Locke Keith: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18659] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I hate to disagree with the preceding speaker but I have been talking to players around this bill for some months as have other Greens and it is quite clear that the councils in Auckland the Auckland Regional Council and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority all favour option C and have favoured that system of contracting out the network from the very beginning. It is true that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority and others have always considered that option B is better than the present system; it allows more specification in the contracts settlement of disputes through the courts and all the rest of it but it certainly favours a fully contracted system and was submitting very strongly on that through the whole process and rightly so. 
Maurice Williamson referred to Ritchies Coachlines. Some of the smaller players had been somewhat worried about the system up until now with the bigger players shutting them out because it is so easy for them to snatch a commercial route and use the big profits off that route—a main route—to cross-subside a contracted subsidised route undercut the opposition and keep market dominance in a place like Auckland. This legislation is levelling the playing field and allowing efficient operators to compete properly which is I think the point that Rodney Hide was making for ACT. 
The operators are a bit short-sighted in not supporting option C. Although in the short term some of the bigger operators might lose some of the cream they are getting through dominating routes by being able to charge more or less as they wish by not having to show their books and making undue profits in the long term a fully integrated system—buses connecting properly and buses connecting with trains and ferries—where people have more confidence in the system will mean more throughput for all the operators and more money for their shareholders. So I think they are looking at the issue in a very short-term way. As we stated before we cannot have proper integrated ticketing without connectivity of routes timetables the electronic swipe cards etc. all worked out by the regional authority and with the regional authority having the power to put that in place. 
There is another issue in terms of the information. Option C provides for all the information to be provided by the operators so that the system can be properly planned. The amendment being moved by Jeanette Fitzsimons in Supplementary Order Paper 249 that will implement option C requires the regional authority to have a plan and to have the contracted services as all part of that plan. If that is not done properly the operators too have a right to appeal against that and they are required to be very open about patronage throughput and everything else so that that planning can be done much better. There has to be a good service with proper frequency proper timetabling and proper connectivity and we cannot achieve that under option B. We have to go to option C. 
Under option B an operator can drop out of commercial service with 90 days’ notice. That can knock out the whole connectivity of the system. There has to be a fully contracted system where one operator cannot just—effectively—muck up the whole system on its own initiative. Anyone who is really serious about a good transport system in Auckland Wellington and the other big cities should think seriously about supporting the amendments put up by Jeanette Fitzsimons. They will be effective. 
It is interesting that ACT which is a party known for free competition and all the rest of it has understood that good companies will benefit out of this. They can bid on a level playing field for the contracts and we will get a much more efficient system. It is important that we pass option C today.