Carter John: Local Government Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
Carter John: Local Government Law Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:3829] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 For the sake of the  
Hansard 
 and so that we have the record very clear when someone wants to go back and have a look at what was said I tell the Committee that National opposes Part 8 of this Local Government Law Reform Bill. I want to make that very clear because there is a real possibility that because of the changes that have been made to the microchipping provisions National might support the third reading. That does not mean to say that we support all of the bill. Certainly we do not support a good number of parts. I want to make that very clear. For anyone looking in the  
Hansard  
record I say that National does not support this bill. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I’m not going to support this part. 
JOHN CARTER 
: I am sorry—National does not support this part. I will correct it in the  
Hansard 
. It will be OK. It will read all right when I get the  
Hansard 
. 
I want to take us back to 1998 when the previous member who spoke my good friend and colleague Maurice Williamson was the Minister of Transport. He actually brought this amendment through. It was never intended to give authorities other than the New Zealand Police the right to issue infringement notices. That was never the intention of the bill. If anybody in this House—or indeed in the general public—is interested they can go and look at the  
Hansard 
. The whole purpose was to allow Transit New Zealand to set up some bus lanes and some freeways for buses and passenger transport etc. But infringements by people were the responsibility of the police. Members can go back and have a look at that provision. What happened of course was that some local authorities thought that because they had been given that responsibility it had to mean they were in charge. So away they went. They started thinking that they were enforcement agencies and that they would issue a ticket or two—they would start to do this and that. But Transit came along and said— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Show them you’re like Rick Barker. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Well—it must be the snow! Transit came along and said that if local authorities could do that so could they. So away went Transit and had a jolly old time until somebody said: “Hang on a minute; where’s your authority?” Transit said it did not have any and so it stopped doing it. But then Transit came to the Minister of Local Government and said that it had been in the habit of doing it and that it actually needed to do it. So the Minister instead of going back to the history and seeing what was intended and more important what was needed— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: He was disgruntled—under pressure. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Well no. He just followed his old rule of giving more to local government at more cost to ratepayers. You know it was the silly attitude of just transferring responsibilities from central to local government. It was a small chink a small step but it was the thin end of the wedge. 
The people of New Zealand need to know that what is happening now is that the Labour Government is putting in place something that was never intended in the original legislation. I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Mark Burton that if he is uncertain about that he should go back and have a look at the history of the legislation. I have read it. I actually remember putting the bill through. In fact I remember putting a number of bills through. There was something to do with water at some stage a bit earlier on when the Minister— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Maritime transport I think. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Is that what it was called? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I’m still getting counselling. 
JOHN CARTER 
: The member thinks he is! The point is that in the history of this bill it was never intended that anyone other than the New Zealand Police should have the authority to issue infringement notices. But this Government is now putting that responsibility on to somebody else and that is nuts. [ 
Interruption 
] Well it is not even an issue that would worry my mother. 
What would worry my mother is the fact that giving Transit New Zealand anything to do at all would be the problem—because it sure as hell cannot build roads. It sure as hell cannot do anything at all. So why should we expect it to be able to issue tickets properly? It cannot it should not—but it has been doing it illegally. Now the Government wants to tidy up the situation but the Government should stop. The best thing it could do is go back to Transit New Zealand and start getting it working and carrying out its core responsibility—tidying up the congestion in Auckland would be a good start. So would tidying up the congestion in Wellington in Christchurch and in other places—[ 
Interruption 
] Whangarei—can members believe that in Whangarei there are traffic jams now? We have cars and people have started to drive them—and it is nuts.