Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I didn't have the privilege of sitting on the Petitions Committee that heard this last term but as some people might know I was a public transport and urban planner before entering politics and one of my specialties was in parking management. It turns out that better parking management is one of the key ways that we can get better outcomes in our towns and cities. Of course ensuring that there is sufficient provision of mobility parking and that there is sufficient enforcement of mobility parking is essential to ensure that everybody has access and is able to move around our towns and cities.I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations of the Petitions Committee that considered the petition of Claire Dale. The main point is of course to make mobility parking enforceable on all public-use property and increase fines and recommends that we do more to ensure that we're policing the use of mobility parking and that mobility parking is provided.I think it's really important because previously like many other English-speaking countries we've had planning rules that required developers to over-provide large off-street car parks which had a huge cost and reduced the amount of land in our towns and cities that was available for the things that people want to be there like homes and businesses and green spaces and schools and all of the other reasons that people come together and live in towns and cities. Getting rid of those harmful regulations—which was supported by National of course; the National Policy Statement on Urban Development got rid of minimum parking requirements—was a key opportunity to ensure that we were providing the right amount of parking and not tying up you know huge amounts of our urban land in car parks that were underutilised.However in getting rid of those minimum parking requirements it is essential that we have provisions in place to ensure that we are providing for mobility parking in a different way. So providing mobility parks simply as a percentage of the car parks that are provided doesn't work if we're not providing car parks for anyone but mobility car parks. So it is important to have a minimum amount of mobility car-parking but that doesn't necessarily have to be site by site. What's important is that the mobility parking is provided around a given area and that it's accessible that it's available and that we have good design between the mobility parks the footpaths and the crossings that make it easier for those who are have mobility impairments to cross the road to get from the car park to wherever they might be going in the nearby vicinity because there's not always going to be a car park directly in front of the building that you want to access or the open public space or whatever it is that you're trying to access.So while I completely agree and support the recommendations of the Petitions Committee and I hope that the Government will take it seriously and will support looking into that I do think that we need to go a bit beyond that to ensure that there's proper access. Sometimes it's said Well we don't want to get rid of car-parking in our urban areas because there might be people who need mobility parking." but oftentimes the way the car-parking is provided is fragmented it can be very far away from a destination. That is also of interest and note because it doesn't provide good access—some people with mobility issues can't actually drive. So making wider more accessible footpaths raised pedestrian crossings—all of those things actually make it much easier for those with mobility issues who may be in wheelchairs or who may have other mobility issues to get around our towns and cities.The enforcement of parking—I particularly like the recommendations in here because the enforcement of parking rules is really important. Of course nobody likes getting a parking infringement—it doesn't feel good. But then the whole point of the infringement is to incentivise people to follow the rules. So it is really important that we have good well-signposted rules and that we have fair and equitable enforcement of those rules.While I can understand wanting to increase the fine—and in some cases that is important to make sure it's a sufficient deterrent—it is important that we look at the way that we apply fines for traffic infringements and for parking infringements so that it's not penalising those who have less money and who are on lower incomes. There are other countries in the world that have infringements as a percentage of someone's income and I think that's something New Zealand should be looking to to ensure that those who are very wealthy don't just choose to pay the infringement and those who are poor are really crippled by making a mistake. We need to ensure there's support for people with the disparity in incomes that we have. With that I'm very happy to finish my contribution to this debate."