Little Andrew: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9766. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): For the avoidance of any doubt for my friend Mr Auchinvole across the aisle there Labour will be opposing this bill the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. It is a bad bill. It will do nothing for transport. This bill is a bit of a curate’s egg. There are actually some good bits in it but the rest of it isrotten and stinks. We are opposed to it and we will not swallow this bill. In reference to Denis O’Rourke and Iain Lees-Galloway this is a bill that does give you the dry horrors even just thinking about it. It does get us pretty choked up.I raise a question: what is this bill going to do for State Highway 3 in north Taranaki? David Bennett will know that State Highway 3 is the only northern link to Waikato. There are a lot of Hamiltonians who when they need a break from that thriving city that exciting city come down the coast down State Highway 3 to enjoy the delights of Taranaki—the mountain the surf; the things you do not get in the Waikato. When you get sick of green paddocks and the flush of milk you come down to Taranaki because you get the flush of milk and the green paddocks but you get the surf and you get the mountain as well. That is why a lot of Hamiltonians come down here. There are two very notable roads in Taranaki. The other is the Forgotten World Highway which some people mistake for the pathway to the National Party research office or sometimes Aaron Gilmore’s office. But it is not the Forgotten World Highway that we have to worry about because the residents on that highway quite like the way it is. That goes not quite all the way to Waikato; it heads off towards the other mountain.State Highway 3 is a very important road to Taranaki and it has never featured on the list of roads of national significance under this Government in spite of the fact that it carries every day literally tens of millions of dollars’ worth of valuable product. It is a lifeline to Taranaki—it is a lifeline to Taranaki. Most of the heavy lorries that supply the supermarkets and the shops have to go through State Highway 3 in north Taranaki. Many of the trucks laden with Taranaki gold the crude oil that is pulled out of the ground in the safe extractive industries that are occupied there have to go on State Highway 3. You would think given that in that region there are no fewer than three National Party MPs—none of whom sit in the full Cabinet; the real Cabinet—that the Government might actually listen to what those members have to say. But no it does not. Never a word has been spoken about State Highway 3. The only concession given by this Government is to spend $15 million on 30 metres of road which is a bridge just out of New Plymouth. The remaining 100 kilometres between New Plymouth and Piopio were ignored by this Government until I actually raised this issue of State Highway 3 recently and Jonathan Young has talked about but since.Let me tell you about that road. It is a dangerous road. There are heavy lorries going on it and they have to negotiate poor paving and poor bridge abutments. It is very dangerous if you are a truck driver that is why we have very skilled truck drivers in Taranaki. It is very poor quality. Then they have got the Awakino gorge which has been a point of debate for frankly decades. There would not be a year goes by when that piece of road is not closed for several hours because of an accident as it was only a month or so ago. Then there is Mount Messenger—another very dangerous piece of road. Millions of dollars have been spent on repaving trying to get it upgraded and expanding the tunnels that are up there but that does not improve the productivity of the roading. You would think that a Government concerned about productivity and good quality roads and not wanting to make political gestures all the time would look closely at that road. This Government has not done that.There is nothing in this bill—nothing in this bill—that will shift this Government away from its highly dodgy benefit-cost analyses on its roads of national significance to have a look properly and in a considered way at roads that are of value to significant communities. Taranaki punches well above its weight in the contributions that it makes to the national coffers through taxes on income GST and royalties on those goods extracted out of the ground. Taranaki pays an enormous amount and it is not too much to ask for a decent long-term plan on the upgrade of State Highway 3. It is long overdue and we have the means to do it.One of the dangers of this bill of course is that we hand everything over to the New Zealand Transport Agency. This was the agency that only 2 years ago made an accounting error to the tune of $182 million—$182 million—and we want to give it the responsibility for oversight of this relaxation on tolling making it easier to introduce toll roads and for the introduction of a much less wholesome consideration of what is needed for our roads. It now wants to reduce that to criteria that focus on effectiveness efficiency and safety—never mind the cost to the public. The old wording which required a much broader consideration when it came to roading decisions is much more important. It requires that there be consideration of integration of not just roading transport but public transport and other modes of transport as well. That is all gone under this bill. That is wrong—that is wrong.Provincial centres like New Plymouth which some might describe in terms of “isolated” cities which really have only one road in from the south and one road in from the north are dependent on quality decisions being made under legislation like this and by agencies like the New Zealand Transport Agency. But nothing in this bill will improve the considerations and the quality of decision making when it comes to Taranaki roads. State Highway 3 south of New Plymouth has a highly problematic stretch at what is called the Normanby bridge. That is a 30-metre bridge as well but it happens to be on a dog-leg and it is the cause of many many accidents and many fatalities with another fatality—just another fatality—only earlier this year. Yet the Taranaki Regional Council cannot get this Government to understand that real funding is needed to correct that problem. That roading and the structure of that roading would be an easy problem to correct but it cannot get funding for it. Indeed the Taranaki Regional Council ended up having to challenge the New Zealand Transport Agency when it said: “Choose between your Waiwhakaiho bridge and your Normanby bridge.” Taranaki Regional Council said: “No we’re sick of having to choose between two difficult projects.”Of course what the Taranaki Regional Council could not also say was: “But we’ve also got just as much of a problem with State Highway 3 north.” That problem remains. There is only one MP in this House advocating the case for State Highway 3. It does not have to be a four-lane motorway into Waikato; it just needs to be a proper decent safe road rather than what is presently a very dangerous stretch of road. There is only one MP making that case and that is the list MP based in New Plymouth and that is me. The Government MPs in that area show no interest in standing up to the senior members of their caucus their members in Cabinet to say: “We need to fix this problem for the good of Taranaki.” The Government members will happily turn up to the opening of the peaker plants the new drilling rigs and all that sort of stuff but when it comes to infrastructure for Taranaki they turn a blind eye and they have nothing to say. Thank goodness for the list MP based in New Plymouth who is prepared to take on the hard issues and make the case.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.