Key John: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Key John: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12473] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 There is a reason that Auckland is known as the city of sails and it is simply this: under a Labour administration the only way to get around Auckland is on a boat. People will not get around it in a car. Frankly I was absolutely shocked that Paul Adams a former rally driver and a man who knows cars probably better than any member of Parliament stood up in the House and told us that there is progress in Auckland. He has obviously spent way too much time on gravel roads around New Zealand and not enough time in Auckland and frankly it is a disgrace that he is not talking to any of my constituents. 
The Minister who introduced this bill is none other than the Hon Chris Carter the member for Te Atatu. I challenge Chris Carter to go to his home electorate and ask any one of his constituents whether he or she believes that the Labour Government is fixing Auckland’s roads. Every night traffic goes up and down the north western every night people are in traffic jams for an hour and regularly there is a traffic jam the length of the entire north western. The Hon David Cunliffe who happens to have the New Lynn electorate—the electorate neighbouring Chris Carter’s—has exactly the same problem. It does not matter what time one goes on to the north western it is in complete and utter gridlock and chaos. That is an unbelievable position. 
Before I move on to the bill in any great depth I refer to the speech made by the Hon Judith Tizard the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues. It was a simply extraordinary and unbelievable speech. It was nothing short of hysterical raving about something that this side of the House could not quite make any coherence or sense of. However one has to ask why that Minister made such a speech. There is only one reason. She is full of guilt and shame. She knows that for 4½ years this Government has managed to deal with everything except Auckland’s roads—whether it has been its relationship with the Greens its relationship with any other party or with various mayors whatever it has taken the issues have not been Aucklanders’ issues. The Government has not been fixing the problems. That is why Auckland has the highways from hell and any person who goes to Auckland knows that that is the situation. 
Anybody can see that Auckland has a motorway network that has not been completed—since 1965. Keith Locke told the House that it was wonderful that the eastern corridor would never be completed. That is the same party whose solution to Auckland’s transport problem was the Road Traffic Reduction Bill—the modern-day equivalent to carless days. We should not forget that that bill was introduced in this House 12 months ago by Jeanette Fitzsimons. It was to mandate the number of cars that could go through any part of Auckland at any given time. That was the Greens’ solution to Auckland’s transport problems. They do not care whether another road ever gets built in Auckland. Mike Ward from the Green Party who sits on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee hates road. He cannot understand why anyone would want to drive on those roads. That is the position of the Green Party. They are not interested in progress. They do not care that the transport problem costs a billion dollars a year—minimum. Members should ask the Auckland Employers Association and the Auckland Manufacturers Association how much they think it is costing Auckland. They think that a billion dollars a year is light and their members are leaving New Zealand to go and live in Brisbane Melbourne and Sydney. They are going to places in Australia where the Government is committed to fixing the infrastructure and that is a sad thing for the people of New Zealand. 
There is absolutely no contention about this issue. Traffic on Auckland’s roads and motorway networks is at 95 percent capacity. If there is a single crash in Auckland or a wet day the place simply grinds to a halt. Roading is the No. 1 issue that Aucklanders care about. John Banks was elected on a mandate of “roads roads and roads”. That is why this Government has the spin and the rhetoric—it wants people to believe it is doing something when in reality it is not. We should not forget how this all came about. This legislation was foreshadowed by the Land Transport Management Bill which was nothing short of a complete sop to the Greens. The bill was so bad that the then Minister of Transport Paul Swain went up and down the country with mayors and various constituencies and campaigned against his own bill. That is how bad it was. He begged various parts of the community to petition Parliament against his own legislation. That is how little he believed in it. Then he set up the joint officials’ group which recommended that a lot of money—not just a bit of money—needed to be spent. 
Today the Minister is parading in front of the House and trying to tell us that he has a solution because the Government will spend $1.62 billion over 10 years. How will we get that money? We are paying for it. That is hardly a novel solution from the Government. Even when we do pay with the increase in petrol tax—and I am not opposed to paying a bit more petrol tax to fix the roads—the point is that no roads will be built because we are not fixing the very thing that is stopping that progress—the Resource Management Act. That is why Transit states in its annual report that it has six projects to go that it has the money but that it cannot get the final sign-off. It is pulling its hair out in Auckland because it cannot get going. That is how disgraceful the situation is. 
Not only does Auckland have that problem but what makes it worse—the bigger joke—is the $5 billion gap in fixing Auckland roads. Without the eastern corridor and without the alternative harbour crossing there is a $5 billion gap. When we look at the Government benches at John Tamihere and the broken group that calls itself Labour what do we see? They are like possums in the headlights. They have no solution. The lights are out; nobody is home. There is nothing going on in the intellectual grunt material over there. They have given up because they do not have a solution. They have a Minister who will not spend the money on infrastructure. He wants to spend it on future direction and buy a few more votes from beneficiaries. That is what he wants to do with the money. He does not want to spend it on fixing Auckland’s roads. He is not committed. That is the honest truth. That is why Judith Tizard got to her feet in this House and raved like a lunatic yelling and screaming. The reason she did that is that she is ashamed of her own Government she is ashamed as Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues that she has not got a solution to fix the problem. 
I want to make some specific reference to the new group that has been set up—the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. It would have been a good idea if a few simple solutions could have been introduced. David Cunliffe is looking at me and I know he is thinking: “I know! I want to put that in my speech but I’m not allowed; the boss will tell me off. I wish I was part of the National Party team so I could call it the way I see it. I’m ex Boston Consulting Group; I’m absolutely ashamed of what I am seeing.” What are we seeing? We are seeing absolute hypocrisy. Thirty-two people—the entire Auckland Regional Council—have elected themselves on to the committee. It has put everybody in there. The very body that failed Auckland so miserably is now being rewarded with the keys—lock stock and barrel—to fix the place. Lock stock and barrel they have been given the opportunity to run the show. It is like giving the keys of the jail to the inmates. That is what we are doing in Auckland. We could have had an independent body that was structured in a logical coherent way. We could have had a body that had the ability to change the rules. But what we have is the Auckland Regional Transport Authority an Auckland Regional Council body that is just going to allow the council to stack it with its political mates. The biggest joke of all is that the very people one would want enclosed in that body—Transit and TrackCo—are left out in the cold. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s daft. 
JOHN KEY 
: It is daft it is dumb and it is hopeless. But what is so sad about the town I love to call home Auckland the city of sails—which is a big place I remind members; I know it might come as a shock to them—is that we can get around it on a 737 or like John Banks in a helicopter or on a boat but if people want to travel by car or by bus they cannot get around it and they never will until the Labour Government stops its love affair with the Green Party and is committed to fixing our commercial capital.