Goudie Sandra: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Goudie Sandra: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16915] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I certainly share the concerns of my colleagues. I too was alarmed when I saw clause 53 “General savings provision”. I understand that a considerable amount of that $250 million is still in the pot so the concern would be that that money is spent on actual road construction and is not frittered away on a lot of airy-fairy policies with regard maybe to additional road signage or the whims of Land Transport Safety Authority policy. 
I am also concerned about what that means. If the Minister can do what he likes in terms of the effect of the bill and can undertake different aspects of this bill at any time before it comes into effect what does that really mean? Perhaps he will take a call and explain that. 
There are a number of things in the offing and one of them of course is the implementation of the vehicle emission policy. My understanding is that the policy does not exempt pre-1980 cars and that will have a significant impact. There are questions about whether the policy is being implemented for environmental purposes safety purposes or whatever but what will the Minister’s position be in relation to that? How soon will he move to incorporate the Land Transport Safety Authority with Transfund and what will happen to the policy recommendations of the Land Transport Safety Authority at that point? Will he take them over and have some sense brought into that argument? After all when it comes to vehicle emissions there were no cars pre-1980 that were actually designed with a catalytic converter which is now what may be required to be installed. Pre-1980 cars were not designed to have catalytic converters. Of course when cars with catalytic converters were coming in— 
John Key 
: Does your car have one? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: No my car does not have one and it was not built to have one.  
John Key 
: I’ve got a Commodore. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: What year is it? 
John Key 
: 2001. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: 2001? Actually I do not know. But I think it will be interesting— 
Darren Hughes 
: That member drives a Rolls Royce.  
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Really? I am enjoying this. It is just wonderful how we all take great interest in vehicles and in our cars! 
Obviously there is some considerable concern and debate about this particular policy coming through from the Land Transport Safety Authority so it will be interesting to see whether the Minister exercises the largesse provided by the transitional regulations under clause 54. Will the Minister exercise his largesse and actually bring a bit of sensibility to the policy for vehicle emission testing and have an exemption for pre-1980 vehicles because there is some concern about the legitimacy of the basis for that policy. 
The Minister could exercise his rights under clause 54 because pre-1980 cars do not have the ability to have catalytic converters attached to them without some serious difficulty. Perhaps that would compromise safety and given that this bill is meant to be all about safety—however with the emphasis on environmental sustainability—the Minister will hopefully put some rationality into the policies being floated with regard to vehicle emission testing—and I might add into the policies about speed limit reductions that are also taking place. 
Those are two policy areas and that is what this bill is meant to be all about—bringing policy back into the ministry. So perhaps the Minister will use the transitional regulations and actually put a bit more control and sense around the speed limit policy being put forward too by the Land Transport Safety Authority. After all in our area where the average speed limit is about 89 kilometres an hour instead of 100 kilometres an hour the proposal is to drop the limit to 80 kilometres an hour which is absolutely nonsensical particularly as a speed problem cannot be proven with regard to the one or maybe two fatalities on that particular stretch of road. 
So the general savings provision is a concern and we would hope for transparency in any sort of funding that will be affected by this legislation. We want to make sure that that is handled appropriately and of course we are very concerned about this Government’s fiscal capability.