Coddington Deborah: Road Traffic Reduction Bill — Second Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Road Traffic Reduction Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11147] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose this bill. The Road Traffic Reduction Bill and what it subsequently became absorbed by—the Land Transport Management Bill—have a very interesting history for those of us who care to remember back to when all of this came up and how we ended up with what we have now. This goes back to certain prime-mover status public-private partnerships and Dr Ross Armstrong. Is that ringing a few bells right now? A few dinners? I remember going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and asking for a select committee inquiry into what had gone on with Dr Ross Armstrong and the public-private partnerships and I drew up the terms of reference. Why was that inquiry not allowed? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Because the Greens opposed it. Why did the Greens oppose it? Well coincidence coincidence—a week later we had Jeanette Fitzsimons announcing with the Prime Minister the introduction of the Land Transport Management Bill. 
Jill Pettis 
: Shock horror! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It will be shock horror when the taxpayers find out just how much they have had taken from them by certain people to do with that nasty little episode which we have not heard the last of yet. 
Jill Pettis 
: Will you write about it? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: No I will not need to write about it because there are other people in other parties who have a lot more information than I have. This bill is not really about reducing traffic on the roads it is really about telling other people what is good for them. Jeanette Fitzsimons has said that she is pleased to farewell the bill because even though road traffic reduction is no longer mentioned in the Land Transport Management Bill her own words said that that now has become “transport demand management”. 
People in the Labour Government accuse us in the Opposition of not being in favour of traffic demand management. Well that is absolutely incorrect. We are in favour of traffic demand management but we talk about things like congestion tolling and network tolling. What is more environmentally sensitive than congestion tolling? It is one of the best things that can be done to reduce car emission because people can choose not to drive when it is more expensive and it is more expensive when the roads are congested. 
Could we get that through the select committee? No that could not be brought into the bill. We could not have that. Could we have network tolling to solve Auckland’s traffic problems? Sure building more motorways straight through a city that is a long narrow isthmus is not going to solve the problems. We need ring roads; we need a whole new system which has been on the books for the last 30 years but nothing gets done about it. And nothing will get done about it with the Land Transport Management Bill. 
If this Government and the Greens really wanted to solve the problems with transport in Auckland and in the rest of the country they would do something about the Resource Management Act. As I said what is more polluting than idling traffic stuck in traffic jams? Look at the northern motorway extension. That has been held up for how long—10 years now 12 years? 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Who was in Government? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Well this Government should fix it. It is no use just saying: “Who was in Government?”. This Government had the chance to fix it with the Land Transport Management Bill but we have already called it the bill of wasted opportunities. It is no good sitting there asking who could have fixed it; this Government should fix it. Under the Resource Management Act the northern motorway has been held up because one person is objecting. Dr Wendy Pond has held it up. She does not even live in Auckland she lives in the Coromandel and she has held it up because of native fish. Under the Resource Management Act those fish are considered more important than people’s lives. There are now Transit signs all along that road saying “danger area” and “high accident area”. I went up and down that road just last weekend on my way to and from Puhoi. People have died waiting for that road to be built. 
Also the extension over the Auckland Harbour Bridge has been held up because of five nesting birds that have to be relocated at the expense of the economy. Then we have the fiasco that occurred during the Auckland to Hamilton road-building project. It was held up under the Resource Management Act—which needs to be thrown out if the Land Transport Management Act is ever going to work—because of Maori spiritual values because of taniwha in a certain bend of the road. This happened under a godless Government with a Prime Minister who talks about us being a secular society. But somehow Maori spiritual values are OK and Christian spiritual values have no worth at all. The motorway ploughed through the Bolton Street Cemetery with no regard for Christian spiritual values there. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons happily says goodbye to this bill. I respect her because at least she is principled—she believes in what she has put up here. But if this Government really cared about pollution it would be pro-automobile not anti-automobile and that is what this bill is. It is anti-automobile. The car represents individual freedom. It is all very well to talk about increasing the use of public transport and we can all use it when we choose but it is interesting to me that the people who have talked so loudly about biking all use cars. How many times do we drive along and see bikes attached to the back of cars or on top of cars. Bicycles are fine walking is fine—one of the members over there talked about walking to work every day and some of us run to work—but that is never suitable for a mother. How can a mother with four children at four different schools who has to pick them up from school go to work drop them off take them to soccer take them to ballet and take them to rugby do all of that on public transport? It is just not possible. 
Today the car is much more accessible to New Zealanders. Most families have two cars and it is ironic for Mark Gosche who was the Minister of Transport when this bill was introduced to proudly say that more people are using buses. Well of course they would be in places like Timaru because this Government is busy closing down schools and shoving kids on to buses to travel an hour each way. So many children have been thrown on to buses down in Timaru that the police have been stopping the buses and taking children off because of overcrowding. 
Why is a bus by nature safer than a car? It is on the same road and it has got the same factor of human error. Mike Ward says that he does not mind cars he just does not like what cars do but then he did not go on to say what the car does. 
This bill as Jeanette Fitzsimons said has been absorbed into the Land Transport Management Bill and that is why she is happy to kiss it goodbye. The Land Transport Management Bill is just another example of how this Government is giving special treatment to Maori—special treatment based on race. They think it is funny but it is a patronising arrogant attitude. The Land Transport Management Bill means that people will have to consult iwi and other affected communities. Are iwi not part of the community? Are iwi going to be treated like aliens by this Government? This legislation will not facilitate one extra kilometre of New Zealand roads. If we are going to get New Zealand back up into the top half of the OECD—another broken promise by this Government just like looking after rural schools—we have to get Auckland the engine room of New Zealand working. The way this Government could start doing that would be to stop spending a lot of the money it takes off motorists in user-charges stop spending it on all its fancy schemes—like have having photographs taken with movie stars and pouring money into movie moguls from California—and spend it on fixing some of the roads. 
I did not actually agree with Mr Peter Brown when he said we need to tar-seal every single road in New Zealand. Just because a road is not tar-sealed it does not mean it is not safe. There are some places that do not need their roads tar-sealed and that is how Transfund used to operate. It used to operate on a cost-benefit basis. But now it is required to take all these other areas into account.