Gosche Mark: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Gosche Mark: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 July 2008. Volume:648;Page:17051. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It was interesting to listen to the Hon Maurice Williamson. People would never have thought from the questions he was asking that he was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that dealt with this bill. I am sure he was awake. I recall that he questioned people about the single agency having gone on about the fact that he had created seven or eight separate bureaucracies. He is a member of the National Party which has said it would get rid of bureaucracy. When we actually do that National members vote against it. That tells us so much about the National Party. It created seven or eight different sets of bureaucracy in transport; we have pulled that number back to three or four. 
We had very good information from the person who is putting in place the new agency—one Brian Roche. I know that the National Party trusts him because both Governments have used him in very important roles. He was the head of Housing New Zealand when I became the Minister of Housing and we have used him to chair the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. He is being used to put this agency together because he is a very competent gentleman—and so are the people who work with him. 
This is interesting legislation. I think it is one of the most important that I have worked on in the 12 years that I have been in Parliament because it finally addresses regional needs and gives regional government the power to fund regional needs. It gets us away from the issue of people in the South Island asking why they should pay for the creation of new infrastructure in Auckland or people in Waikato asking why they should pay extra for Wellington infrastructure and so on and so forth. It is interesting that National members will vote against it because people in the Bay of Plenty will want to know why National members are voting against their having the ability to finance the $200 million worth of projects that they desperately want done and that will not be done unless there is a regional fuel tax. People in the Wellington region will want to know why National members are voting against the $400 million worth—I think it was—of projects that will not be able to proceed if the regional fuel tax is not available to that region. 
Of course people in Auckland will want to know what the National Party would do to electrify its rail system. The other day I drove from Greenhithe to Mount Wellington. I was almost always on a motorway. I left Greenhithe at 4.30 p.m. and I got home just before 5 o’clock. I was driving on motorways that had been built by this Government; not one bit had been built in the 9 years of the National Government. I drove through “Spaghetti Junction” which was built by this Government. National members opposite who say they are serious about infrastructure development are a joke. They are saying to the people in Auckland that they do not support their having public transport. I was able to make that journey in less than half an hour because Aucklanders are getting on public transport in a way that they have never done before. They are able to do that because we have spent real money on it—significant money. But we know that to meet the ongoing demand—and it is growing by the day—we need to electrify the rail system. 
National members say they will do it by magic. They will not support this bill; they will have some other way of funding the electrification. Well we are waiting to hear what that way is. Maurice Williamson is supposed to be the National transport spokesperson and he has yet to say what its policy is to come up with $600 million to electrify the rail system—or whatever the sum might be. Aucklanders are waiting to hear. They want to put in an order for new electric trains and they know that unless this bill is passed they will not be able to do that. They want some certainty about the funding. Will they get it from the National Party? No way. 
Aucklanders and New Zealanders also want to know why the National Party is voting against hypothecation. For years those members have said that it is terrible to take money out of the petrol tax and road-user charges and use it for something else. National members will vote against that. They have to tell people why they will vote against it because it was their big policy at the 2005 election if I recall rightly. They were going to spend all the fuel tax on roads Maurice Williamson said. But now he is going to vote against it. His party is going to vote against it. Why is it going to do that? Is it just to spite somebody on the Government side of the House? Is it just to spite New Zealanders who believe that it is the correct thing to do? Why is the National Party going to vote against hypothecation?