SpeechBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in opposition to the Land Transport (Rail) Legislation Bill. Look it's actually a bit of a smoke and mirrors bill in the main. It's got a lot of stuff it talks about which is—some of it good—not actually legislatively necessary all to disguise what the Minister of Transport admitted: that actually at the heart of this the nub of this is the little land transport cookie jar that they can raid when they feel a need to fund rail. Actually Mr Speaker you wouldn't have seen but Madam Speaker before you might have gathered that I appeared a bit late here when the revised speaking list came out this afternoon worried that I might not be able to make it in time to take this call. As things transpired it was so much easier so much easier. But you know that actually of itself is illustrative of the wrong-headed thinking in this and why we shouldn't be pilfering the Land Transport Fund funded out of roading fuel taxes for rail as there I was on the eastern side of the CBD and look surprise surprise there is no way I could have got back here by the rail that this Minister wants to raid from that fund. It took Wellington Combined Taxis. It took the second taxi; for some reason the first one took a look at me and decided to go elsewhere. But the second taxi got me here on time using the road the road funded at least in part because it's a local road—at least half-funded by road-user taxes paid by motorists that this Minister wants to divert away divert away from the network used most often by most people for most journeys and to instead put it somewhere which is used far less often by far less people for far less purposes. That is suboptimal at best. I wouldn't claim it wasn't used at all but compared to the roading network and the demands on that it is used far far less. I do agree with the Minister though that the idea of integrating our planning—transport planning including all modes particularly rail alongside road—is a good idea. In fact it's a fantastic idea. It doesn't need legislation to do it. You don't need legislation for people to talk to each other arrive at a consensus and agree on a way forward. You don't actually need law to permit that. But even if we allowed that perhaps legislating a framework around that might assist in some way; you don't need to take money out of the Land Transport Fund from motorists to achieve that. So all this bill really is about is a funding source for rail that takes money from people that have paid their taxes for the roads they use giving them less to give a service that doesn't appear to be able to wash its own face a bit more money. I'm just going to finish with a comment he made about people that said they want this—Mainfreight for instance. If there were road transport companies that really wanted rail to thrive they would put more of the goods they carry on rail. That would create the profits the retention of which would provide the capital for KiwiRail to have grown. The fact they don't do that shows that it isn't the economic powerhouse that the Minister wants to believe it is. There is a place for rail investment from the consolidated fund Minister. Road users who pay road taxes have an absolute right to expect that those taxes—because as you have said they are hypothecated—will go to maintain and further improve their roading network. This is a bad bill conceived of a bad idea.