Bennett David: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bennett David: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 July 2008. Volume:648;Page:17053. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 That was a very interesting speech from Mark “Julius” Gosche—the man who built every road that exists in Auckland and believes he is the founder of New Zealand’s transport system in the sense that every road he travels on has been built by the Labour Party. That is absolute rubbish. The reality is that this Labour Government has not completed the roading network in Auckland. It is a complete fabrication for its members to say they are doing it now. The reality is that they have not done it and they will not do it because they will not introduce a regional petrol tax. Their Prime Minister has said they will not introduce one next year. They are passing legislation today to give them the ability to put in a regional petrol tax and then the Prime Minister says she is not going to introduce it! She will not go to the polls knowing she is telling the public of Auckland that they are going to have to pay another 10c on their fuel bills. She refuses to do it. 
Hon Annette King 
: That’s wrong. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: The Minister of Transport is saying that that is wrong—it cannot be right. She is going to go out there and introduce a little bit of the tax so she can potentially go back to the people of Auckland and say they will have some certainty about their electric trains. The very thing Mark Gosche was talking about having certainty about—for the purchase of electric trains—is up in the air because the Prime Minister will not actually allow them to impose a regional petrol tax next year. She does not want to do it because it is not politically expedient for her to go into an election campaign with a regional petrol tax for the communities of Auckland and other big cities around this country. 
The other thing Mr Gosche said that was quite interesting was that we need to give power to the regions so they can fund what they want to do. It was a very important point for him to emphasise—power to the regions. How come in this legislation he has not listened to what all the regions have said—apart from a few of the main cities that have a public transport issue? All the other regions wanted to have the ability to dictate where that 10c would go. The Waikato region the Bay of Plenty region and the Taranaki and King Country region wanted to have the ability to determine what that 10c was spent on. But in this legislation there is a mandatory apportionment. I say to Mark: “Give power to the regions if that is what you are going to do. If you are going to give them power listen to their submissions because their submissions said they wanted to have power to distribute that money. They did not want you to tell them they had to spend 5c on public transport. They wanted to have the ability to determine that for themselves.” 
By not doing that he is not giving power to the regions; he is doing what the Labour Party does and knows it does best—telling people how to live their own lives. It is a party based on redistribution and on the principle that it knows better. The regions went to you in this select committee process they came in front of you and they implored you to take— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
DAVID BENNETT 
: —into account the wishes of the regions. The regions want to have the ability to distribute that money in the manner that fits their requirements. The Labour Party will not allow that. The Labour Party will not allow the regions to do what they wanted to do and its members ask why we vote against it. Why would we vote for something that all the regions apart from some of the main centres said they found was a problem? Why put through legislation that the regions are not happy with? It does not make any sense. The regions came to the select committee and they had a reasonable rational case for them to be able to distribute that 10c according to their needs and the Labour Government ignored them. It ignored them because it is paying back the Greens. 
That is what it is doing with this legislation. It is not about what is right for New Zealand it is not about what the regions want it is not what the regional land transport committees around the country have been advocating or seeking; it is what this Labour Government needs to do to stay in power. It needs to get the Greens onside and to do that it has compromised the select committee process it has compromised the submissions of all those regions—all those rural provincial regions that came out and said: “Just give us the ability to determine what we do with that money; just give us that power.” What was so hard about that? Why cannot the Government of the day give the regions of New Zealand the power to decide what happens with that money? No it will not do that. That is the fundamental problem with this legislation; it is the fundamental problem with this Government.