Bennett David: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Bennett David: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:650;Page:18787] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I thank the member from the Maori Party for that last contribution on the Public Transport Management Bill but I think that when people look at public transport they need to look at the reality of the situation we have in New Zealand and the reality of what will happen in the future in transport. Public transport is often seen as having a clean green image and as providing us with the best mechanism to transport people in an environment that is dependent on oil. There is a big news flash for those political parties that believe that and it is that in 5 or 10 years’ time we will not be dependent on oil. The technology is there now. It is just a matter of making it commercially available and that will happen in a very short period of time. The world is moving away from oil and that movement is accelerated by the problems in accessing oil from the Middle East and also by the cost of that product relative to the new technology. 
It will be only a matter of time before people will be looking at roads and cars as providing the most green efficient form of transport we can have because public transport will still be very highly dependent in a lot of cases on fossil fuels. Some public transport will also run on electricity but that public transport will probably be more expensive to run than smaller cars that are run on electricity. So when we look at the public transport debate we see that people need to be realistic about future transport options and that the future is in electric vehicles—especially electric cars which are not far away at all. 
The debate that centres on public transport as offering some kind of universal panacea that will provide our transport solutions in a clean green way is incorrect. The reality is that modern transport mechanisms and scientific advancements will mean that we will see some of the traditional forms of transport actually become the clean green method of transport. I think the public need to be aware of that in this debate because it is something that is lost out there in the community. We have the notion that public transport is the only answer. Well it is not the answer. The answer will come from technology and the technology is here. The commercialisation of that technology is probably a couple of years away but it will happen in a very quick period of time. 
So when we look at this legislation it is important for us to remember that public transport will probably have its biggest effect by reducing congestion in places where there is large-scale transport of people or products. Public transport works best where there are concentrations of people and it will be relied on to move people in a quick and an efficient manner in places where possibly people could not do that through their own ability. When we look for situations like that we see there are probably only a few places in New Zealand where that applies on a population density basis. 
One of those places is Wellington which is served by a very efficient public transport system that has been there for a number of years. Auckland also has a public transport system and as the city develops it is turning into much more of a consolidated urban environment with bigger population densities around the central city and therefore more need for public transport in the central city area unlike the spreading city that we have had in past generations. So we do have a public transport issue in Auckland and it needs to be addressed. Auckland has our biggest population concentration and it will get bigger. There will be issues about congestion and about moving the people of that city around. 
But the bill before us today is not the answer on those issues. The answer is to get a common solution that the parties involved in public transport agree upon. We had an answer like that. The bus companies public transport users Government and regional government came together and came to a concise solution that was workable for all parties. They agreed upon it and expected that agreement to be implemented through legislation passed in this House. But what do we have here? We do not have that agreement. We have a Government-mandated change that the Government believes is a better solution than the one agreed upon by the parties involved. 
The Minister said there was no agreement—that we agreed in principle only—and that through the political process things can change. That is not good enough. What gives the people in this room the ability to change what the professionals the people who know about the business of servicing Auckland’s transport needs have agreed upon? What gives the Government of the day the ability to know better than Aucklanders what they need for their public transport solutions and to know its solution is better than what they have decided on? There is no reason for that. Nobody in this room has the ability to make a better decision than the people of Auckland can make. The people of Auckland made a call and we should have supported that call. We should not be in this room changing it on a whim to something that we think is better. That is what is happening through this legislation because option C is not what the parties agreed upon. 
The Government of the day believes option C is the best solution. It is engaged in making a decision on an ideological basis. It has come to the conclusion that it knows better than the people involved in the industry and it is providing what it thinks is the best solution to this issue. That is simply not good enough. It simply will not work. Adopting option C means that some of the other players in the industry namely the bus companies which New Zealand First has been very staunch to support in recent months will turn. They will say option C will stifle private sector involvement in Auckland transport issues. This bill will stifle innovation. It will stifle any investment that the private sector may have wished to make into addressing Auckland’s public transport issues. 
What will we be left with? We will be left with the Government having made a decision on the basis of what it thinks is best and with a solution that does not involve one of the key components in any viable solution to Auckland public transport issues: the private sector bus companies which have a vital role to play. Theirs is not the only role to be played but it is a vital one. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority also has a vital role to play. It should be encouraged and helped in its process as well. But there needs to be a consensus agreement whereby the two parties through the Government can come together and arrive at a workable solution. This bill does not contain that workable solution. The Government has a mandate to implement what it thinks is best for the people of Auckland but this bill is not what is best for the people of Auckland because it cuts out one of the big players in the process. This decision will come back and bite the Government in a very short period of time because the other player the private sector bus companies will not want this legislation to go through. The companies will see it as being detrimental to their ability to serve Auckland City’s public transport needs. 
That problem now lies with the Government. By making this decision the Government is effectively saying it will take control of public transport in Auckland. If the Government is to take control of public transport in Auckland in that way then it has to fund it. The Government has not put up the money it has not put in the innovation and it does not have the ability to do that. The Government will find that it has lost the opportunity to work with the private sector and has missed out on the innovation and increase in service that the Auckland users of public transport will demand. 
So when we look at this legislation it is important for us to note that we need to have a strong public transport sector and that that may be for reasons other than those that political parties in this House currently see as underlying public transport requirements. Those reasons may be based more on issues of congestion and city development rather than on the use of fossil fuels. But there is a need for a consensus approach when coming to these solutions. We were very fortunate to have reached a consensus in the agreement that went to Cabinet but we are not fulfilling that agreement through this legislation. The Government has got itself into a dilemma now by changing its mind after it had an agreement and not fulfilling the requirements of that agreement. The ultimate losers from that will be public transport users in Auckland.