Coddington Deborah: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21328] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I would like to address the issue about Transit New Zealand too. Last night I heard the Minister of Transport say that he would love to have a system where there were no police on the side of the road collecting fines and that he would love our country to be one where people did not die on its roads. If he were really sincere about that then his Government would do something about terrible pieces of roads such as State Highway 2 and the road from Pokeno to Tirau—State Highway 27. It is known now that the four-lane passing lanes will not go ahead there. 
We will never get anywhere in this country while we continue down the path of having land transport politicised. It is totally politicised. For instance the president of the Labour Party sits on the board of Transit New Zealand—and what an embarrassment that has turned out to be for the party. Transit New Zealand is just one of Mike Williams’ appointments. He gets $17000 in fees from Transit New Zealand $19000 from the board of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd $21000 a year from the Railways Corporation and $28000 a year from Genesis Energy and he is on the Auckland Regional Transport Authority from which he gets another $25000. That is $107000. And it does not include the secret honorarium he gets for being president of the Labour Party. Not even Nick Venter has been able to find out how much that secret honorarium is. 
When this debate was last raised in the House Mike Williams faxed me and said that the figures I gave were wrong. I think I said the total was something like half a million dollars. His kids all asked for expensive Christmas presents as a result. Well if he gets upset every time someone raises how much he gets from the public purse he should come clean and say how much he gets. But as Jonathan Milne asked in that wonderful new publication the  
Herald on Sunday  
on Sunday what will Labour do now about its president? He went to a meeting 2 weeks ago in the offices of the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance where he embarrassed himself was extremely rude and brought to a halt the negotiations and then he went and leaked it to Brian Rudman of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. 
What was written about that meeting was wrong. What was being written about  
The Way Forward 
 in Auckland was wrong. That is the reason we will never get anything done. 
On 30 June Transfund and Transit New Zealand will be releasing their 10-year programme. There is going to be some serious embarrassment for this Government in that statement. For instance in this country we have roads that have proved to have a good benefit-cost ratio. That means they will deliver a very high rate of return to this country they will enhance economic growth and they will improve people’s lives. But they are not even going to appear on the 10-year programme. Why? Because it is not political. We will see roads in the South Island that do not have a good benefit-cost ratio and the building of which will be very difficult to justify but they will be there. Why? Because it is politically expedient in an election year to have them on the 10-year programme. 
We have Government funding issues. The Government says that everything is all right and that we do not have to worry about it—everything is great. Well it is not specifying starting and completion dates. As the honourable Dr Wayne Mapp pointed out the paper that he tabled which went to every household in Auckland at huge expense— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Frankly can we believe it? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: As Dr Mapp says can we believe it? It is factually incorrect. It was proved at the select committee under questioning that there were incorrect statements in terms of what had and had not been started. I ask whether the Government does want to get serious about fixing the transport system in this country which we predicted 3 years ago would get worse and worse when the Land Transport Management Act was brought in. It brought in a whole lot of other considerations that have to be brought into account when Transit New Zealand and Transfund are considering new roading projects. 
And they are political. They are political to satisfy the Greens they are political to satisfy that vote and they are politicised to ensure that Ministers get back into Parliament when the election comes round again. We are just going back to the future.