Genter Julie Anne: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10503. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Green Party wants to create a smarter greener economy that is going to look after all New Zealanders and that is entirely possible. One of the ways we can do that is through smarter investment in infrastructure. This Government in its National Infrastructure Planannounced a series of projects the vast majority of which were motorways that it calls roads of national significance. The reason these projects had to be given this special title of “national significance” is that none of them actually stacked up under the traditional economic evaluation method that was used by the New Zealand Transport Agency at the time.National got into power it did the economic analysis and it saw that these motorway projects it had promised do not make any economic sense. At the time I was working as a consultant for the New Zealand Transport Agency and I remember the officials there at the time expressing great concern over the priorities of this Government—how they simply did not make any economic sense and that it was a poor use of money. Naively I thought as a consultant that we could present the evidence to the politicians. They say they care about the economy they want to reduce costs to households business and government so I thought: “Great. There’s opportunities to do that that not only reduce all the cost to households business and government but also reduce pollution protect the environment and the climate make life easier for all New Zealanders make it easier for them to access goods and services create healthier happier cities and all these win-wins.” But unfortunately the National Government has completely failed to take up the opportunity that exists for it.It has been a bit of a mystery for me because if we look at countries overseas there are centre-right Governments that understand the economic benefits of having a balanced transport system and they are investing in public transport safe cycling and rail to move freight because it makes economic sense. We have business people freight experts here in our own country—like Mainfreight which is by far the largest freight company—that have said it makes sense for their business to invest in rail and to use rail to move goods around the country. But it is the Government’s responsibility to invest in the underlying infrastructure and unfortunately this National Government has failed to invest in the infrastructure that we need to have a balanced transport system because it has been so busy delivering these promises which are hugely expensive—we are talking $12 billion at least—on just a few stretches of extremely expensive motorway which of course is going to do nothing to help the vast majority of Kiwis get to work and avoid congestion. It is not even going to help freight that much if you look at an objective analysis of these projects.So it is a real missed opportunity and the Green Party has a clear alternative solution. We demonstrated right before the last election exactly how we would pay for fast frequent reliable public transport in our major cities: Auckland Wellington and Christchurch. We demonstrated how we would pay for safe walking and cycling to schools. That is one of the smartest ways to reduce peak-hour congestion in our towns and cities but not only that it is better for our kids. It is better for the environment. It means they get moving before school so they can learn better when they get there and that is really their birthright—to be able to walk and cycle to school. That is a popular policy but unfortunately the National Government has still failed to implement it after 8 years now in power. It is moving on with the urban cycleways which is great and we support that but it needs to go further.As an Aucklander I can say that public transport in Auckland is bursting at the seams. Buses and trains are full to standing. The buses that pass where I live—oftentimes at peak time three to five buses will pass completely full leaving 10 or 20 people waiting at the bus stop. That is simply not acceptable. It is also too expensive. Households are having to pay far too much for public transport.But the other big missed opportunity is in the freight area. As I said earlier Mainfreight our biggest freight logistics company has said that we need more investment in the rail network. The way to do that is to have the infrastructure the rail network not treated as a State-owned enterprise that needs to somehow return a profit to the Government through its surplus—which KiwiRail does have; it has an operating surplus on its freight operations—but we should treat the rail network as part of the transport network and invest in it because of the wider economic environmental and social benefits for all New Zealand businesses.