Ward Mike: Transport Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Ward Mike: Transport Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
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MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 New section 14 inserted by clause 5 states that the objectives of the Minister under this Act are “(a) to undertake the Minister’s functions in a way that contributes to the aim of achieving an integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system; and (b) to ensure that New Zealand’s obligations under international civil aviation agreements are implemented.” 
I want to concentrate on paragraph (a) and in particular focus on the sustainability provisions. During the hearings and deliberations on the bill much was made of the emphasis on sustainability. There is little doubt in my mind that efficiency and cost-effectiveness will inevitably be considerations when deciding on our transport solutions. There can be no such certainty going on past experience that the sustainability and the impact of our transport solutions on the social and environmental fabric of our communities will get the same consideration. In fact there is little evidence that any attention has been paid to the impact of New Zealand travelling habits on the lives of the travellers or on the environment through which they travel or to the contribution of those travel habits to the twin threats of peak oil and climate change. 
The Western World’s fascination with roads and automobiles continues to constitute the greatest contributors to global warming and the depletion of fossil fuel. Nothing else has the same contribution. While motorcar devotees wax lyrical about the convenience of the private motorcar it is worth noting that we have never spent so long in getting to the places we need to be or so much time or money on travel. 
In my childhood many of the products we bought and used were sourced from our own communities and most people were wise enough to live close to the places where they worked played shopped and went to school. Those factors alone contributed greatly to the amount of leisure that people enjoyed the safety of our streets the quality of our air and water and our ease of access and participation in the lives of our communities. 
Some of us saw in the Land Transport Management Act not merely a revolution in transport management but the possibility of addressing many of the other absurdities of 21st century living. The Act alone was unlikely to be sufficient to deliver the necessary changes without changes to the authorities charged with administering it. This bill provides some of those changes. 
The very least we could hope for is an improvement in public transport services and in cycle and pedestrian facilities. But if we go no further than making it possible to continue moving people and products unnecessarily even by more efficient means then we will have missed out on an opportunity to create communities that genuinely enhance the quality of our lives and the quality of our surroundings. More important we are likely to have missed out on a last opportunity to make a meaningful contribution towards avoiding the catastrophic consequences of climate change. 
Climate change is a reality is already happening and is already affecting the weather in our country but much more seriously in other countries and that can only increase exponentially. I barely deliver a speech these days—I do not think I have delivered one for some months—without commenting on the extent of global warming. I think it is worth remembering that in the last 240-odd years carbon dioxide levels have increased by something around the vicinity of 90 parts per million—a one-third increase in the space of 240 years. This century if we are lucky it will double. It may travel to the highest levels in something like 40 million years when sea levels I might add were 12 metres higher than they are now. It may not happen but even if there were the remotest chance that it would I would have thought we would be a little more careful. This bill is part of the measure to be a little more careful. 
It is doubtful whether Transit New Zealand with its very considerable skills in road building or the Ministry of Transport has the expertise or the experience to attempt the more ambitious goal but the Green Party’s support for this bill is predicated on an understanding that the Minister is fully aware of the lack of expertise and committed to finding it. 
So what are the new skills? Well most of our communities have never had to look beyond providing roads and many have not begun to think beyond the needs of those with motorcars. The Land Transport Management Act obliges them to look at public transport and cycleways and the needs of those who choose not to drive or who cannot drive—they can no longer be ignored. However it is unreasonable to expect each local authority to come up with the kind of expertise that it requires to wean people away from generations of motorcar dependency. It is not enough to provide services; genuine demand-management requires that we go out into the schools the homes and the workplaces to find out what the travel needs of people are to make sure that the alternatives are in place and to craft if necessary individual transport plans for the people in those communities—in our communities. 
It is already happening in other parts of the world—Western Australia does it well Perth has done it by going out and doing just that: going into the neighbourhood and asking where people go what time they travel and when they come home again and then pointing out that there are other ways of doing it. We are talking about a culture shift a behaviour change a move away from age-old practices that perpetuate as ought to be patently obvious what is bizarre and unsustainable. 
I am delighted that Maurice Williamson foresaw the possibility of Greens having a greater say in transport management. We share his optimism. Brent Catchpole talked about the importance of roads. Unfortunately that is what we have done whenever we have thought about transport in the past—we have assumed that that meant building more roads. I was up in Auckland recently. I was looking at its transport management which is a very carefully managed transport system. For $180 million Auckland will get 20 kilometres of busway. That 20 kilometres of busway will potentially carry as many people as four lanes of motorway. I also saw 3 kilometres of motorway proposed costing $160 million. Compare that with 20 kilometres of busway costing $180 million. The value is fairly clear. 
He also made references to coastal shipping as if somehow that was strange. If in fact shipping provides a smarter way of moving products then that is the choice that communities need to make. If barges provide it that is a choice that communities need to have open to them. If ferries are the choice that is the choice that people need to have open to them and this bill provides for that. 
Each community will have the task and has the task now of preparing its land transport management strategy. These strategies are obliged to assist economic development assist safety and personal security improve access and mobility protect and promote public health and ensure environmental sustainability. The authority that oversees these has a responsibility to make sure that those transport plans do that. I am concerned that that expertise will be there so that they can make sure that these land transport management strategies are adequate. 
My experience of writing these in the past is that they have been ignored more often than they have been observed. But under the Act and this legislation we in the Green Party are hopeful that we are making a step in the right direction not merely in providing good transport but in providing the kinds of communities that have a future. The kinds of communities and the kinds of behaviour that we are part of now probably do not have a future certainly not an affordable future. 
We found out last year when we began the land transport management legislation that in fact the Auckland mayors were asking for $5 billion to solve their transport problems. Most of that was aimed at building roads. By the end of the year I think the figure they were asking for was $8 billion. By May of this year they were asking for $10 billion. If one is prepared to spend that kind of money then there have to be smarter ways of spending it. Persuading people to change the way they travel rather than simply perpetuating the kinds of unsustainable habits that we have become accustomed to has to be the way to go. 
So the Greens are supporting this legislation. We are delighted to have supported it all the way through. We are delighted to have supported the Land Transport Management Act and we believe that it points to a future that my children deserve and that I think the world is actually crying out for in terms of examples of how we might live.