Coddington Deborah: Transport Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Transport Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:14902] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party supports this bill being referred to the select committee but before I move on to why we do so I would like to say that we are becoming increasingly incensed at this Government’s referral motions which are an abuse of the process and an abuse of power. I am referring to Ministers’ requests to dispense with Standing Orders 191 to 194 so that select committees are allowed to meet on Fridays and in an evening when the House is sitting. Another thing that this Minister has requested is to ram this bill through with a report-back date of 26 October. The other parties have already signalled that they support this bill’s referral to a select committee and that makes that abuse of power even more insidious because there is absolutely no need for the Minister to request that referral date. 
The Government does this increasingly. It is not only an abuse that affects smaller parties; it is also an abuse of the submitters who have the right to come to select committees and be heard by those select committees and an abuse of the right of the members of those select committees—especially the Opposition members—to put questions to those submitters. We are increasingly seeing that this Government wants to ram legislation through. It has early report-back dates with sittings at any time of the day the night and the week and in some cases the time for questions is reduced to 30 seconds. A submitter puts a submission before a select committee and members have 30 seconds to ask questions. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: Not on my committee. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: The member opposite is shaking his head. I suggest he sits in on the select committee that is dealing with the foreshore and seabed legislation at the moment because that is exactly what is happening. It is an abuse of democracy. When I came into Parliament I was told that we in this Parliament have a privilege that I do not think any other Westminster system has whereby submitters can appear before a select committee give their submissions and be questioned so that the public can have their input into legislation. If this Government keeps abusing that privilege then it is about time that all Opposition parties started fighting back. The ACT party will be moving an amendment today to the referral motion to take out all the words after the word “consideration”. I think all parties in this House that believe in democracy should vote in favour of that amendment and stop this abuse of process. It is outrageous and it is increasingly happening. It is increasingly what this Government is doing with bills that it is introducing to the House. 
Small parties do not have enough members to be everywhere at once. We have to make decisions. Some of us are on two or three select committees. The Government would argue that list MPs have the time to do so. That is not the case. A list MP’s constituency stretches from North Cape to Bluff. Sometimes the workload can be triple that of a constituency MP. List MPs cannot be here on Fridays in a week when the House is sitting; they have to be elsewhere. They lose their representation of the people whom they are speaking up for at the select committee. It is about time the Opposition started to fight back and we are starting it. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It’s an affront to democracy. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It is an affront to democracy. As I said this is good legislation because we have seen in the whole area of transport all these big fiefdoms being able to develop their own policies and fighting with each other. We have the Maritime Safety Authority the Civil Aviation Authority the Land Transport Safety Authority Transfund Transit and the Ministry of Transport. Do members know why this has happened? Do members know why we have got to this situation with transport in this country? It is because for so long we have had weak Ministers of Transport. Under the 1984 Labour Government the Ministry of Transport was reduced to 20 personnel and out of that has grown these enormous— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Who was the Minister? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Yes who was the Minister? 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It was Richard Prebble. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It was the Hon Richard Prebble—the last strong Minister of Transport. 
Darren Hughes 
: She’s embarrassed! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It was a rhetorical question but the baby over there would not know what that meant. We need a strong Minister of Transport. This Government has had so many changes of Ministers of Transport and we still do not see a strong Minister of Transport. 
We have a recommendation from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that this Government hold an inquiry into the sale process of Paraparaumu Airport. What is this Government doing with that recommendation? It is just shelving it. It has decided that it might do something by 1 October. Questions need to be asked about whether there is a conflict of interest with that inquiry in terms of personnel from the Ministry of Transport who were involved with the sale process having gone to work in the Minister’s office and having too much influence on the Minister in terms of whether an inquiry will be held. There are people out there who have fought a long and hard battle to have an inquiry into that sale process. They deserve answers. 
As I said we are supporting this bill being referred to the select committee but we are furious at this Government’s increasing abuse of power when it tries to ram legislation through the House. When I last looked New Zealand was not a dictatorship; we still had democracy and the right of the Opposition parties to be heard and to have some input. But that is increasingly being taken away by this Government. It is an appalling affront and any Opposition party that does not support our amendment is standing on the top of a slippery slope of abuse of power.