Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I know our towns and cities can be places where our kids are safe and free to walk and cycle to school again. This is something that all of us in every party could get behind. It's good for our kids to have the ability to be independent and to make their own way and as a double benefit it also protects our climate. It means the air is cleaner. Today is World Oceans Day. I wanted to go jump in the harbour but because of the run-off of insufficient infrastructure—horrible pollution going into the water—it was actually unsafe for swimming everywhere around here and part of that is because of our transport system and the wide expanse of tarmac everywhere. Our urban areas are totally entirely designed around cars and trucks and that is completely understandable. But unfortunately while cars can be very practical for some trips they are not practical for every person trying to get around a crowded urban area at the same time and that's why we have congestion. No matter where we live in a city no matter what our circumstances are all people should be able to move easily around and to get where they need to go in ways that are good for their health and protect our planet. That is what the Green Party is working for. As a transport planner I saw that there was heaps and heaps of evidence around delivering a balanced transport system and how that could benefit everyone including those who are using motor vehicles. By simply making it safe and easy and convenient to take public transport or to use a bike or a scooter or a mobility scooter instead of a car we actually help those people who are using motor vehicles and yet as a transport planner having all the evidence was not sufficient to get this to happen. So I joined the Green Party because we needed political leadership on the big issues of our time: climate change and creating climate-friendly towns and cities and communities. But this morning I put my six-month-old baby in the baby capsule on the front of my cargo bike and my three-year-old son climbed in and sat there with her and they were absolutely happy on my commute through the city to get to the day care here yet we were totally unsafe for half of that commute because there's no safe separated infrastructure for people to use bikes. Why not? Why is it so hard to deliver this infrastructure? In fact the city council first started consulting on the Newtown Connections project in June 2018. That was before my nearly four-year-old son was born and almost no progress has been made. Thousands of people have been involved. They consulted the businesses over the last 3½ years and they were about to roll out a temporary trial for a separated cycleway that would have meant that my baby would be completely safe and I wouldn't have to fear for her life every day when I got on my bike to take her to day care—and my toddler—and yet the work on this project has been stopped. It's been delayed by a judicial review of the process by six businesses four of whom are directly related to the car industry. Ironically Gazley Motors the BMW—I'm sure I want to say no ill of Gazley Motors. Next time I want to buy an expensive BMW I'll go to him. But they have used the court process to delay and slow down safe life-changing infrastructure that would mean that those who want to use a bike can do so without being threatened by cars and trucks. Ironically Gazley Motors regularly has a big car-transporter truck parked in the traffic lane on Cambridge Terrace northbound so that they can unload vehicles and move them across the roadway into where the cars are being sold.This is madness. People should be able to use a bike to get around. I have to ask those who use cars: do you really want me to get on a bike and create more congestion in the centre of Wellington? No you don't. Those using bikes are helping everyone in the community and have a right to safe separated infrastructure. The Green Party will keep fighting for a sensible transport policy that shares our public space fairly that looks after our children and means that they can have clean air that they can have clean water that they can have independence and that they can have a safe climate for their future and the best thing about it all is it actually helps those who need to use cars.