Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): As I said in my first contribution on this bill I think that it's really a shame that the current coalition Government took such an antagonistic approach to being in Opposition and developed such knee-jerk policies and didn't really do the work to figure out how they would raise enough revenue to pay for the projects they're promising.While on the one hand it's clear they did campaign on cancelling the regional fuel tax what was never clear was how the additional revenue was going to be found to pay for the projects that need to be built. And clearly the regional fuel tax was a tool given to Auckland so that it didn't have to entirely rely on rates to pay for transport infrastructure. And it's a smart low-administrative-cost way of raising revenue that frankly consumers don't really notice because of the competitive nature of the market of petrol stations in Auckland. Despite the regional fuel tax existing in Auckland the cheapest petrol in the country can be found in Auckland regularly. So it's not the case that this was imposing some big additional cost that consumers are going to notice when it's gone. But what people are going to notice is that projects they were expecting to be built—like the Lake Road upgrade in Devonport and a whole lot of other ones—are no longer going to happen. And if they are going to make a contribution to transport infrastructure it's going to have to come from rates. And Wayne Brown the mayor has been very clear about this. Cutting the regional fuel tax at this time means either a rates rise or a cut in projects.Now the Minister of Transport has just released a Government policy statement on transport in which he has sort of claimed that the decisions made by this Government are going to lead to a more efficient and effective transport system and that they're concerned with productivity and economic growth. But every action they're taking is doing the exact opposite. I think fundamentally there's a real confusion—specifically for the Minister the Hon Simeon Brown—about why everyone drives everywhere in Auckland. He seems to think people are driving cars all over Auckland because they want to and are being stuck in traffic because they want to and what he doesn't realise is that decades of Government and local government decisions have made it impossible for them to get anywhere without a car. Actually those Government decisions have forced huge costs on to households because it's very costly to own and run a car and then lots of land is needed to park the car—everywhere you need to go. And now New Zealand has actually just surpassed the US for highest car-ownership rate in the world. That's not a success story for New Zealand because we import all of our cars and all of the fuel to run them. So all of our dairy exports do not cover the cost of the private vehicles that we import and the fuel that we need to use to run them. Those capital assets—they are barely used. The average private vehicle is sitting parked 96 percent of the day taking up valuable urban land in our cities.Now when I say all of this the Minister and the people opposite come back with Julie Anne Genter just hates cars. She just hates roads. She just hates cars." Guys that's not what I'm saying. Cars can be very practical useful tools but it's not practical for every person in New Zealand to have to have their own car which they use four hours a day or less and that they have to keep parked somewhere and they all try to use at the same time of day in the morning and the night in urban areas. That doesn't work. Do you understand—Madam Speaker not you but do they understand? Why do they say this? Why do they say this when I say "This is not the most cost-effective way to solve our country's transport problems and there are better ways that get better outcomes."? Why do they say "Why do you hate roads?" Why do they say that? I think that must be projection and on the part of the Minister he actually does hate people who walk and ride bikes because why else would he have such a policy that is trying to stop every safe evidence-based pedestrian crossing in front of every school that might have been proposed? Why is he doing that? I mean that's shocking. Why is he saying that no money from the State highway activity class could ever be used for a multimodal transport—Cameron Luxton: Point of order. This is my first time raising a point of order and taking note of what the previous Speaker had said—that we must quote one—I would just say Standing Order 121: "Personal reflections. A member may not [impute improper motives] against a member" and I feel like we just heard that. So as much as I'm enjoying listening to the speaker I would hope that she'd keep her comments to not reflections.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I will just get some advice on that. Yes the member did refer to an opinion about the Minister's point of view on something. It was borderline but I don't believe it did breach the Standing Orders.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: To be honest I would never say that except that people consistently say it about me when I say this is not the most cost-effective way to solve your problem. And so I said "If they're saying that about me what does it say about their thoughts and their attitudes and beliefs?" because there is not—Todd Stephenson: You said the Minister hates people.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well maybe it was projection because yeah—maybe it's projection on their part.But the point is that there is an opportunity that New Zealand has to get much better outcomes from transport spending and if we took a logical evidence-based approach then we would be investing in things that move more people and goods at lower cost—and that is things like multimodal integrated transport projects that is busways and public transport to new greenfields housing areas on the outskirts of Auckland that is making it possible for people to get from one neighbourhood on one side of a State highway and the other side of the State highway walking and cycling because some people live on one side of a State highway and the school that their kids go to is on the other side. If they aren't able to take an overbridge or have a walking and cycling path then they have to get in their car and drive the kilometre or whatever to get there. And if they have to get in their car and drive at peak time that's adding more congestion to the network.So the whole rationale of spending money on public transport and walking and cycling from the transport budget is because it benefits everyone. It benefits everyone and that includes the people who are driving the cars on the road. For whatever reason that they have to do that that's fine but the point is that they benefit more from the busway or from the pedestrian connection than they do from a few kilometres of extra lane of motorway because that is very quickly filled up with more cars when people have no choice but to drive.And in some ways the fact that the Minister recognises the value of public transport to road users is reflected in this bill because in this bill the Government is stipulating that the remaining funds that exist from the Auckland regional fuel tax should go towards the Eastern Busway. It is a project that that Government the National Party campaigned on. I think it's quite specifically beneficial to the Minister's electorate. He's brought up over and over again that his constituents will benefit from the Eastern Busway. And in this case he's saying it's OK to use revenue from the regional fuel tax—revenue from Aucklanders who've paid it from driving their cars—on a busway when it's of significance to the party who campaigned on it.So there's no actual rule here that says road users shouldn't pay for busways and bike lanes because we know they benefit from it. It's just that the Government will use whatever argument supports the things they want to do for the reasons they want to do it. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be because it's going to benefit all New Zealanders and all of Auckland because people in some parts of Auckland are going to be seriously disadvantaged by this repeal of the regional fuel tax because it means that there won't be the money there to build the projects that they were relying on whether they were public transport or walking and cycling or roading projects. The revenue won't be there to pay for it other than through rates. And we know local government needs more revenue tools and congestion pricing and direct road-user charging is going to take years to get up. So in the interim there's this gap there's this absence that has to be made up with other revenue. So that's why the Green Party's not supporting this.But as ever what I would really love—and I will continue to do this; I've been doing this for 12½ years in this House and I was doing it for three years before that—is to try to make the case that actually transport should not be a political football. It's not a tribal battle between people who happen to use a bike some days and people who happen to use a car. The choices that people have to them that they're able to make about how to get around are fundamentally shaped by decisions made in this House by the executive in their Government policy statement and by local government. But the executive significantly influences what local government can do. So let's not pretend that we're giving people choice simply by building more roads. I mean that's not what's happening. Successive Governments have underfunded public transport. They've pushed development out to the fringes where there's no other alternatives. In order to give people effective choices we need to significantly invest much much more in public transport walking and cycling. To mend the severance that's been caused by urban motorways we need to allow more density in our cities and that ironically is the thing that's going to deliver the most for the people who are trying to use private vehicles on the roads we currently have."