Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and take a short call on the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. My own thoughts will be very much originating from local concerns of the mighty Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate in rural North and Northwest and West Auckland and I do just want to reflect on some of the comments that have been made on both sides of the House in relation to that.Some like my friend and colleague Matt Doocey have pointed out that for rural parts of New Zealand the fixation of the current Government on matters of public transport as though they were applicable all across New Zealand is unfortunate but he is right to identify that not only in relation to areas outside Auckland and Wellington but also I would add parts of Auckland in which there are large rural areas—for example the Rodney District of Auckland as it then was constitutes nearly half the landmass of what is now known as Auckland. So on behalf of the good people of my electorate I point out that even in Auckland ostensibly an urban area actually large distances between points of interest mean that the kind of public transport solutions—and I use the term loosely—that are being offered by Labour are no such thing. So it's not just geography; it's physics it's speed times distance and the reality simply for my constituents is that this kind of bill will do nothing for them to get more quickly from A to B and more safely from A to B as well.We see that the aims of the bill include more central planning and control of public transport services. Well they lost me at more central planning because I've been paying attention in the last 5½ years and I've seen what more central planning of the tertiary sector has done in the polytech space with Te Pūkenga and I've seen what's being proposed in relation to three waters—and the most vociferous opponent I think of that must not be the National Party but in fact the current Labour Cabinet or at least some members thereof. It'll be very interesting to see what eventual policy we see in that space.And other examples of central planning of course inevitably lead us down a road not in a bus but in a bus without a driver parked at the end of the road. I congratulate Labour on introducing driverless vehicles to this country. Unfortunately those are buses that actually were supposed to have been running but they can't attract the drivers; they don't want to allow them to come in from overseas and they've in fact in doing so introduced passenger-less vehicles as well. Lots of empty vehicles are trundling around North-west and North Auckland and giving a lie to the idea that public transport is the be-all and endall in terms of what should be provided to allow people to meet their transport needs.In fact we've also got this interesting situation in my particular electorate—and just indulge me for a moment please sir as I mention that we have a rail line a passenger rail line that's unused for passenger rail beyond Swanson. So perhaps if the Government had money time and energy and imagination to invest in public transport then even leaving aside the demonisation of the private motor vehicle as Messrs Doocey and Uffindell have said then it would be good actually maybe if they could utilise some of the existing infrastructure that already sits there because they talked a good game about it in Opposition and they've done nothing. In fact they've done less than nothing because by pretending to themselves and the rest of the country that there'd be light rail built in other parts of Auckland and then North-west Auckland of course they've stymied any reasonable conversations about using the infrastructure that is available in the form of that rail line already there.I do want to mention as well the fact that we often have this strange debate or at least the left wing of politics do about the importance of for example buses versus investing in roads as though the two were mutually exclusive. So we have State highways and other main arterial routes that have a single lane in each direction and the proposal that we put buses on those just so that people can sit in congestion behind private motor vehicles single-occupant or otherwise is baffling because that actually doesn't improve their situation at all particularly when you don't have very many people on the bus. So you don't even get that economy of scale and environmental benefits that you would have at least if there were a few more people on them albeit sitting in traffic like the rest of us.So for all these reasons I can't conclude that this bill will do anything whatsoever of a useful variety for the people in my area; we've heard from others on this side of the House that it won't do much for the people in their areas either. I don't think it will do anything useful for anyone in any part of New Zealand because unless the fundamental settings that need to be changed to allow people who want to drive buses who can drive buses come to this country and—guess what!—drive buses then nothing will change. We oppose this bill.