Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take this call in this special debate. I want to start first by acknowledging the speakers in this debate. It is good to be a part of a debate that is genuinely cross-partisan in support of a sensible idea. I also want to acknowledge the work of WSP and the Helen Clark Foundation on this excellent report. As an Auckland member who is very interested in congestion charging but is not a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee it was very very helpful to me to appreciate where we're going with ensuring fair conditions are baked into any system that a Government would impose in terms of congestion charging. The Auckland members who have spoken on the Government side were from the west were from the south were from the north and were from the east. It makes sense for Auckland MPs to be directly engaged in these issues which will affect our communities so much. I also want to acknowledge the chair Shanan Halbert for highlighting the priorities that came through from submitters to the inquiry about the need for equity going forward. We need to make this fair and we need to make it work for people in their lives. I will talk a little bit about what this looks like for people at home: what is an example of how congestion charging is going to work for me and make my life better?First there is a little bit of cheek going on in this House about getting at the Government and under our skin on this side for a lack of delivery on this issue which was first floated by Mayor Len Brown in 2011. It was shut down by Steven Joyce very publicly and he put a stop to that idea because it simply wasn't a vote winner. The last Government didn't do it in 2015 and 2016 when it had an opportunity to. It led to the election and a discussion paper and then was able to grow this sense of bipartisan support on both sides of the House only in Opposition. It's clear to me that this Government is taking this idea very seriously because it is a sensible one and it will be a long-term change but it's hard to design a policy that is fair across Auckland that works for our people and that is led by local communities.That's my second point. Let me talk about why the research around the world shows that introducing congestion charging only works in those cities where people really understand it where local people are able to feed in where the Government is actively engaging local people and that means more consultation; that means more co-design than simply waiting for people to feed back in something like an online survey. The Edinburgh and Manchester experiences are good examples of that. In Manchester a third of residents who were surveyed about a congestion charge in their city before it was implemented thought that it was going to apply to their road which was actually outside the boundary. Those two cities are examples of where misinformation took root because the Government and local councils and local people weren't able to have that open dialogue and have the discussion about what was going to work for the city. I think the members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have played an important role in getting out there and talking to our communities and on the Government's side that means really active engagement in Auckland local communities about this issue. And I commend them for their work on that.Now I said I would briefly speak on what congestion charging might mean for someone in South Auckland. Say we had a person who lived in my electorate of Manurewa. He might get up early and get the kids ready for school and then head off to work full time in a factory over in Avondale. It would currently be a very slow drive particularly around Tip Top Corner through Ellerslie and then right through the city. The traffic at the moment is not as bad as what it was pre-COVID-19 but as more people stop working from home there are more cars on the road during that morning commute. It is still taking 40 minutes to get there and then it can take another 45 minutes to get on from there. And as Melissa said Michael doesn't have the other options to go from Manurewa out to Avondale especially if he's a tradie and needs to take his ute and his tools with him. So what does congestion charging mean for him? It means that that will become much easier. It will become much easier to progress through the central city because a congestion charge will mean that people who can take other options will be incentivised to take other options. He doesn't go through the CBD so he doesn't have to pay the charge but he would still get the benefits of having to compete with fewer vehicles on the road. It will save him time. It will mean that he gets home earlier. It will mean that he gets to get home before 7 o'clock at night and put his kids to bed. The difference in that is a real change in people's lives. It will make an important change in South Aucklanders' lives and that's why I support this.Motion agreed to.Report noted.