Mapp Wayne: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16899] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to spend my debating time on two issues the first being safety at reasonable cost. It is quite clear that the Minister has not read or been made aware of the principal industry submissions. If he were aware of those he would know that road transport operators and the aviation industry in particular are very concerned indeed about the removal of the test: safety at reasonable cost. He said there were submitters in support of that. Actually there were. Some cyclists I think came along and said: “Yes yes. We want environmental sustainability.” That is where the Minister draws that “balanced” range of submissions from. Industries that are worth billions of dollars that have billions of dollars of assets thousands of employees and huge research departments understand the difficult financial issues they have to deal with. They know they will get customers only if they are safe. But the Minister weighs all that against a few cyclists. That is essentially the balance the Minister has put on the Table here. I read today that this Labour Party boasts of balance. Well if that is the sort of balance it is going to give New Zealanders then frankly it will fail in due course and we will see that.  
So what Labour substitutes is a clear test: safety at reasonable cost which is well understood and supported by the industry. The Minister and other Government members will know the truth of that but they are substituting un-testable ill-defined propositions that will not guide this Minister or indeed future Ministers. So the proposed rules will have to look at things like: will it assist economic development? I ask how that will be measured—by gross domestic product ratios by interest-rate costs? Will John Key who knows all about economic development in relation to money markets be consulted on the money markets regarding transport roles? Will “improving access and mobility” mean checking airway bridge gates at airports? That is access. Maybe “protecting and promoting public health” means that the ozone layer generated by aircraft will be assessed. Finally the term “ensuring environmental sustainability” has no definition provided for it in the legislation and that has been noted by National New Zealand First and ACT. All three parties were consistent on that matter.  
The failure to define these very open terms these very open concepts that Ministers will now have to look at will lead to uncertain rule making. Surely the powers delegated to Ministers should be clear. There should be a level of predictability so that in future the industry can forecast the kinds of rules it will be subjected to. It will not be able to do that. The Minister and the balance of the Government make great play of the notion that after all this is tested on a balance of the costs of implementing measures for which the rule is being proposed. That is supposed to be the substitute for “safety at reasonable cost” which is an open concept compared with a specific definable concept that has worked well and that the industry wants. That is why the industry made those submissions.  
So National is fundamentally opposed to this particular change in the legislation. Frankly it will lead to uncertainty and that uncertainty will lead to increased costs. The talk of $1 air fares from New Zealand to Australia—if anyone would actually believe that—clearly will now disappear because the costs of rule making will become onerous and unpredictable and New Zealand will be a less attractive place economically for our transport industries to be effective and profitable. I will be referring to one other matter in my second call which maybe can be extended through this one concerning clause 30.