O'Connor Simon: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9885. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):For the record I am not standing on behalf of the Labour Party as a plenipotentiary or anything I just think it is important—I know it is going to be a terrible disappointment to the other side of the Chamber.It was interesting just now listening to the speaker from the Green Party Julie Anne Genter. If you listened to the undertone of what was being said there it was a completely pro-Auckland approach. Those members are prepared actually to drop the roading projects in other parts of the country in order to build a central rail loop for Auckland. If you listened once again very carefully to what was said there it was: “Let’s drop this project let’s drop that project and let’s focus it all on Auckland.” Even I as an Auckland MP think that that is a little bit weird because at the end of the day this is the Parliament for New Zealand not the Parliament for Auckland. I think when we look at what the New Zealand Transport Agency is doing particularly through the roads of national significance it is an array of projects that are regional operational national and significant. I know that my colleague Mike Sabin from up north and Mark Mitchell as well along with what the New Zealand Transport Agency is suggesting—the Pūhoi to Wellsford project is very important. As someone who has originally come from Whangarei I am all for that. That is not about a “Holiday Highway”; that is about a highway of prosperity and opportunity. In fact I can see here across the Chamber engagement from New Zealand First’s Tracey Martin. She understands it as well.Projects through the Waikato and projects throughout the country are incredibly and vitally important—things like Transmission Gully. I was just driving back from Whanganui over the weekend and ran into the usual traffic issues in Nathan Guy’s electorate through Ōtaki and that. Of course the Green Party will stop that project. We have heard that very clearly: it is against Transmission Gully. A challenge that has to come of course is to the likes of the Labour Party. Is it going to stand and fall according to the principles of the Green Party?It was really important when the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee went through the review with the New Zealand Transport Agency to understand that the agency needs to be responsive to what New Zealanders want. Some of us are quite prepared to walk and to cycle in Auckland and some of us are happy to take the buses and the trains but there is also that reality check that kicks in that a lot of Kiwis take their cars. So we need to be able to respond to that appropriately. When I look at somewhere like Tāmaki Drive in Auckland I think that is a very good example of what the New Zealand Transport Agency is dealing with. You have got people who want to walk you have got people who want to cycle and you have got people who want to take the bus—in fact some people are even suggesting Julie Anne they want to take a ferry from St Heliers. There are people who want to take their cars.The challenge for the New Zealand Transport Agency and the challenge for this Government and all Governments is how you balance those needs of people. We even have the walking buses—a great initiative including from one who was my former lecturer in geography. It is a great initiative. But this is not an initiative that is an absolute. If we fall into the thinking of the Greens and if Labour follows that too we are falling into transport fundamentalism. At the end of the day the New Zealand Transport Agency is working across the board—Andrew Little: Ha ha! “Transport fundamentalism.”SIMON O’CONNOR: Transport fundamentalism—there is the phrase for the night: transport fundamentalism. This Government and the New Zealand Transport Agency as it reported back to us in the financial review are there working for what New Zealanders want. I know that Kiwis listening in tonight do not want to buy into that fundamentalism because they understand: they want to drive their cars they want to park them in the cities and they want to get around. It is the same for freight as well. They want to move around. We are going to avoid this fundamentalism.We applaud the work that the New Zealand Transport Agency has done and is doing. It was an excellent review process. I think the agency gave a very strong indicator of why it is implementing the projects it is doing. I just urge those looking at this review not to fall into that fundamentalism not to take approaches like the anti - Transmission Gully anti-roads approach but to take the approach that the New Zealand Transport Agency and this Government are following which is about roads about rail and about cars.Report noted.