Locke Keith: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Locke Keith: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14035] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I am a bit unsure whose assessment to take in terms of the last speaker or two. First we had Maurice Williamson who gave quite a tribute to the Greens. He said that Helen Clark was upset that this bill would be passed and I thought that gee I did not know we were quite as powerful as that. Then I listened to Peter Brown and he said that we have been hoodwinked. So I am not quite sure what the case is. Certainly the Greens fully support this bill. 
Part 3 as has been pointed out refers to schedule 5 in terms of the way legislation is to be amended and schedule 5 refers particularly to the criteria in the land transport strategy. I will just go through those criteria with members to show how they may operate in the concrete instance of what should be done with the eastern corridor in Auckland. Under this legislation the first of the five objectives in the land transport strategy for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to consider is whether a project will assist economic development. The eastern highway project has many economic downsides. It will induce more car travel putting additional strain on the economy—particularly when oil prices are moving to a higher level—and there are significant congestion-related costs associated with more cars entering the Auckland central business district. A recently publicised study by Astrid Jacobs of Auckland University estimated that there are external costs of $736 million per year as a result of car use including significant health costs. A highway would significantly add to such costs. To build it would of course cost $3 billion or $4 billion which would be enough to revamp the whole rail system in Auckland—the stations the rolling stock the tracks and the whole works. 
Secondly projects that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority is supposed to support have to add to safety and personal security. Clearly simply upgrading rail transport would be a much better way to go there. As long as we avoid rail-crossing accidents rail transport is much safer than road transport. 
Thirdly the Auckland Regional Transport Authority is supposed to contribute to improving access and mobility. At present that is sorely lacking for the young the old and the sick and for people who are too poor to afford to make very many long car journeys. Those people need public transport. They need to have rail along the eastern corridor not a big highway. If we can get train services down that corridor and improve the whole system to a frequency of 10 minutes or less then we can have all the bus and rail connections and public transport use will skyrocket. Already it is going up very rapidly in Auckland as I mentioned before. 
Fourthly schedule 5 states that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority is supposed to contribute to protecting and promoting public health. Clearly a new eastern highway would produce extra pollution and noise and there would be more stress on drivers as cars become backed up on reaching the central business district. That highway would only pour more cars into the centre of Auckland. 
The fifth thing that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority has to contribute to under this legislation is ensuring environmental sustainability. Quite clearly one has just to read the official project director’s report on the eastern highway project in which he admits that just the crossing of Hobson Bay—the bay that the highway comes out on before it goes into Auckland City—will cause: “Significant environmental visual (including light spill at night) noise and community acceptance issues.” As someone who recreationally uses the waterfront I totally agree with that—and there will be further devastating environmental effects up the Purewa stream and further up that highway. 
On all those counts what we need down the eastern corridor is rail rather than a new highway.