Moroney Sue: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill as a new member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which considered the bill. I am sad to say though that I rise to reiterate Labour’s opposition to this bill because of the narrowness for which this Government has now become famous in terms of how it deals with many issues locally. We know that it narrowed the local government bill down so that social well-being and people’s wellness were not part of what was taken care of and here it goes again with land transport management.I want to speak specifically to Supplementary Order Paper 234 in the name of my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway and support this Supplementary Order Paper being voted through. This would actually fix up the very problem I have just highlighted. What Iain Lees-Galloway’s Supplementary Order Paper 234 does is restate what the purpose of land transport management legislation should be. It would bring back the purpose of the Land Transport Management Act to being “to contribute to the aim of achieving an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport system.” Why would any Government not vote for a purpose statement like that for land transport management legislation? Why would it not vote to make sure that our land transport management system achieved affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport?If we think about sustainable land transport systems in the Waikato area where I come from it reminds me of a push that has come locally to have a commuter passenger train between Hamilton and Auckland. This is so popular that 13800 people signed a petition asking the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to look at the issue of establishing such a service. That member opposite the chair of the select committee David Bennett who is from the area actually made sure that the select committee did not hear that petition. He as a local Hamilton member made sure that those 13800 people did not have their views heard in front of the select committee. I think that was a sham in terms of democracy. I have never seen a select committee that has turned down and stopped so many petitions from being heard as the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee under David Bennett’s chairpersonship. It has been quite shocking. Those 13800 people were after a sustainable land transport management system.David Bennett likes to go on about the billions of dollars spent on the Waikato Expressway which actually by his own Government’s admission would save only 10 minutes’ drive time between Hamilton and Auckland in 10 years’ time—in 10 years’ time. That is the thing that we are spending billions of dollars on: saving 10 minutes’ drive time between Hamilton and Auckland in 10 years’ time. Well if we spent a tiny tiny proportion of that actually supporting a commuter passenger train service between Hamilton and Auckland we could save 10 minutes right now. We would not have to wait 10 years for it. We could save 10 minutes’ drive time right here right now with much less taxpayer money being spent on it and have a sustainable transport system with road and rail working together to complement each other.When people get on the Waikato Expressway and in 10 years’ time save their 10 minutes’ drive time only to sit in that southern motorway car-park—the great car-park at the end of the southern motorway; it is clogged up because they have not got public transport working well in Auckland—there will be no benefit whatsoever. They aregoing to spend 10 minutes more sitting in traffic on the southern motorway to get to work in Auckland in the morning even though billions of dollars will have been spent on the Waikato Expressway. It just is not the best spend of money that could be happening—it is not the best spend of money. We could have already fixed it in the time that it took David Bennett to stop those 13800 people from having their voice heard over getting a passenger train service in place.