Hughes Gareth: Infrastructure Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Infrastructure Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:9805. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I am happy to take a call on this important issue and mostly common-sense bill. This is the first piece of legislation that I have seen through the House and although my colleagues would agree that it is probably not the most glamorous bill it is an important one. 
Before I touch on the specific parts of the Infrastructure Bill I would like to discuss the role of infrastructure in general. Infrastructure is an important part of economic social and environmental development. Good planning can see positive outcomes whereas bad planning in infrastructure can see us slip down a path of diminishing prosperity negative social outcomes and declining environmental health. Earlier this month the Government launched its plan to invest $18 billion into infrastructure over 10 years. It announced five priorities: broadband electricity regulatory reform roads of national significance and the Rugby World Cup 2011. 
The Greens believe that those are important areas to focus on. However on each point we strongly differ on the path the Government has gone down. Just looking at the roads of national significance in particular—or as I call it the roads to no sustainability—the plan includes a future spend of $9.6 billion on only seven roads and a further $13.5 billion of spending on other roading projects. That is a huge part of our national wealth. For rail however there is no new spending. This Government is putting all of our bets on roads. Many of the seven roads of national significance represent very poor economic decisions. For example the $2 billion Puhoi to Wellsford holiday highway has a benefit-cost ratio of only 0.8 and the Transmission Gully “white elephant” motorway has a benefit-cost ratio of only 0.6. Those roads of national significance are gambles and are politically driven rather than being based on sound economic analysis. They will lock us into a high carbon future do nothing to help our climate change effort and nothing to assist with our valuable “clean green” brand and act as expensive millstones around our necks as the price of oil inexorably rises. 
Why would the Government place all our bets on roads as a measure to reduce congestion when all the local and international experience shows that it just does not work? Under the previous Budget for every dollar spent on sustainable modes of transport like buses trains walking and cycling National will spend $7 on roads. It is simple economic mismanagement. The Greens would spend money on roads for sure but roads are actually not the priority in the short to medium term. We would favour a more balanced investment approach especially in places like Auckland where the economic costs of congestion are stifling. Sixteen percent of Auckland’s wealth is spent on transport compared to 6 percent in Europe and other Asian cities that have a more balanced investment approach to mobility. If members look at the actual investment this Government is planning for transport infrastructure they will find that it is not an exaggeration to say that this Government is hysterically pro-roads. 
The Greens plan to give Kiwis a choice about how they will get to work not sentence them to greater levels of automotive dependence. Our recommendation for transport in our Green New Deal package is fiscally neutral. In the short term we would shift $1 billion of State highway funding into more sustainable more productive and higher quality alternatives thereby taking the pressure off our alternative roads. Our measures would create 40 percent more jobs while at the same time making our transportation network more resilient to the inevitable oil price shocks. This is a real jobs package. That is what a Green New Deal looks like—delivering a smart road to prosperity. Even though the Government is doing very little to tackle climate change at least in the infrastructure plan it touches on it to a small degree. 
I will now turn to the bill before us. The Greens voted for this bill at its first reading on the whole because it is simple common sense. As Jeanette Fitzsimons said in the first reading there is a huge amount of waste when there is no coordination no planning in terms of combining the wires pipes and fibre in the same corridor. It is high time we attempted to bring about that kind of rationalisation. Like the TV show game that my son loves in this bill however one of these parts is not like the other. Parts 1 to 3 naturally go together. Part 1 creates the framework for a consistent national code for access by utility operators to transport corridors. Part 2 harmonises the notice provisions across all the Acts and requires territorial local authorities to pay for any amenity improvements when utilities are moved or upgraded. Part 3 cleans up the New Zealand Railways Corporation Act and harmonises it to management provisions with other State-owned enterprises legislation. 
Part 4 is the odd one out; it is not like the others. It is like the proverbial square peg in a round hole. We can support the first three parts without too much reserve; they are sensible moves. I would place a wager however that if I have the privilege of being re-elected another couple of times I may see Part 2 back before this House before I retire. I strongly suspect that the balance of costs is wrong. Part 2 disallows any amenity improvement requirements when work is undertaken unless they are already outlined in the territorial local authority’s long-term community council plan. All costs must be borne by the local authority. This is in contrast to the current law that splits the amenity improvement costs evenly unless otherwise agreed. 
I turn to the odd one out Part 4 which repeals the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act 2008. The Green Party thinks it is a good move to separate this out into its own bill thereby avoiding the accusation which this Government could have previously been labelled with that this is a cowardly move to hide the sneakily significant repeal of affordable housing provisions. This part should stand alone as its own bill. As referred to in the Labour Party and Green Party minority report we believe that this part should have been referred to either the Social Services Committee or the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
Housing affordability is a major issue in New Zealand. Close to one in three New Zealanders now spend 30 percent of their disposable income on housing; 30 percent is the internationally agreed benchmark for housing affordability. The Demographia 2009 International Housing Affordability Survey found that the median house price in New Zealand is 5.7 times the median household income ranking New Zealand in the category of “severely unaffordable” and with only Australia worse at 6.0. But on the bright side I guess we are catching up with Australia in one respect. It is especially pertinent for people of my generation people like me who come out of university encumbered by debt and enter a housing market that has grown rapidly over the last decade mostly to the benefit of baby boomers and those people already on the property ladder. The market has not been slowed by sensible moves such as a capital gains tax or revisiting the tax rules on loss attributing qualifying companies. Loss attributing qualifying companies allow people to offset their losses in investment properties against personal tax income. It means that young people trying to get into the housing market are effectively subsidising the tax offsets of people who are buying investment properties using loss attributing qualifying companies. This is wrong and pernicious. 
When looking at housing affordability in the context of infrastructure we need to be doing more around transport corridors to encourage increasing densities in urban centres rather than adding more urban sprawl. Although the Greens supported the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act in the previous Parliament our support for it was lukewarm. We did not think it would be particularly effective in achieving its stated objective of making housing more affordable. As it turned out no territorial local authority made use of the enabling provisions in the Act so it is not terribly disappointing to see the bulk of the legislation repealed. However the Greens strongly supported the part of the Act that prohibited restrictive covenants that aimed to exclude social and affordable housing. We are disappointed that the Government has decided to water down those provisions and to remove the prohibition of restrictive covenants that aimed to exclude affordable housing. As Moana Mackey pointed out I think the Government was relying more on the recession to see house prices drop so significantly that the issue of affordable housing would go off the boil. The fact is that housing prices have not dropped and working families are still locked out of the housing market. 
We are facing a housing crisis. There are 10000 people on the waiting list for State home rentals. In order to afford a home people are being forced further and further out of the city and town centres but meanwhile they are spending considerably more of their pay packet on transport. I predict that the homelessness survey which is expected to come out in June based on Australian estimates and similarities will see tens of thousands of Kiwis classed as homeless. We support Parts 1 to 3 because we believe they are common sense but we have grave concerns about Part 4. Kia ora.