Sowry Roger: Land Transport Management Bill — Third Reading 
Sowry Roger: Land Transport Management Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:9803] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 This legislation is a shambles. It is all about lost opportunities. I want to start with the Minister’s long exhaustive list of thankyous. It was noticeable to me that the Minister started off by thanking the leader of the Green Party who had no role in the select committee process at all but was only involved in the “round the back of the bike shed” negotiations that the Minister had to go through with both the Green Party and the United Future party in order to try to cobble together what is a dog’s breakfast of a bill. It will not deliver private funding into roading in this country and it does nothing to solve Auckland’s problems. The Minster has had to go around the Auckland mayors and say this is not really the bill for them but they should not worry about that because the Government has some more legislation coming in February or March 2004 that will solve the problem for Auckland. 
This bill started out as being the panacea for Auckland’s roading problems and the great restructuring of New Zealand’s roading system to allow public-private partnerships to develop. It has finished its course of action with the New Zealand Automobile Association producing a special report that ranks this bill on a 10-point scale and scores it at two out of 10. When the Automobile Association goes through the bill step by step and points out that it scores only two out of 10 then the Minister has nothing to be proud of at all—nothing at all. I do not think I have ever seen legislation be so damningly criticised by everyone who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—by local government business organisations the Road Transport Forum and the Automobile Association. Every one of them said that this legislation would not work. 
In fact many of those interest groups said privately to us that they had gone to the Minister and explained to him that the bill would not work and that the Minister had said to them privately that he knew that but the Government has some more legislation coming and is beholden to the Greens so it can only do what the Greens let it do. A number of the lobby groups came to see me and asked National to please help Labour out here because Labour was beholden to the Greens and the Minister did not want the bill to go through like this. The Minister told the mayors to make strong submissions on the bill. He said to the Mayor of Auckland that the bill would not work but that he should make a really strong submission on it and the Government would change it. That is what he said to the Mayor of Auckland. He said the same thing to the Mayor of Wellington and to the Mayor of Hutt City—that they should make strong submissions on the bill and the Government would change it. So they made strong submissions and the Minister did change the bill but he changed it in the way that the Greens wanted it to be changed not in the way that the mayors and everybody else thought they would get the bill changed. 
Finally when the Minister was flushed out and said that he was sorry but he could not get this bill through without the support of the Greens—that he was beholden to them—I wrote to the Minister. I said to him that we would work with him to get sensible transport legislation that would work for New Zealand—legislation that would allow the private sector to invest in our roading networks. The Minister did not even bother to reply to me because by then the deals were already stitched. The deals were done and we are left with legislation that basically does two or three things. 
This legislation will allow Tauranga to get its second harbour bridge as a toll bridge. That will be the only public-private partnership in New Zealand to come out of this legislation. It puts in more consultation for roading development by regional councils and regional land transport committees. It puts in extra layers of consultation for groups to work through. It requires Transfund to give money to Maori groups to upskill themselves in the objection process so that they can object to roads that are being built or being proposed around the country. It removes from the regional land transport committees some of the road-user representatives and replaces them with iwi representatives. It allows foreign ships to be subsidised out of the Transfund account. 
The Labour Party fought night after night on the whole issue of having foreign vessels travel around this country picking up empty containers in Auckland and dropping them off in Wellington and Timaru. Labour said that was outrageous and the first thing it would do when it became the Government would be to stop that. Four years on this Minister of Transport has done nothing to stop that. In fact he has now come into the House with legislation that takes Transfund money and uses it to subsidise foreign shipping vessels. That is what this bill does and that is outrageous—absolutely outrageous. 
This bill according to Local Government New Zealand is not properly integrated with either the local government legislation or the Resource Management Act. Why is the Minister proud of that when he is so proud of this bill? If this bill is so fantastic I ask the Minister why he is scurrying around Auckland and telling people not to worry because a real solution is coming next year. I ask the Green members what the Labour Government has said to them today to warrant their support for this bill when they know that Labour is going around the Auckland mayors and undermining this bill by saying they should not worry because Labour will get support from someone else to undo some of this legislation and solve Auckland’s problems in a few months’ time. How much double-dealing can this Minister do? On this legislation he is doing more than the United Future party does in a normal week. 
I finish by coming to United Future’s position on this legislation. It has taken every position possible. The United Future members welcomed this bill when it came into the House. They said that the bill was fantastic and they would support it. But then when the pressure came on them they said they were working with Heather Simpson. That is what the United Future members told business groups and local government groups. They said that they were working with Heather Simpson—that they were writing things and dealing with her—and that they would get the bill changed. That is what the United Future members said. Then they got on to the select committee but virtually never came to meetings. Then they were sold out by the Government when the Government did a deal with the Greens. What will United Future do? Those members will vote for the bill. Where is the common-sense approach in that? They started off by supporting the bill then told everybody they would change it worked with Heather Simpson and won no battles yet they will vote for the bill. That is as consistent as it gets with United Future—and that party wonders why it has problems. 
This bill is a shambles. It will do nothing except for one thing: it does allow by the removal of the benefit-cost ratio Labour’s grubby political hands to be put all over the allocation of funds from Transfund. That is what this legislation allows. It allows David Benson-Pope’s grubby little Labour Party mates to be appointed to Transfund and to allocate the funds on the basis of political purpose—a sort of marginal seats fund to try to hold seats like Otago. I say to the Minister that that will be seen through by local government and by New Zealanders. National totally opposes this bill.