Coleman Jonathan: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeColeman Jonathan: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9754. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence) on behalf of theMinister of Transport: I moveThat the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the chair and members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for their work. I would also like to thank everyone who took the time to make a submission to the select committee.This Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is part of the Government’s ongoing efforts to cut unnecessary red tape and to create better more effective legislation. The bill will lead to streamlined decision making and less prescriptive planning processes for those in the transport sector. It will allow councils greater flexibility to plan for the needs of their regions. It will ensure both central and local government get better value for money from their investment in public transport.The bill has three main components. First it makes changes to the planning and funding framework of the Land Transport Management Act. This channels around $3 billion of central government funding annually into roading public transport and road safety. Second it will also streamline the framework for assessing toll-road schemes and will simplify the Act’s concession agreement provisions while facilitating roading public-private partnerships.Hon Ruth Dyson: You’ve got the wrong speech. Who’s listening anyway?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You should listen actually as a convicted drunk-driver because they drive on roads as well.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Point of order—I think I know what it is.Hon Trevor Mallard: Mr Deputy Speaker you are not a convicted drunk-driver.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes the member must not bring the Speaker into the debate. Be very careful on the pronouns that you actually use.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Speaking to the point of order—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I have ruled. The member should not bring—Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mrs Dyson is not a convicted drunk-driver—sorry is—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You asked him not to speak to your ruling; he did. At this point he should go. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I will ask the member to stand and withdraw the comments.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I withdraw and apologise.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will now contain himself to do the speech.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Right where were we? The bill has three main components. First it makes changes to the planning and funding framework of the Act. This channels around $3 billion of central government funding annually into roading public transport and road safety. Second it will also streamline the framework for assessing toll-road schemes and simplify the Act’s concession agreement provisions which facilitate roading public-private partnerships. Third it establishes in legislation a new public transport operating model.Submitters were generally supportive of the bill’s intent to simplify the Act’s planning and funding framework. To achieve this the bill will focus the Act’s purpose and decision-making criteria on an effective efficient and safe land transport system in the public interest. This will make the Act simpler clearer and easier to understand.The bill will also simplify central and regional transport planning processes. The bill consolidates the regional land transport strategy and regional land transport programme into a new regional transport planning document the regional land transport plan. It also consolidates the national land transport strategy and theGovernment Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding into a single document theGovernment Policy Statement on Land Transport. The select committee recommended amending the bill’s provisions on the new Government policy statement to give clearer guidance on what might be included in this document.The bill will also do away with the obligation for regional transport committees to include representatives from a list prescribed in legislation. This will give the committees’ elected representatives the right to decide whom they need to hear from.Rules against borrowing will also change. Currently borrowing is allowed in two situations: firstly borrowing that is repaid through the use of toll revenues that are not part of the National Land Transport Fund; secondly borrowing for cash-flow management of the National Land Transport Programme repaid from the National Land Transport Fund. This bill will remove this artificial distinction between borrowing against the fund and other transport revenues. It will do this by allowing borrowing to be used for future projects should there be a good case and should it be prudent to do so. This type of borrowing would be subject to agreement from the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance.Provisions for a regional fuel tax will be repealed. This will guarantee that costs imposed by a regional tax are not spread across all regions. It will also safeguard productive sectors that use fuel for non-transport related reasons from the additional costs of going through a refund system to claim back the tax.The second significant area of change is to tolling schemes and concession agreements. The bill will simplify the process for approving toll-road schemes. A number of existing statutory tests many of which are currently duplicated elsewhere in the Act will be replaced with a single high-level test requiring tolling proposals to be efficient and effective.The bill removes the requirement for toll roads to include at least one method of payment that does not collect personal information. Motorists’ privacy will continue to be safeguarded by the Privacy Act 1993 and the availability of an un-tolled route. The committee recommended that motorists’ privacy is further safeguarded by amending the bill to limit the circumstances in which personal information can be retained by the toll operator. As part of these changes the bill will enable the existing toll road in Tauranga Route K to be brought under the toll-road regime that applies to other toll roads.The bill also simplifies the road leasing policy set out in the Act’s concession agreement provisions reducing potential barriers to the use of public-private partnerships for the purposes of constructing or operating new roads.Finally this bill establishes in legislation a new policy framework for an ongoing partnership between regional councils and public transport operators for planning and contracting public transport known as the Public Transport Operating Model. Almost all submitters on the bill were supportive of this new model.The bill will also repeal the Public Transport Management Act 2008 carrying over relevant provisions into the Land Transport Management Act. The bill will require all public transport services in a region to be segmented into units and provided under exclusive contract to the regional council. Regional councils will be required to identify in their regional public transport plans the units they propose to contract the policies applying to operators of units and any taxi and shuttle services the region intends to financially assist. Services that do not form part of a region’s core urban public transport network will be exempt from operating under contract and will be identified on an exempt services register held by the relevant regional council.The committee recommended amending the bill to insert principles for planning and operating public transport services that will guide decision making. The principles are those that were used in the development of the Public Transport Operating Model and they incorporate the Government’s objectives for public transport services.The committee recommended amending the bill to express more clearly the intended purpose of regional public transport plans and simplify the content requirements for regional public transport plans. The committee also recommended a number of other amendments to ensure existing services and operators are not unduly affected by the transition to the new framework.In closing I would like to once again thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members for their work on the bill. A number of worthwhile refinements have been made. This bill will provide a durable piece of legislation that promotes an effective efficient and safe land transport system. I commend this bill to the House.