Boscawen John: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Referral of S.O.P. 10 to Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
Boscawen John: Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4) — Referral of S.O.P. 10 to Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
[Volume:653;Page:2177] 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 I had not been planning to take a call in this debate on Supplementary Order Paper 10 in the name of Steven Joyce which is an amendment to the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 4). I can tell members that the ACT Party will be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper but I take this opportunity to comment on the previous speech by Carol Beaumont the Labour member. 
She used her opportunity to speak on this particular Supplementary Order Paper to talk about National’s plans for public transport in Auckland. She said that the Government had gone away from an agreed plan for regional funding. She seemed to be criticising the announcements that Minister Joyce made last week. I say that I totally support—as does the ACT Party—the statements of Mr Joyce. Mr Joyce has given this country categorical assurance that National has identified seven major roads of national significance and is looking to provide funding on a national basis to put those roads through. 
Let us look at public transport. In my speech on this issue just 2 days ago I gave credit to Labour for the money that had been spent on roading in recent years—in the last 3 or 4 years. The Labour Government was a bit slow to get going in 2000 and 2001 but it certainly spent up big time in the last 3 or 4 years. One of the roads it spent up on was the public busway on the North Shore. It is a dedicated two-lane road for buses to run from Albany to Northcote and then to merge with the Northern Motorway across the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The road was originally designed to take high-occupancy vehicles—two or three people travelling in a car—thereby encouraging people to car pool but it is not being used to its full purpose. Why is that? The reason is that there is a bottleneck. The road is used only by buses which come along every 2 or 3 minutes on a dedicated two-lane road that is designed to be used by two or three people travelling in a car. The reason it is not being used to its full potential is that there is a bottleneck at Victoria Park where the road narrows from eight lanes down to four. One of the roads that Mr Joyce has committed to funding is that viaduct over—or tunnel under as it may be—Victoria Park. One of the things he has done is say that this road is of national significance. We will build that road and it will enable the bus lane—the high-occupancy lane the previous Labour Government spent $350 million building—to be used to its full potential. 
I take this opportunity to point out to the member Carol Beaumont that this National Government is proposing many things. It is carrying on and extending the spending on national roads. I remind the member once again that only 8 percent of the New Zealand public use public transport. An overwhelming number of people use the roads and we need to provide more roads and make greater use of buses in order to maximise the use of our public transport system. Thank you.