Williamson Maurice: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16922] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 Tonight I want to re-emphasise to the Committee that the National Party has been very very clear on this bill. A lot of it is something we support and we would have been very happy to give our vote to the legislation if not for a few little things—which we probably would have lived with as one always does when another party is putting legislation through—but also for one big thing. That one big thing which is central to this whole legislation is the removal of the proviso that the provision of safety be at a reasonable cost. 
I simply do not understand it. I see Michael Cullen sitting in the House. He is always guarding the purse strings and is careful to make sure that money is not spent in a foolish way. I ask him why he would not want to have a transport regime that stated that the provision of safety be at a reasonable cost. I bet his officials said—I had better put in an Official Information Act request for his Treasury advisory papers—“Minister you need to go to Cabinet and fight to keep in legislation that the provision of safety be at a reasonable cost.” I know how it works and I bet that was what he was in there fighting for on behalf of Treasury. 
But the most important thing I think that this Committee and the people listening need to know is that after I had run this matter in the first speech on Part 1 the Minister of Transport got up belittled me and said: “Oh well that’s just National; its members are all over the place—just like the submissions. Some thought that was an issue and others didn’t.” And he is right. Let us go through the list. Who thought it was a serious omission and needed to be fixed?  
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Everyone. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well Mr Mapp is not quite right. He said “everyone”; I think that one could say “near as damn everyone” because someone who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee said the opposite. [ 
Interruption 
] Sorry there were two—two cyclists. That is whom the Minister is using as his weight of evidence. I have been able to show the Committee today that the Automobile Association Business New Zealand the Road Transport Forum the Bus and Coach Association the ports companies through a joint submission the Aviation Industry Association and Federated Farmers opposed it. In fact it is very hard if one goes through my list of submissions to the committee to find anybody in New Zealand other than those two cyclists who is for it—and I need to make sure they are kept in this debate because they are what the Minister is hanging his entire issue on. Every other organisation involved in transport—with some of them like the Automobile Association representing a million or more people—made it very clear that this legislation was deficient because it removed the proviso that the provision of safety be at a reasonable cost. 
I understand why in politics when there is a very strong ideological difference between left and right Government members would want to do that and why they would want to say: “Look we’re taking the proviso that the provision of safety be at a reasonable cost out of this legislation because …” but we have not heard that. There has been not a mutter not a murmur not a nothing other than the Minister saying; “Oh you’re confused and there were just as many submitting the other way.” Well I tell the Minister that there were not. There was hardly anybody representing anybody saying anything other than: “Why are you removing provision of safety being at a reasonable cost?” because that is the test that will stop some fruit loop in the future from doing some idiotic thing in transport with bizarre costs and almost no benefits. Even right now I simply do not understand why this issue does not transcend all political colours and all persuasions in the entire spectrum or why the Government is not prepared to say: “Yes we accept it.” 
That change was requested by all those organisations. I will not go through the list again but one will not find a major organisation representing transport—or even a minor organisation representing quite a number of affected people—that did not want provision of safety being at a reasonable cost put back in and did not make it the cornerstone of its submission. Let me tell members—[ 
Interruption 
] No Business New Zealand is not a good example because its submission was lots and lots of pages. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Ha ha! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I was just saying—I say to Judith Tizard who is cackling up the back there—that some submissions were only a page long. There was one page from the port companies and that issue is all they submitted on. Federated Farmers’ submission was two pages long; again it was nearly all about the provision of safety being at a reasonable cost. Yet the Government will not even take a call to explain its removal.