Coddington Deborah: Railways Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Railways Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:19902] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party does not support the Railways Bill. It is always hard to argue against safety because one’s opponents can then very easily put out a sound bite saying that one’s party is arguing against safety. When we debated the first reading of this bill the Hon Jim Anderton as members might recall stood up and used a very emotional ploy. He talked about the terrible accident that happened to the child Morgan Jones on the railway. A considerable amount has already been done since that accident. In fact since 2000 when the Wilson report came out Tranz Rail in particular has done a significant amount of work in improving its safety standards. 
There are a number of reasons why ACT cannot support this bill. It started off with good intentions. It went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as the Hon Maurice Williamson pointed out and we on the select committee worked towards reporting back with something on which we could reach at least some sort of quasi-agreement that it was better than what came to the select committee in the first place. But as is typical especially when we are in urgency—it comes back to urgency—we have to pass all remaining stages of the bill and lo and behold there is a Supplementary Order Paper that damn near takes the bill back to what it was before it went to the select committee in the first place and before we heard all the submissions. 
And there were significant submissions on this piece of legislation—from Federated Farmers from Toll Holdings from Tranz Rail from the unions and from the small railways operators. Those are the operators of heritage railway tracks and the small not-for-profit organisations—charitable trusts that run railways just because they are rail nuts. And good on them. They do a good job in terms of preserving some of our historical railways heritage. But this bill is a push by the unions. It is a union-backed bill. It is interesting that— 
Jill Pettis 
: Rubbish! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Well Lynne Pillay just stood up and said it was pushed by the unions. She said it in her own words. She said that the unions backed this bill— 
Lynne Pillay 
: I didn’t. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: She cannot even remember what she said 5 minutes ago but she said it was a union bill and she said that it was good to see that the employers cooperated with the unions. Well what choice do the employers have—the wealth creators the working people in New Zealand—when these pieces of legislation come before them? They had the Health and Safety in Employment Act they had the amendment to that and then on top of that they have the Railways Bill. If that member had even bothered to read the Wilson report she would have seen that it specifically stated that rail should not be disadvantaged when it came to safety measures that any legislation that followed the report should not be anti-competitive and that rail should be on the same footing as other forms of transport. 
This is not what we have seen. This Railways Bill is demonstrably stricter and more prescriptive than analogous legislation that deals with air transport and road transport. It is significantly more prescriptive in a number of ways and one is that there is a regulator. The participants as they are defined under this bill—the licensees and the people who control access to rail—said in their submissions that they accepted that they have to be responsible for safety and for the setting standards they have to be accountable for those standards and they have to be accountable when things go wrong. There is no problem there they do not disagree with that at all. But what will happen is that having a regulator responsible for all that will take the responsibility for the safety standards and setting the compliance and vigilance for those standards away from the rail companies—the rail participants—and put them in the hands of a regulator. All the participants will be reduced to box ticking and ensuring that the companies comply. 
As I said at the beginning it is hard to argue against safety and we do not argue against safety. But one always has to remember that safety comes at a cost. Under this bill safety is coming at a significant cost. Those parties such as the Greens who say they want to save rail should look very carefully at the costs in this legislation that will be inflicted on rail operators. The licensing costs will go up for the participants and the fees have not been set yet. Plus Land Transport New Zealand has stated that its costs will go up. Its hourly rate will go up to $160 an hour. There will be no time limit on that so those costs will run into the many thousands and those costs will always be passed on to the people who use rail whether it be freight operators or whether it be passengers. 
The companies themselves will not carry those costs. When those companies find that they are in financial difficulty and that they cannot carry the costs and have to pass them on to their customers what will this Government do? I know what they will do. We will see more of this nationalisation of State assets in reverse. We will see a repeat of what happened with Air New Zealand. It will happen with the railways and we will go “back to the future” where in 1 year $90 million of taxpayers’ money was lost by New Zealand Rail and where we had shocking safety standards. 
The member Lynne Pillay has huge faith in Crown ownership ensuring that safety follows. She has an incredible faith in politicians. I do not have that faith in politicians. I would not have that faith in any politician to ensure that no accident happens on the rail and this is what this legislation will do because it puts the onus on the Minister of Transport. The perception out there will be that the Minister of Transport will keep rail safe. What will happen the first time that there is an accident? Who is going to be responsible? Will the Minister of Transport put up his hand and say “mea culpa”? I doubt it very much. This is bad legislation made worse by a Supplementary Order Paper introduced at the last minute to overturn the agreements that were reached at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and we will not be supporting this bill.