Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well if that last speaker Shanan Halbert meant his final words about Birkenhead and Northcote he would have seen that Fullers actually opposed the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill. I didn't see him advocating—Shanan Halbert: They did because they've got a monopoly.Hon DAVID BENNETT: He says they've got a monopoly—he says they've got a monopoly. Ha ha! That's his view. He comes into this House and has the gall to say that there shouldn't be closures of certain ferry routes when he actually opposes the organisation that provides those ferries and does an excellent job in Auckland as a matter of fact.Now I didn't sit on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I have been a member of the committee before but unfortunately I was not sitting on the committee this year and didn't see this bill. But when you look at it it is the true lefty approach that Government knows everything. You just have to take one sniff of this bill and you'll understand the failure of that Government over there and how they've ruined this country in six years and just the destruction they've caused because of their ideology. It's the complete ideology that Government knows best; Government can control everything. If you leave it to Government all public services will be delivered in the appropriate manner! That's what this bill does; it takes it away from competition. It takes away the competitive aspect and says councils can do a better job. Well I don't know any council that can do a better job. I don't know any Government that can do a better job. If Government could do a better job it would be doing it already and it doesn't.When we were in Government—in the last Government—we brought in this concept that there would actually be some sharing of costs and some fair recovery. Now that was one of the first things the Labour Party got rid of—the idea of fair recovery of making people actually pay something. The Minister may shake his head but he knows damn well that they did take away that requirement for fair recovery. We had a 50 percent recovery that we were intending councils to get and they got rid of that as soon as they got into Government. That was the first step of taking away any competition in the public transport sector and this is just a final blast you could say to really consolidate the power in central government and local government and destroy any competitive pressure or tension that you may have in the market. And it will fail just like any of the other left-wing ideological things that this Government has done.Every time they do things like this it just costs more money. We just have to look at their ideas around public transport in Auckland and how they were going to have this great cycling and walking bridge across the harbour and the millions of dollars that went in consultants—for nothing. Then you look at Let's Get Wellington Moving. There was an article in the paper this morning about the highest-paid officials in Wellington doing nothing. There's no actual results. And then the greatest irony of all is that today they're going to actually announce Cambridge to Piarere and some other roading projects that they cancelled when they got into Government. They were actually funded. They were actually there funded and these guys cancelled them—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Right-o Mr Bennett now you've had a good 3½ minutes. Let's have a look at the bill shall we?Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yeah it's all part of this because like I've been talking about public transport and how they have taken an approach that the Government knows best and can do a bit of delivery has been shown to be a failure.If you look at what they did around that walking and cycling bridge they said that Government could deliver this better. They couldn't even get it off the ground. They said that they could deliver light rail in Auckland. They haven't even got it off the ground. It will be the same in this context. And there's no ability to have environmentally friendly engagement with transport operators that may be looking at options to undertake better transport methods to achieve the environmental goals they talk about because they're taking away their competition. They're saying that the regional council will do it and the regional council will be better than the competitive aspect that you see. If anybody looks around New Zealand at the moment at buses that are using more environmentally conscious sources of energy they're coming from the private sector. That's where they're coming from. They're developing them themselves. That's what's happening and to hide behind the environment as the reason for this bill is just another one of the ways that this Government has tried to pull the wool over New Zealanders' eyes for six years.New Zealanders are very aware that this has an impact on their daily lives. We can't just give away free things all the time and say Government will deliver a better result. That has an impact on everyday New Zealanders has an impact on their interest rates at the moment is going to have an impact on their job security and every time this Government steps into this House and says We can do it better." they've failed. The last six years have shown they've failed and we didn't need to have the last six years. That approach has always failed. You can go back a hundred years and find out that the approach of big government always fails. It's not a new thing but they had to go and prove again that it fails and they have hurt a lot of New Zealanders in the process. This is just another example of big government—government knows best; we can do it better than the private sector; we don't need competition; we don't need to have a competitive process; we don't want the private sector to engage in technologies and solutions that are better for New Zealand! "Let big government do that; we're much better at it."Well New Zealand has learned another lesson: you don't trust big government you don't trust the Labour Party you don't trust an ideology that's failed for a century and it will fail in the future again. This piece of legislation is just an example of and epitomises the failure of this Government and how they have taken a great experiment with New Zealanders over the last six years. Their experiment was that they knew best and they could solve all the problems and this experiment has failed. The leader that started the experiment—she left. The Government which is in tatters now can't control anything in the economy. They can't control their own team. It's a complete and utter failure and New Zealanders are paying for it. They're paying for it at the pump they're paying for it in interest rates and they're going to pay for it with their jobs. And it's a shame that New Zealanders had to be taken down that road again because people used arguments around the environment and such like to try to position themselves for their real ambition which is what this bill does: that Government will deliver Government will solve your issues and Government is the answer. It doesn't work all the time—and in public transport it certainly doesn't work all the time—and this is a great example.If it did work where's that beautiful bridge for people to walk and cycle across the Auckland harbour? Where's that beautiful rail network that was going to go in which hasn't even got off the ground? Where's the effectiveness of the transport Ministers? And why on their last days do they have to go out and promise a whole lot of roading projects that they cancelled six years ago because of their agenda and their failed view and experiment for New Zealand? Thank you Mr Speaker."