Fenton Darien: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFenton Darien: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9759. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARIEN FENTON (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. I want to start by acknowledging the previous speaker David Bennett and the rant from the previous speaker. My question to him and also to the other member from Hamilton Tim Macindoe is why is he so desperate to have people from Hamilton getting out of Hamilton and going to Auckland?David Bennett: We’re not.DARIEN FENTON: Yes you must be. You must be because you go on and on and on about the Waikato Expressway. That is what it is for. You want to see people from Hamilton going to Auckland because they cannot get jobs in Hamilton because that member has done nothing about job creation just like the rest of his Government. That was a rant from that member but we have come to expect that. I would like to advise the House that actually in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee he shows a little bit more decorum and he did chair—Andrew Little: Sometimes.DARIEN FENTON: Sometimes—not when Andrew Little was there. Now Sue Moroney is back we can probably expect to see lots of decorum.There were 98 submissions on this bill and we heard 29 submissions. One of the good things the select committee did was to go to Auckland to hear from interested parties. That is quite unusual really for this Government which seems to want to cut back on the select committee process frequently.So returning to the bill having praised the chair of the select committee—and he was too busy shouting across the House to listen which is pretty common may I say—I want to talk about the bill a wee bit because its purpose is to reform the Land Transport Management Act 2003. I thought I would inject a little bit of history into the Land Transport Management Act 2003 because that was a brilliant piece of work done by the former Labour Government and it represented the biggest change in land transport funding and management since the 1980s. Prior to that it was a complete mess. The land transport management funding framework was incredibly flawed. There was nostrategic direction. It did not allow for an integrated approach to be taken to land transport because it focused on roading.Well here we are 10 years afterwards and we have a bill that is all about roading. This bill undermines all of the good work that was done with that Act along with the Public Transport Management Act. It made significant strides in our land transport systems including public transport. But of course public transport takes a back seat under this Government. All of that work—there was a 2008 Act also brought in by the Labour Government that enhanced New Zealand’s transport planning and funding system. That Act provided for fuel excise duty for land transport purposes and changed the way that fuel excise is set to provide more certainty for future investment. That was a very progressive move by the previous Labour Government. We increased the investment in public transport tenfold and the funding for passenger transport services.While I am talking about the history of this bill can I also just remind the House that it was Labour that initiated double tracking electrification an extension of passenger transport to other parts of Auckland the reopening of railway links some of which are now being closed and the North Shore busway. I was just gobsmacked to hear Steven Joyce—the Hon Steven Joyce—claiming credit for the electrification and the double tracking of the Auckland rail system because I know that is not true. I live in west Auckland. I know who started that project. I know it was Labour that did that and I found it pretty outrageous actually that Steven Joyce would try to take credit for that. I suppose he has to in a way though because there are not many other public transport system initiatives that he can take credit for.As I said this bill undoes much of the good work that was done in the 2003 Land Transport Management Act. It does show that the Government has realised that its roads of national significance projects are too expensive and it is going to have to borrow to fund them or make them all toll roads. Without increasing petrol tax beyond the CPI adjustments the New Zealand Transport Agency would need to borrow $930 million over the next 5 years to keep the roads of national significance on track. Let us say that again—$930 million will need to be borrowed over the next 5 years to keep the roads of national significance on track That is why we have to have this bill. The Government has realised that it cannot afford it and it is going to set it up so it can borrow more. It can set up public-private partnerships and it can toll people hard-working people who are already struggling to get by.The change in the purpose section in clause 4 I think says it all. I will talk a little bit more about that when we get to the Committee stage but the only reason that I can see that the Government is making changes to the purpose section is that it no longer wants a transport system that is affordable integrated safe sustainable and accessible or one that promotes public health and environmental and social responsibility. That is the only conclusion one can draw from the fact that the Government has amended the purpose section. It is about National trying to tighten its control of land transport so it can cherry-pick more projects to suit itself. The sad thing about that is it removes and this bill removes the opportunities for local communities to support transport projects that benefit them. That is something that I think communities are getting pretty outraged about.The bill reduces opportunities for the community to have input into transport systems. Every community should have the ability to have its say about its transport systems. But what have we got? We have got the debacle in Auckland where you now have a consensus on a way forward for funding for transport and the Government will not have a bar of it—will not have a bar of it. They brought together a whole lot of people—business unions transport experts the cycling forum—all sorts of people have come together and agreed on a system of funding into the future for Auckland and theGovernment is just pulling that they are the big boys in town. Wellington should tell Auckland what it has to do for the future.I live in Auckland and I support the plans that have come from our council about the future. I am sick of being on roads that are jammed to the hilt. I do not believe that building more roads will change that. In fact in Auckland there is nowhere to build more roads.David Bennett: Come to Hamilton. We’ll take you round Hamilton.DARIEN FENTON: No no no you are sending the people to Auckland. That is the problem. If you stop sending all those people to Auckland through the expressway we probably would not have so many problems. I am sick of that. I want to see a city in the future that is supported by this Government. It is not supported by the Government. The wonderful unitary plan that has been widely consulted on throughout the city is being ignored by the Government. It does not want communities to have any say in the future of their cities or their transport systems. That is what this bill does. The Government also continues to underfund local roading. It sees a subsidy on State highways which receive $142509 per kilometre compared with $7573 per kilometre for local roads. So a huge subsidy is going into State highways compared with the local roads. I am sure that other speakers are going to want to talk about Transmission Gully and the expensive project that is turning out to be.This bill as I said at the beginning undoes all the good work that was done by Labour over 10 years. We inherited a mess in the road transport system. We put in place some very very good systems and projects. We allowed communities—wanted communities—to have a say. This bill undoes all of that and goes back to roads roads roads like we had the last time National was in Government.