Pettis Jill: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Pettis Jill: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9700] 
JILL PETTIS (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 Some months ago  
Trans-Tasman 
 wrote a review of the Land Transport Management Bill and in the column on the right under “Comments” it wrote: “Could be the pinnacle of this Minister’s career.” It must be a very low mountain. 
I feel sorry for that Minister because sometimes life is not fair. He has been delivered the ultimate pup by the Greens. I say that because Keith Locke got up and waxed lyrical about trains in Auckland. Let me avail Mr Locke of the facts. There were 925 million trips taken in Auckland last year—875 million in cars 48 million on buses and 2 million on trains. Every time someone got on a train the New Zealand taxpayer gave that passenger a $10 subsidy. It would have been quicker to give him or her a taxi chit. 
Hon Member 
: What! 
JOHN KEY 
: That is right $10—a $20 million subsidy. Boston Consulting Group wrote a report which Mr Locke obviously has not read. It said that if $1.5 billion was spent on all the things to fix the rail network in Auckland including electrification double tracking of the western line signature stations and so on we would do really well—we would really knock it out of the park. Those 2.5 million trips taken on a train will increase maybe to 15 million or at very best 25 million. If the number goes to 25 million the operating subsidy required for those trips will be $4 per trip—$100 million. So if Mr Locke thinks that spending $1.5 billion and then paying an operating subsidy of $100 million is a great way to get 25 million people around Auckland when at the same time car trips will be up at 1.1 billion then all I can say is: “Goodness help New Zealand if Keith Locke is ever in the finance portfolio in bed with the Labour Party.” because it will not work. I feel sorry for this Minister of Transport because he has been delivered a pup. 
I want to refer to one other thing. The Minister has gone around the country and said: “We’ll be able to borrow and that will fix some of the roads.” He is absolutely right. The borrowing level in Auckland in my opinion is somewhere in the order of $5 billion to $6 billion. That is the amount that will be required. That is the kind of borrowing involved. That is not new. Transit has had the ability to borrow with the Minister of Finance’s approval for decades. That is not new. If that is the best the Land Transport Management Bill can deliver then it is a hopeless piece of legislation as well. 
 I want to refer in part to Transfund and to some additions that were made such as the construction of the Transfund board because I thought in part that those looked pretty good. The old board could have on it no more than five people. The select committee wisely said that the number of people on the board could go from six to eight. I initially thought that that was pretty good but the last Transfund board was dominated by none other than Mike Williams President of the Labour Party. When he got control of the funding schedule lo and behold a whole lot of projects that were ranked 94th 87th and 42nd and happened to be in Labour Party electorates were rammed up the list. 
I ask members what happened to Auckland’s projects. Miraculously they were dropped off the list. So on the one hand I look at the provision and say that if Mike Williams had a lesser voice on Transfund’s board it would be a good thing for Transfund. On the other hand I have no doubt that the Minister of Finance will appoint another two or three Labour Party lackeys to push through its socialist agenda and pork-barrel politics that seem to be dominating Transit New Zealand and Transfund New Zealand. What a sad day it is. 
I want to refer to one other point which is last year’s performance by Transfund. Last year’s performance showed that at the end of the year Transfund had failed to spend $155 million. That is right—it had $155 million left over despite the fact that the Auckland Chamber of Commerce could point to a couple of billion dollars-worth of projects that were ready to go. Why was that? The reason was that it had approval for projects it did not have funding for.