Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9740] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The schedules and in particular schedule 1AAB import into the bill the consultation provisions that were developed last year for the Local Government Act. As many of the agencies making decisions under this legislation will already be subject to the Local Government Act this bill does not actually add any further obligations to their existing ones but it clarifies that the obligations in the Local Government Act that they are already under should also be used in their transport decision-making processes and it clarifies how they should be used. The provisions also apply of course to Transfund and Transit and that is new. 
What is different about these consultation principles is that they set out that consultation should take place early. It should take place while options are being considered and it should encourage people to have a say at that point rather than waiting until all the engineering work has been done and everything has finished before the consultation takes place. When that occurs if the community does not like the project it is told that that is too bad because it is too late to change the project. That is what tends to create all the hostility and the delays at the end of projects now. It has been the origin of a lot of discord and a lot of contention over consents. I am quite convinced that consulting earlier on the options will lead to a much smoother progressing of new transport projects. 
I want to look particularly at schedule 3 which sets out provisions for regional land transport strategies. Regional land transport strategies of course are already provided for under the Land Transport Act but this legislation amends that Act and provides what those land transport strategies should do. I point out to those members who have been rabbiting on for 2 days about the lack of any economic objectives in this bill about the lack of any requirements for economic efficiency or development or whatever that each regional land transport strategy must take into account how the strategy assists economic development. This is not the only place in the bill that those words occur. There is also an obligation on the Minister to do that when he approves concessions and tolling. If people would just read the bill they would find those words that give them so much comfort about assisting economic development. That is of course the first objective in the New Zealand land transport strategy which was published last year after its development by the Government and the Greens. We are not economic illiterates. The economy is provided for; it is just not the only thing that is provided for in this legislation. 
The land transport strategy has to take into account how it will assist economic development how it will assist safety and personal security and how it improves access and mobility. That is the “effectiveness” that Larry Baldock was talking about in the Chamber yesterday. As he said it is not about efficiency but about moving people around without wasting time. That is effectiveness and that is access and mobility. So that is there in the land transport strategy too. The strategy also takes into account how it protects and promotes public health so that we do not have traffic arrangements that will lead to more likelihood of crashes and more likelihood of air pollution and takes into account how it ensures environmental sustainability. 
Those objectives are then reflected further when we look at the membership of the regional land transport strategies. The regional councils are responsible for those strategies and we see that typically they have co-opted on to the regional land transport committee a whole lot of road users. There is nothing wrong with having road users on the committee but if we have only road providers road users and road funders on the committee then we will not take a balanced approach to the need for public transport to the need for alternatives to roading to the need for rail and so forth. Rather than having people who are representative of particular factions of transport provision we will now have people who represent the various objectives of the regional land transport strategy. So there will be people representing the need for economic development representing safety representing public health representing access and mobility and representing environmental sustainability. They will be able to argue on the committee for those values and to scrutinise the strategy that comes out according to those values. They are guardians if one likes of those five objectives. I think that is likely over time to lead to better transport planning at the regional level.