Peters Jim: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Peters Jim: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9667] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I listened with great interest to the last speaker and I concur with everything he said. Yesterday at a mayoral forum in Whangarei the mayors of Northland told us to go easy on the Government on the issue of transport because of the goodies that we have just heard about. I willingly acknowledge the work that the Government has done in the last 3 years and the extensive changes that have taken place and are about to take place. If the Government can find a few more dollars for the railway all the better. The issue is that the work has been done and accomplished and more visible evidence is yet to be seen. 
It was our good luck perhaps that we—being from a region in Northland that has foresight and knows how these things work—took up the challenge of an integrated transport study gave a regional face to Northland transport issues had the agreement of territorial bodies and put together a regional plan that gained Government acceptance. But that was not accomplished under this bill—it was accomplished under the cost-benefit situation that the member spoke about plus additional Government funding. The big problem with this bill is the very issue that the last member spoke about which is funding. 
I say to my National Party friends who sit to my right that I have heard some of the debate so far. I concur that between 1993 and 1999 we in Northland awaited developments—with a white paper a green paper and I think a pink paper and any other paper—but nothing took place before the election of 1999. Nothing happened. As a New Zealand First member my position is that the old party did not do it. In this city we spent numerous hours discussing it—paper after paper—with an optimistic Minister and nothing happened. The Hon Maurice Williamson the man who now sits behind me was in that very position in 1999. I say to my National Party friends that he appeared 2 weeks before the election in 1999 and assured us that things would happen. So New Zealand First members do not come to this issue with any great optimism about what our friends on the right might do. They did nothing in this regard. 
But I also say to the party across the House which says that this transport bill is the best it has ever seen that one thing we have to thank the Government for is its understanding for a time that the transport issues in Northland came about under the present regime. So when we look at the issues we will be debating in Part 2 we see that at the end of the exercise they will all come back not to all the fine speeches we made in this House in defence of this bill or to those that will be made opposing the points in the bill but to one simple issue: after all the talk have the objectives set out in Part 2 the ability to be achieved in funding terms? The answer will be no. We have already heard that from the Minister of Finance and we have heard it in various ways from the other side. 
So on behalf of New Zealand First I point out that there is an alternative. It is presented in the minority report and as we go through each of those sections we ought to think very carefully about it. The funding answer in this bill which is espoused by some parties in this House is not fair and reasonable when motorists are paying an unused share of the road levy at the present time. To that end we do not support this bill.