Wood MichaelLAND TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT (REGIONAL FUEL TAX) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 27 March.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): When we were last hearing this bill Michael Wood had seven minutes and 30 seconds remaining to speak if he so chooses. MICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I do so choose. When this debate was interrupted at 10 o'clock last night I was speaking about the vision for transport and urban growth in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland City one of the great cities of the Pacific and the world that underlies the intention and the purpose of this bill. I just want to elaborate on that a little bit in the time that I have remaining. What is that vision for transport and urban growth that this bill will serve and allow for? Well the vision is one for a city in which people and freight can freely move around; in which people can be connected to different communities across our city; in which the people of Auckland can use modern efficient public transport to go to work to go to school to go to university to go to the shops to be connected to our airport like every modern first-world international city across our world can. It's for a city which is pleasant to live in in which our transport system is clean and efficient and reliable and it is something in that vision that Aucklanders are absolutely crying out for and Aucklanders are prepared to pay for across the board. That is what this bill allows us to achieve.The thing about Auckland that I covered in my opening remarks is that Auckland is a remarkable city it is a beautiful city it is a thriving city and people in huge numbers from within and from without New Zealand are choosing to settle in Auckland. We have had massive population growth: an additional 180000 people since the amalgamation in 2010—about 900 people every single week coming to our city. So while we have those wonderful advantages in our city that growth—that urban growth—provides significant challenges and what Aucklanders know is that if we don't put the investment in now to create an efficient and effective congestion-free network in our city the problems of congestion that we face now in 2018 will simply get worse and worse and worse.You don't have to go far in Auckland to find out from people what the consequences of that congestion are. We know at a very high level from the studies that the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and others have done that it costs Auckland around about $2 billion a year—it costs New Zealand about $2 billion a year in lost productivity. But then you talk to people and businesses at the community level and you find out more. I spoke to the retail manager of a major national retail chain and he said that about five or six years ago the trucks in his company could make about five deliveries a day in Auckland. Now because of the traffic congestion they can make about three deliveries a day and that is an immediate and tangible effect in terms of the efficiency of that business and ultimately the price that consumers will pay for those goods.And then there is simply the sheer misery and frustration that is inflicted on Aucklanders every single day as they are just stuck in traffic wasting time—they could be doing productive things at work but just losing time that they could be spending with their families enjoying themselves and living a good life. Congestion is choking our city. But it doesn't have to be that way and what this bill is about and what the Government's urban growth agenda is about is saying Let's harness the benefits of growth and not be choked by growth."So what the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill does—it says we have that vision for a congestion-free city in which people and freight can move about freely in which we are connected to our airport in which we reduce congestion. Might I say that a part of investing in public transport is reducing congestion for those good folks and those good businesses who do still have to use the roads. Many people still will when we have a good public transport system but by getting as many people as possible on to a modern public transport system we make our existing roading network efficient. But if we want to achieve that vision we actually have to have some problem solving. We can't just keep kicking it down the road which is what the previous National Government did. We actually have to sit down and do some serious problem solving. What I am greatly heartened by is that—I think probably for about the first time since the third Labour Government for a brief sparkling moment in time—we have a local government in Auckland led by Mayor Phil Goff and a central government the Labour-led Government here in Wellington who are aligned on working together to solve this problem of congestion and aligned on an urban growth agenda for our country's biggest city.But we're going to have to work together. We're going to have to work together on the funding. It's a big challenge. The previous National-led Government came up with quite a good concept which was the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) plan a shared plan between central government and local government to tackle Auckland's transport challenges. The problem with that plan was that the previous Government under the previous National Ministers was so obsessed with building motorways which won't solve the problem that it would have actually just made it worse at very best. So we're going to renegotiate that plan with Auckland Council and have a plan for transport infrastructure that will really tackle congestion.If I can just leave this thought with colleagues: one single line of modern light rail will carry as much traffic as many commuters as three lanes of motorway traffic. So it's about efficient investment that moves people around our city effectively. Those light rail lines connecting the central city to the rapidly growing north-west of our city going across to the North Shore to the hundreds of thousands of residents there who already enjoy the benefits of rapid transit through the bus system connecting through the Auckland isthmus which currently has no access to rapid transit to our airport to the rapidly growing employment centre just north of the airport and a modern bus rapid transit system—look a bit cheerier there Mr Brown because we're going to connect your electorate of Botany to the Auckland Airport with a modern bus rapid transit system and that is going to be of great benefit to the residents of your part of the city. I say this very genuinely as an old east Auckland boy: your residents have the worst access to public transport in Auckland because of decades of under-investment and under this plan we are going to fix that.But we've got to fund it. We've got to be realistic and Aucklanders are realistic. That's why this plan is about Aucklanders saying "Yep we're going to agree to invest." We're going to invest in the modern public transport system that we need and the regional fuel tax allows for that. It says to Auckland Council "You need to front up with a really good plan." and we're going to work with Auckland Council on that to invest in modern public transport to invest in the transport system that is really going to unlock our city and allow people and freight to move around freely.And if you do that—if you do the consultation with your community which is happening at the moment—well here's an option that's going to help fill the funding gap that the previous Government itself estimated under their plans was around about $6 billion over the last 10 years. So we're not going to ignore that. Here's a practical plan to do something about it.Let's note as well that amongst the guffaws from the other side of the House that previous National Government levied a 14c per litre cumulative fuel tax on all New Zealanders to fund its transport priorities. Well our transport priority is unlocking the urban growth potential of Auckland and this is part of our plan to do it. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."