel to other places, especially at peak times, is, frankly, ridiculous. The better thing is to try to avoid getting out there and to time one’s travel so that it doesn’t occur during peak hours, but every now and again it happens, and I, like many other West Aucklanders, have been stuck on State Highway 16, which resembles a parking lot, a car park, from about 4.30 p.m. until about 5.45 p.m. each day, with traffic moving very, very slowly.

I’m sure that my colleague Dan Bidois, across the way, has had pretty much the same experience coming down off Onewa Rd and into the city. We do spend a lot of time sitting in traffic, and so that’s a behaviour that clearly needs to change. We actually need to see if we can reduce the number of cars on the road.

What I find interesting about this proposal is that when we’re trying to charge for time of use, there’s been a number of references to school holiday time. We’re trying to get our roads to have the level of not congestion that they have during school holidays. There’s an interesting little supposition underlying that: that, somehow, school kids don’t deserve to be on the roads—they don’t deserve to use the roads because the roads are better when they’re not there. I guess what we are trying to do with this bill, though, is not just take the kids off the road; we’re trying to take the adults off the road. We’re trying to get workers to rethink how they might move in and out of the city. We’re trying to ensure that people take account of all the costs there are with commuting.

It does mean, once we start charging workers for using the roads, that we do need to have viable alternatives for them. We must ensure that they have a choice to either pay the congestion charge, or to move along less congested routes, or to take—and this would be, I guess, the best solution—public transport. That’s a viable solution along State Highway 16 now that a busway is at last being retrofitted into State Highway 16. It should have been there right from the start, but it’s getting there now. That should help some of the congestion along that way. But it does make the very clear point that we need to have those good public transport networks to make congestion charging really work. So it’s not just the case that we still have the same number of cars on the road but people just pay some money; we actually need to get those cars off the road. That viable alternative does make a real difference.

That’s why I’m really glad that one of the proposals that the Transport and Infrastructure Committee worked through was the one that Dr Cheung referred to: that money collected by the congestion charges—spent, first of all, on the operation of the congestion charging scheme; that seems sensible, but then it goes back to improving the land transport network within the area. Now, I’m hoping that the boards that work on congestion charging are able to direct that towards public transport. Of course, there are many ways that we can improve roading networks, but it does seem to be that the fair and equitable thing to do is to ensure that we have a viable choice for people who would otherwise pay the congestion charge.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What a privilege it is to stand and take a call on the Land Transport Management (Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill. We are supporting this bill, as has been traversed well. There are a number of reasons why congestion charging is a great idea: the environmental benefits, the revenue generation beyond what we already have, the sustainable infrastructure, improved cities, and, of course, economic efficiency, which is what we’re all about on this side of the House: economic growth and efficiency. London and Stokholm are both great examples of congestion charging working where traffic reduced by 15 percent to 30 percent in London; 20 to 25 percent in Stokholm. It’s a great piece of work. I commend the bill to the House.

It’s really sobering to hear the drama and the horror stories coming from Auckland about their traffic problems. I just invite anyone who is over it: come down to the deep South. We’ve got beautiful clear air, we don’t have a lot of congestion, and it takes about 25 minutes to do the 27 kilometres from my place to the airport, which I do quite frequently—it’s a beautiful drive, fantastic farmland on the way there. Sometimes, occasionally the mist will roll in over the Taieri Plains and you’ll get to the airport and realise that the planes won’t be able to land—that’s because Air New Zealand’s changed them to ATRs. But times like yesterday, I was able to get out despite the wind and it really is a wonderful place to live.

Auckland, on the other hand, is a prime candidate for this congestion charge. I can tell you that we look at Auckland, London, Singapore, Stockholm, Milan, Manhattan. The real horror story, and what could be in our future in parts of New Zealand, is the experience that I’ve had in the many visits that I’ve done to the beautiful city of Jakarta. The same distance—27 kilometres—from the airport in Jakarta and to the main city can take usually around an hour and a half, but if you get peak-hour traffic, it can take you 4½ hours. I’ve done that myself—10 kilometres an hour or less, to the point where it was actually quicker near the end to hop out of the car, pay the driver while we’re at a standstill, and walk the last three blocks to the hotel so that we wouldn’t get caught with another half hour or so of congestion. As the Hon Phil Twyford has said, once those cities are gridlocked in that way, there is really no turning back.

Jakarta is a wonderful city—wonderful people, great food, productive—but really buckling under the challenge of its traffic gridlock, and I’d hate to see Auckland get like that. One solution: Aucklanders come south. If you’re not going to do that, have some congestion charges and then, as my other colleagues have said, have some better public transport options. That’s the key part to this: because we know that for planning purposes, having the congestion charge is great—it is going to change behaviours—but it’s really difficult for some people if there are not other options available to them.

We need buses, we need trains, we need bus fares and train fares that take into account people’s circumstances and that also enable people—like children, for example—to be able to attend sports games, to be able to attend training. We did have these half-price fares; the Government has removed them, so I’m keen to know what this Government is going to do to make sure the other side of the ledger of the congestion charge is about enabling people to get other forms of transport. If they don’t do that, then I suspect this could be a way of just generating much-needed revenue to balance their books. I’m hoping that’s not the case because there is a great deal of consensus in the House tonight about the utility of this bill, and it also seems like the select committee process went well. As Phil Twyford said, we have to celebrate when the House is of one mind, but we do need to ensure that the cities that we want to be more productive, more livable, more accessible are also more enabling for those who need to get those other forms of transport.

When Labour came up with this idea—and let’s not forget that: that this was work that the previous Labour Government did and the previous Labour Government sought bipartisanship on—very active in our minds were the many reasons to free up public transport and get rid of congestion. It wasn’t just about equity; it was also about the environment, it was about productivity, it was a whole system’s approach. That is why we went through the work very carefully: because we need to ensure that people can move around and that this is not just kind of a way of taxing middle New Zealanders, ordinary New Zealanders who are trying to get to their jobs, who need to work in the city, who don’t have other forms of transport and therefore get stung with another cost of living thing that is going to impact their back pocket.

There are some other areas of concern as well, and that is there’s a lot of assumption around councils working in partnership with central government. I was at a breakfast this morning where I heard the Hon Chris Bishop really lay into the councils, saying how useless they were, how they were rorting money from ratepayers to try to get infrastructure happening. It didn’t sound like the beginning of a beautiful relationship to me, and so I think we need to make sure that the Government can have a relationship with councils that is going to enable real partnership, because if that doesn’t happen then, again, this is not going to work for many people.

We also think that new section 65C(2), inserted by clause 4, allows too much ministerial control, and that’s about protecting local autonomy. It’s the second time that I’m standing in the House today concerned about ministerial control. Earlier tonight, we talked about the Ministers being able to appoint what should be technical experts to the panel that gives advice and makes decisions on the Medicines Act. It seems to be a bit of a trend with this coalition Government, and now we see it again in a completely different area where once more the governance and the decision making is all vested in a Minister, where the democratic institutions of power really require that not to be so concentrated so that there is transparency and accountability and a firewall, if you like, between Ministers and those who might be making operational decisions. That’s not going to happen if we keep section 65C(2) as it is.

My colleague has also mentioned—Dr Deborah Russell—the concept of equity and the fact that the roads need to be enabling for everybody. This is not just about business, it’s not just about those who need to go to a place of work; but, actually, this is about families, it’s about seniors who need to get out and get about—what are their transport options?—it’s about kids being able to go to places in the school holidays. We also need to make sure that we look at broader transport solutions for other parts of the country.

I’m all for hypothecating the money—I think Auckland sounds like it needs it to address its own problems. We don’t need your money in the South; our roads are great. What we do need, though, is we need rail-enabled ferries and we need coastal shipping and we need a port and rail structure that makes sure that the South Island can operate independently of the North Island when all that congestion gets out of hand or when there’s another COVID epidemic or something else that happens that shuts down the country. At least the South Island would be able to use our ports, use freight, and use rail-enabled ferries to support the rest of the country. We’re quite happy to do that—we’re hard workers in the South—but we won’t be able to do that and help out our North Island friends if those other broader transport systems aren’t enabled.

The other thing, I suppose, is just really noting that former Minister of Transport Simeon Brown has said we want to make sure we’re not adding further cost to people using roads during a cost of living crisis. We agree with the congestion charges, but it is difficult for people to hear that kind of promise and then see this kind of policy implemented. It’s a little bit like hearing Simeon Brown say that doctors have crossed an ethical line when they assert their right to stand up for their patients and talk about safer staffing and better pay and conditions to make sure that people receive adequate healthcare. It’s a shame that Minister Brown said that, because it might come back to haunt him, especially if these other mechanisms that we’re discussing in the House tonight are not put into place. Then it could look very much like a money-grab, and that would be such a shame when the thinking behind this congestion charge is for the right reasons and does have bipartisan support.

What the bill does: it offers a critical opportunity to modernise transport management, and we think that, with proper amendments and fare safeguards, it can reduce congestion and it can create a more enabling environment for cities. It will probably make Auckland a little bit more livable, but the offer still stands: if it doesn’t work, and if those public transport options don’t come out and you do find yourself on a motorway somewhere, Mr Speaker, sitting in traffic moving at 5 kilometres an hour, wondering why you’re paying a congestion charge and why your cost of living hasn’t reduced and why the traffic isn’t moving, then I do extend to you a sincere invitation to come down south and experience a good life where it only takes 25 minutes to do 27 kilometres to the airport from South Dunedin to the Taieri Plains.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, in the interest of brevity, I was really pleased to see in the introduction, mechanisms for a scheme board to adjust to charges, manage scheme operations, etc., because I remember going to the Mount and paying the gold coin at the little toll booth with the people in the booth. They eventually did get rid of that, and I knew that was probably a bit of an antiquated system. Then, they moved to digital, but I’d never pay my bills on time, and I’d always get a snail mail $8 bill with a $5 admin fee, and I was just like, “If I knew about the bill, I wouldn’t have the admin fee.” So there’s definitely room to improve, I think, but I’m all for this process, so I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie—pō ararau. [Good night—good night.]

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.