Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9660] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Madam Chair in terms of your ruling we are allowed to respond to the previous speaker so I make the comment that the whole point of Dr Brash’s initial speech was that this bill is called the “Land Transport Management Bill” but does not deal just with land transport. I ask the Minister of Transport to take a call and defend his title of the bill because how can we have a Land Transport Management Bill that deals with water transport? It would be more appropriate to call this bill the “Land and Water Transport Bill” because it includes barges ferries lake ferries and the like. This Government might think it can walk on water but I have news for it: it cannot drive on water. A more appropriate title might be the “Anti-Motorists Bill” because this legislation will suck even more money out of motorists in terms of road-user charges and spend it on water transport on propping up wharfies and on satisfying the trade union pressure. “Stifle Economic Growth Bill” would be a better title than “Land Transport Management Bill’. There is nothing purely “Land” about this bill in terms of what the title says. 
There is nothing “Management’ about this bill either. There is no management in this bill. This bill will not give New Zealand one more kilometre of motorway or roads. This bill is not about management. It is as Dr Brash said about mismanagement. When Dr Brash is the Prime Minister of New Zealand in 2005 we will see some legislation that deals with progressing the management of roads and road transport and getting this country up into the top half of the OECD. That is what this so-called Land Transport Management Bill is meant to be all about. 
Why do we not just call it the “Wasting Your Life in Traffic Bill” or the “On Yer Bike Bill”? It was drafted by the Greens. It was written by a researcher in the Greens’ office and it panders to the Greens. A better title as Dr Brash said would be the “Greens Before Growth Bill” or as I said the “On Yer Bike Bill” or the “Social Engineering Bill”. It is social engineering because money taken from motorists in road-user charges is to be spent on environmental issues—on cycleways. How about the “Road Cycleways and Walkways Sustainable Development”—whatever that means—“Bill”? But as I said the title “Land Transport Management Bill” is a total misnomer. 
Also just while I am on the point of the title what about calling it the “Land Transport (Mismanagement of How to Draw Up Legislation) Bill”? We have seen today the Minister dump a whole raft of changes in a Supplementary Order Paper on to the Table. If he is so proud of this legislation I ask him to take a call and tell us exactly why he thinks it should be called the “Land Transport Management Bill”. There is nothing in this bill but mismanagement by socking cars and by socking motorists and it will do nothing at all to increase the building of roads the efficiency of road-user charges and the efficiency of spending money on roads in New Zealand and getting New Zealand up into the top half of the OECD. 
It is a totally wasted piece of legislation. It is a waste of submitters’ time. We have been through the whole process. We have taken the legislation right through the select committee and we have brought it back to the House. We have taken out things like coastal barging and lake ferries and we have reduced the water transport aspect down to coastal shipping but what happens when we come back today? The Minister has put all of that back in again. Talk about ministerial directive! We took that out of the bill too. I see that it is creeping back in as well under the Supplementary Order Paper. 
I say to the Minister that if he is so proud of this bill being termed the “Land Transport Management Bill” why does he not take a call and explain exactly to us what there is about it that is management and not mismanagement? What is there about it that makes it just a land transport bill? Or is he just trying to sneak through the fact that road-user charges will be spent on water transport on cycleways on walkways? If he were honest about it he would put that in the title.