Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9695] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Part 3 introduces the radical idea that Transfund and Transit should exercise their functions with a reasonable degree of social and environmental responsibility. There is a change! 
We have already heard from Lockwood Smith tonight that he is totally opposed to social and environmental responsibility. He said that he just wants roads so therefore he does not want responsible roads; he wants irresponsible roads. It seems to be that what the National Party is mainly arguing tonight is let us have irresponsible roads. Lockwood Smith and the National Party should eat their hearts out! We are to have roads built with a reasonable degree of social and environmental responsibility. The clause that provides for that is clause 70 which sets out the objectives of Transfund. In meeting its very reasonable objective of allocating funds to contribute to an integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport system Transfund has to avoid to the extent reasonable in the circumstances adverse effects on the environment. 
Members may not know that the biggest single cause of water pollution of local streams in rural areas is rural roadworks. It is greater than agricultural run-off even. The silt running from rural roadworks through carelessness where proper silt traps and bunding around the works are not put in creates more problems for the life in those streams than any other rural activity. All this legislation is saying is that when Transit is building a road it needs to take a reasonable amount of care to protect the environment. It means that when roads are planned through fragile ecosystems like wetlands Transit must not just barge through without any thought as to how the ecosystem will be disrupted or where the water drainage will go. It means that the old cut and fill approach to putting roads through fragile landscapes sometimes needs where it is reasonable and affordable to be replaced by a certain amount of bridging and tunnelling which is what every other civilised country that has some care for its environment would do. I am proud of the fact that this legislation moves us forward to a time where we meet our economic needs with a certain amount of responsibility towards our social and environmental needs as well. 
Clause 70 also requires that Transfund takes into the account the views of people who are affected and there seems to be a lot of opposition in the Committee to that as well. There seems to be huge opposition to the idea that anyone should be consulted that people should have a chance to express a view and that options should be considered at an early stage when it is still possible to choose the best one. Surely we are past the old Industrial Revolution stage where we simply bulldoze something we call progress through anything that is in the way without taking any account of people or the environment on the way through. I cannot believe that New Zealand wants to be stuck back in the Dark Ages and I am proud that we now have legislation that provides for proper consultation of the people whose lives will be affected by the road and proper environmental responsibility. 
I want to ask those people who think that consultation will delay things whether they have ever thought how long it takes to build a road when people do not consult. How long does it take to go through appeal after appeal when everybody is up in arms at the project because they never had a say? What about all the cases we never hear about where people get it right in the first place where people are consulted and where the problems are ironed out at the beginning when there are still options and that simply go through without opposition? It is faster in the end to do it right at the start than to keep on trying to deal with public opposition once it gets up a head of steam. That is why we have consultation principles in this bill that provide for the consultation to be early rather than right at the end which is what Resource Management Act consultation does. They also provide for options to be properly considered and provide for the appropriate bodies that have advice to give for example health organisations and the people who are affected such as the communities through which roads are built to be consulted.