Genter Julie Anne; O'Connor GregHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This bill reflects the very short-termism" of the coalition Government and particularly the National Party Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. The whole way that they approach the problems and solutions is incredibly short term.So within the explanatory note in the general policy statement of this bill it says that the purpose for this is to address cost of living because "Fuel costs are significant for many households" and when this bill—the repeal bill—comes through there will be potentially a tiny minuscule saving in terms of what people are paying on fuel. I think we heard that the official advice from the Ministry of Transport was that it is about $1 or maybe $2 a week. But in reality the high cost of transport is affecting all New Zealanders—particularly Aucklanders—and it's not going to be solved by repealing a small regional fuel tax that was then being used to invest in infrastructure because the problem is far more complex than that and fundamentally there's a misunderstanding on the part of the Government about why we're in the world we're in. The reason why New Zealanders have such high transport costs is because subsequent Governments over many decades—even more than half a century I would say—have failed to provide for cost-effective transport solutions. They have done this for really understandable reasons. They followed the United States in this pattern from the 1950s where they prioritised urban motorways. They had planning rules that basically forced urban sprawl that did not allow residential development in city centres. They also underfunded public transport and in the very worst years—in the 1990s—they sold off a bunch of assets like the railways and public transport operators and bus depots. They ripped out the electrified light rail public transport that had existed in the beginning of the 20th century in many parts of New Zealand and that's why New Zealand now has the highest car-ownership rate in the entire world. It is because people don't have alternatives and you don't fix that by not funding the alternatives; you fix that by especially investing in the alternatives and we've seen report and report and report of this. There's heaps of evidence around this. Even the previous National Government under John Key said that people don't bike because—you know I was looking at a press release from the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he was Minister of Transport proudly announcing the urban cycleways fund and saying "The problem is that there are not connected cycleway networks in cities. People don't feel safe to cycle or to let their kids cycle and therefore they don't and so we're proudly going to invest in that." But now this National Government comes in under Simeon Brown and says "We're going to stop doing all of those things and we're literally going to ban transport agencies and councils from using certain classes within the Government policy statement from investing in these things." It's very very short term. So we're going to save a tiny amount of money for people in the short term but in the medium term and long term we're going to keep having this same problem of households having to own more cars. That is affecting the cost of living. Transport is usually the second- or third-highest category of expense for a household and for low-income households in New Zealand it is much higher. They're spending a much higher percentage of their income on transport than higher-income households. In other countries in the world this is not the case. Low-income people spend less money on transport but that's because they have alternatives. Here in New Zealand to afford a house you have to live far away from the centre of town and then on top of that to get anywhere you have to own more cars. So it's forced car-ownership. It's thousands and thousands of dollars a year for every household and for those who can't afford cars or those people who are too young to drive or too old to drive or who have physical disabilities which mean they cannot drive they cannot get anywhere. They're completely dependent on other people to be able to get around. There is an alternative to this and that was some of the projects that were being funded by the Auckland regional fuel tax—not all of them but some of them were quite good projects that had been consulted on by the community—so I'll address now that part of this bill. Why we're not supporting this bill is because it is very much central government dictating to local government and local communities about what they can do and how they can solve their local problems and it's the exact opposite of the rhetoric the exact same Minister used in all of the speeches around the repeal of the three waters. So when it comes to three waters they're all about localism; when it comes to transport they want to take away a tool that Auckland Council was using to fund projects that were prioritised locally and even I have to say though in the regional fuel tax—a regional bill—I thought it was too much central control from the then Labour Government. I do believe in the very important role of local communities to decide what transport projects are going to be needed to solve their local problems and I think much more central government funding needs to go to local government to be able to deliver that. Finally in this debate the Minister has repeatedly used misinformation to exaggerate. He made these claims around speed bumps—it's ridiculous. Yes there was a project that involved a whole lot of other civil construction works in Auckland not just the raised crossing. There was a whole lot of drainage issues there was a whole lot of civil works. I asked the Minister written questions asking "What is the average cost of a raised pedestrian crossing for Auckland Transport?" He couldn't tell me—he didn't know. The answers to his written questions were to go ask Auckland Transport. The only piece of evidence he cited was a New Zealand Herald article about this one project and in subsequent New Zealand Herald articles where they kept referring to the cost of raised pedestrian crossings as $500000 they had to retract it and print a correction because it's just not true. There was only one project that was that much and there were complicated reasons why that was the case.But even if that were the case why is it that on the one hand putting in infrastructure that enables elderly people and young children to safely cross the road in urban areas where there are schools and markets and shops and homes—like why are we focusing on these trivial tiny costs when the Government of the day is looking at building a highway in Auckland that's going to cost $500 million per kilometre? Now I know math is not everybody's thing but like that's a thousand times more per kilometre. Tim Costley: Speed bumps. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No it's not a speed bump my friend. I know that's what the Minister keeps referring to it as but that's not what it is firstly and secondly the cost isn't $500000. It's misinformation. But that's the kind of Donald Trump environment that we are now facing in New Zealand thanks to the National Party in Opposition who were totally irresponsible. We've heard over and over again that they campaigned on this and therefore it's fine—every single idiotic thing they said on the election trail apparently was agreed to by the New Zealand public and now that they've had that election they're going to push things through in urgency.Now the problem is that in Opposition they did not have access to the kinds of tools to carry out a proper democratic process to properly cost things and that's why of course there is a $24 billion hole between the money they actually have and the projects they've promised to deliver. But ultimately this isn't about money. It's like we have money we have resources and we can use them well and what the Green Party is saying is there is an opportunity to make a much bigger difference to people's quality of life to their health and wellbeing to the affordability of transport and to the livability of their communities and to do so we have to do the exact opposite of everything this current coalition Government is currently proposing because what they are proposing is so extreme and so backwards that it goes far beyond what the last National Government under John Key did. It is hard to explain just how extreme it is and it will take many years for people to see the results of these policy decisions. But to completely rule out funding things and to talk about red light cameras safe crossings and speed management as though that's somehow anathema to a flourishing and productive society is completely ridiculous. I know that some of those members opposite will have been to other countries. They will have been to successful thriving economies that have productivity that we would aspire to have and do you know what they have? They have walkable neighbourhoods and they have affordable transport. Their children are much healthier and their people are much healthier because it's normalised to be able to walk and ride bikes and take public transport. That is the tragedy of the Trumpist misinformation pathetic approach that this Government is taking to transport and I hope that all of those members opposite reflect on their part in this. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Cameron Luxon—Luxton."