Key John: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Key John: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14004] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 That was a party political broadcast brought to us by the Labour Party similar to the propaganda campaign it had for the Budget. Hopefully that speech did not cost $21 million like the Budget propaganda did. 
I have no doubt that in years to come that people who follow politics and are moderately interested in Auckland transport issues will look up that speech made by the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues. They will spend a long time looking for it and I will give the House the reasons why that is the case. They will need to find it in the fiction section of the library because this Government loves the spin. It loves to tell everybody that it has Auckland under control that it is fixing the problem and that it cares. This is a Government that cares so much that it was prepared to pass the Land Transport Management Bill which was a complete sop to the Greens. 
When the Minister brought the legislation into the House privately he was going up and down the country in buses cars trains taxis planes in any form of transport he could find begging people—he was not asking them he was down on one knee begging them—to put in strong submissions and oppose his own legislation. That is how much the Labour Party cares about fixing transport. That is how much it cares about finding a solution. It had the audacity to bring into this House legislation that it knew was doomed to fail knew would never work and knew would never find the solutions. The reason the Government did that—and did it for one reason alone—was to keep the Greens happy. Heather Simpson had an agreement with the Greens and the Labour Government needed them or thought that one day it might need them. That is why it happened. It was not because the Government cared about the people of Auckland or cared about getting a solution. 
I look across at the other parties in the House that are supporting this legislation. I say to them to go back and look at the Land Transport Management Bill. It was such a disgrace that afterwards the Government had to set up the joint official group. This bill is the result of the joint official group. Even that move completely failed to find a solution. Even that was a complete cop-out. It will not work. 
National will get some billboards and during the election campaign it will put them up on the side of motorways all around Auckland. I make this promise: my constituents will be able to get out of the north-western motorway. These are the same constituents that Chris Carter has in his neighbouring electorate of Te Atatu. They will be able to get out and look at the billboards. They will be able to read the fine print. They will be able to see any kind of message that might be there. They will be able to get back in their cars because their cars will not be moving on the north-western motorway—just like the cars do not move on any night. They will not be moving because this bill is all about a cop-out. It is all about failing to find solutions. It is all about party-political politics. 
No one in Auckland is rejoicing. The reason why Newstalk ZB is so popular in Auckland is that people get to listen to the entire Larry Williams show. Even if they leave work to go home at 4 o’clock they get to listen to it all way through to 7 p.m. I am regularly on Newstalk ZB with Larry Williams. What a wonderful talkshow host he is. Whenever I am on that show I get thousands of emails because everybody in Auckland hears it. Nobody is at home playing with the kids or getting to do other things because the Government cannot fix the problem. 
No one said that the problem in Auckland was easy to fix. It is a difficult issue. Auckland has a difficult topography. It is a very widely spread out city. It has low density rates. It has an incredible number of issues to cope with. It has seven territorial local authorities and the Auckland Regional Council. This bill is not the solution. It does not go even halfway near the solution. This bill goes nowhere towards finding a solution to Auckland’s problems. 
I challenge those parties in the House who have come to the Chamber like lapdogs for the Labour Government to try to say they support this bill. They are terrified to read the legislation and work out that it will not work. They do not have the guts and the temerity in their own Parliament— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will be seated please. To imply that a member lacks courage is a personal reflection and it is out of order. 
JOHN KEY 
: I did not refer to a member; I referred to a political party. Those political parties lack the temerity to come to the House and argue why this legislation is wrong. They have not even read it to work out that it will not work. This bill is a complete failure. 
Let us look at the things that are not in the legislation that might go some way towards solving the problem. Is the Resource Management Act tackled in this legislation? It must be because that would be the reason that Transfund last year could not spend $250 million despite the fact that fixing Auckland’s motorway network will cost $10 billion. Transfund could not even spend the money it had last year because the Resource Management Act prevented it from doing so. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You’re kidding. 
JOHN KEY 
: I am not kidding. There is no Resource Management Act amendment clause in this Auckland bill. There is nothing in there because it is not going to happen. There is a $5 billion shortfall in funding for Auckland’s projects and that excludes the Auckland motorway network. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Ha ha! 
JOHN KEY 
: The Minister laughs. I thought the Minister had a calculator in his office. He could add it up or do elementary arithmetic. But if he wants me to come around to his office any day he likes I will add up in front of him the amounts that will add up to the $10 billion to fix Auckland’s motorway network. That excludes the eastern corridor and the alternative harbour crossing. It is $10 billion. 
There is no solution to the problem in this legislation. What we have done is rewarded failure. We have gone to the Auckland Regional Council and said: “You haven’t done a tremendously good job in your planning. You haven’t done a tremendously good job of finding a solution to Auckland’s problems. We do not want a commercial entity that could have independent directors;that could find the problem put all the people inside the tent and actually get a solution that Aucklanders can be proud of. No we want to play party politics. We want the Auckland Regional Council with all the members on its regional committee. We do not want the real people in the tent.” 
This is no different from the Land Transport Management Bill. This is all about propaganda and spin. We are back to the same old problem we had with the Land Transport Management Bill when the Minister was here. It is all about trying to tell people we are fixing the problems but the real solutions are not coming today. They are not coming tomorrow. They are not coming in 6 months or in 2 years. They are not ever coming as a result of this bill because this bill fails to address the real issues in Auckland which relate to whether we can get in more private sector capital by having public-private partnerships. Can we do that? There is no response to that question. 
These are not radical right-wing ideas. These are things introduced in the United Kingdom by a left-wing Government. These are things introduced in every state of Australia by Labour Governments. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Every one of them is Labour. 
JOHN KEY 
: Every one of them is Labour. Public-private partnerships have been introduced all around the world. We cannot do that. There is no provision for that in this legislation. We do not see independence in this bill and a real framework and a real willingness to make the problem go forward. We see party-political politics in here. This bill is a tremendous failure. 
I want to finish on one other point. I ask anyone who might even question my last statement—and I strongly urge the United Future party and New Zealand First that it is never too late to change their view—to read the bill have a look at Auckland Regional Holdings and ask themselves one question: “If this is not about a slush fund and not about politics why do 85 percent of the funds of Infrastructure Auckland have a definite direction—a definite earmarking to them—that they will go to either transport or stormwater? What happened to that other 15 percent? 
The answer is that even Auckland Regional Holdings and the Auckland Regional Council will not tell us. No one will tell us because it is the political slush fund. [ 
Interruption 
] It is 15 percent of billions of dollars and that is the very reason why Infrastructure Auckland did a good job when it was previously set up. It was prepared to stand up to the likes of Judith Tizard who wanted to go there and use political influence. That is why it is doomed to failure. Auckland has been badly served indeed by this propaganda. Every party in this Parliament should be campaigning strongly against the bill. National will not support it.