Baldock Larry: Transport Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
Baldock Larry: Transport Legislation Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16740] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I inform the House that United Future will support the second reading of the Transport Legislation Bill. It really is one further part in the process of reform and of expediting the development of our land transport system in New Zealand. Although the bill is not to be seen as the silver bullet that will solve all our problems it is an important part of making sure that our transport network—our transport system—functions to the best of its ability without being overburdened by unnecessary bureaucracy and that ultimately we build a network that serves our economy and residents efficiently. 
The bill gives effect to elements of the New Zealand Transport Strategy which is the Government’s transport sector review. The Ministry of Transport will be strengthened in order to take over the policy functions currently being undertaken by the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund. Both the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund are to be abolished. It has been United Future’s policy for some time that the Land Transport Safety Authority be abolished. In fact when Peter Dunne was here in the House on his own as the sole member of the United party he campaigned strongly for the Land Transport Safety Authority to be dissolved. Since that time we have seen an improvement in the authority’s ability to carry out its functions because of new leadership in that organisation. However we still believe that there are too many policy people in the authority and that it will be a wise move to transfer them to the new organisation. A new slimmed-down Crown entity called Land Transport New Zealand will be established to carry out the residual operational functions currently being undertaken by both the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund. 
Several efficiencies will be gained from the restructuring of the Government transport sector—in particular by clarifying that the Ministry of Transport is the lead transport agency. By giving the ministry the necessary policy-making resources the duplications and contradictions caused by having policy functions distributed among more than one agency should be eliminated. Also merging the two current land transport funding programmes—the national transport programme currently administered by Transfund and the safety administration programme currently administered by the Land Transport Safety Authority—will streamline the funding allocations and better align such allocations with the New Zealand Transport Strategy. The bill also resolves a longstanding issue over which agency should have primary responsibility for undertaking search and rescue coordination. Currently the Civil Aviation Authority alone has the legislative authority for that but this bill gives that authority to the Minister of Transport so that integrated coordination can occur between more than one agency. 
The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has done a very fine job on the submission process and has recommended the bill back to the House with some changes most of which are largely technical in nature. When one reads the committee’s report one does get the sense that it was largely unanimous in its deliberations except for the issue surrounding safety at reasonable cost which was mentioned by some of the speakers before me. It is important to see the amendments recommended by the committee in order to strengthen the emphasis on safety in the bill and United Future welcomes that. All New Zealanders I believe want to see travel around New Zealand carried out as safely as possible. Too many New Zealanders still suffer unnecessary tragedies as a result of accidents on our transport network so we are pleased to see that an emphasis is being placed on safety. I believe that that will ultimately move the Minister to be more active in building better roads within New Zealand because only so much can be done to improve safety on our roads by the enforcement of rules and by better driver education without also building better roads. Ultimately it is only when we have First World - standard roads with divided highways and fewer curves bumps hollows and so on that we will be able to travel more safely. One can never prevent someone drunk from getting behind the wheel but he or she will not be able to cross the centre median if a decent amount of concrete or at least a wire barrier is there to stop him or her from hitting oncoming vehicles. So we welcome the strengthening of the emphasis on safety by the select committee. 
We understand the concerns expressed by some submitters particularly those in the transport industry who wanted to see the wording “safety at reasonable cost” held within this new legislation. We know their concerns about how it would perhaps be possible to impose rules upon the transport industry without necessarily doing a decent analysis of how the cost benefit of that would flow on into real safety gains. However on looking at the bill and in particular at the requirement for the Minister and the agencies to consider safety in the light of how any proposed rule will assist economic development I believe it gives assurance or at least some satisfaction that the Government will not be able to run amok with rules without considering their effect on the economic development of our nation and on the economic efficiency of transport organisations operating within it. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: And the rules process itself requires significant consultation with the industry involved. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: That is correct as the Minister has added for my benefit. I thank him. We will not be making that a die-in-the-ditch issue over this legislation. It is understandable that the transport industry being assured by the officials that in fact safety at reasonable cost was contained within the bill then questioned why it just could not see it in the legislation in order to be sure. However things have moved on in our transport legislation. We have now adopted new wording and phrases within it and it is important to keep a consistent theme throughout all the reforms that are taking place within the transport sector. 
We will be happy to support this legislation through its second reading so it will move on to a Committee stage. I believe that all New Zealanders can be encouraged by the progress that has been made in this term of Parliament in many different areas in order to address the needs that New Zealand motorists and the transport industry as a whole have been longing to have addressed over the last couple of decades which are that we would build a better transport network operate safely and efficiently assist economic development and improve access and mobility around the country. 
 A number of speakers have mentioned issues such as buses and the ongoing debate about whether the country needs to build more roads. I will conclude my speech with a few remarks about that because we must not lose sight of the overall goal of dealing with the congestion that is creeping up on us in many areas around the nation. The issue of congestion faces in particular Auckland and other cities like Tauranga and Wellington. The Greens continually harp on and say that the problem can be solved without building more roads. One almost gets sick of hearing that. We all accept the Greens’ point that just building more roads will not address the transport problems. We all accept that a multimodal approach is needed. We all accept that— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Don’t speak for us. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: Except for the ACT party we all accept that there is a place for public transport. Buses do have their place but of course they run on roads. It is clear that we need to improve the roading network that we need to continue to expand our motorway network and that our State highway system does need constant upgrading. United Future is committed to working with the Government to see that accomplished and we consider that this legislation takes us one step further in that direction.