Newman Muriel: Land Transport Management Bill — Third Reading 
Newman Muriel: Land Transport Management Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:9811] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak in the third reading of this bill. Our party has opposed this bill all along. What is really sad about this bill is that so many New Zealanders who sit in traffic every single day—it is 5 minutes to 4 and there will be a lot of them sitting there right now—have been really hoping that this Government legislation will solve their transport problems. Will this bill do that? No it will not. Absolutely not! This Government has raised expectations it has promised some real solutions and again it will be failing the people of New Zealand. 
Something like $2 billion a year is collected in petrol tax and road-user charges. Most motorists out there most people using the roads think most of that money should go back into improving our roading infrastructure. That is just common sense. We know that over the years most Governments have not put all of that money back into infrastructure; they have put only a proportion of it. Parties like ours say the whole lot should go back there because we have a lot of catching up to do around New Zealand. But the worst thing about this bill is that it is taking the bit of money that does go into roading and it is putting a lot of it into walkways pathways ferries barges buses railways—just name it it gets it. The amount of money that is left over is what will go into roads. It will be diminished. It will be less. 
The point about this bill is it will not add one more kilometre to our motorway roading network. [ 
Interruption 
] Whatever that Minister says who is sitting in the chair there he is telling—I cannot say “lies” can I? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: No I cannot say “lies”. He is not telling the truth. Can I say that? 
Hon Paul Swain 
: No. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: He is misleading New Zealanders— 
Hon Opposition Member 
: Telling fairytales. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: —telling fairytales. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The word “misleading” is beyond the pale too. I ask that that word not be used. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: “Fairytales”? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is OK; it is not OK only if it is “deliberately misleading”. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: So “fairytales” we agree was a good word to use! He is giving promises to people that the Government will not uphold. This bill will not solve the congestion problems. It has been estimated that congestion in New Zealand is costing our economy $4 billion a year. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: The Employers and Manufacturers Association made that up. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Well you take that up with them Mr Gosche. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: First I say to members on the cross benches that under Speaker’s ruling 53/4 they cannot interject because it muffles the microphone. Secondly would the member please not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: It has been estimated that the cost of congestion is some $4 billion a year. It is worked out on the fact that in Auckland alone 566000 people who work every day get stuck in traffic for more than an hour. Mr Speaker I say to you and to members opposite that New Zealand cannot afford that sort of loss of productivity. For goodness’ sake! This country is slowly slipping down the economic ladder. We are No. 21 in the OECD and we are about to go down to No. 22. We should be up with Australia. Many New Zealanders hoped this bill would solve the congestion problems in this country would increase our productivity and would allow us as a country to earn more and start to catch up with the rest of the world. It is full of hollow promises. That is a shame. 
This bill exposes this Government which spent so much of its first term in office trying to pretend how pro-business it is as being a totally anti-business Government. If it were not it would know that the No. 1 thing it must do as a Government is to make sure its infrastructure allows its people to get out there to work to make profits and to build up this economy and the wealth of this country. It has totally failed in that regard. 
When I look at this bill I see a bill that Government members have basically sold out to the Greens. [ 
Interruption 
] If the member who is interjecting had been present for the Committee stage of this bill he would know that although I am not on the select committee I did make many contributions during the Committee stage. 
I would like to raise a particular issue that I have spent a lot of time on—and that former Minister knows that—and that is the Albany to Puhoi realignment which is the northern motorway between Orewa and Puhoi. It is an absolute disgrace that the Government has the major motorway in New Zealand stopping dead in the middle of a paddock. That road then winds its way through a residential area before it hits back on to State Highway 1. That project was started in the early 1990s. The Environment Court held it up for 6 long years. The consents for that last piece of roading—7 kilometres—came through earlier this year. The Government previously had always said that the moment those consents came through it would make the completion of that road a No. 1 priority so that it was finished before more problems arose due to the consents lapsing and having to be reapplied for and so on. The consents came through this year in about April. Transfund New Zealand had $225 million in its bank account that was not going to be used because of the way it has to forecast its demand funding. The project was going to cost about $150 million. Instead of Transfund calling for tenders to get on with finishing that piece of State Highway 1 what happened? This Government through its mates on Transit and Transfund—its cronies; members should remember it is all done by ministerial appointment—decided to drop the priority of that section of road from No. 1 down to No. 6 No. 10 or whatever. 
The Government says this bill will be the way to solve that problem. According to the professionals who have looked at the private-public partnership provisions in this bill to allow tolling this bill is completely useless. If anybody even thinks about entering into that sort of relationship he or she will suddenly realise that it will not work. The investment money will not come in to allow the Government in partnership to finish that road unless the Minister instructs Transit and Transfund—the Minister can say he cannot do that but of course he can because of all his mates there—actually to make it the No. 1 priority. It is so damaging to New Zealand. The cost to the economy of our not completing that motorway has been estimated at $1 million every single week. On current predictions it will be at least 15 to 20 years before people can actually finish their journey on State Highway 1 without having to stop in a paddock then go through a residential area. 
This bill is a disgrace. That Minister and this Government have promised so much; they have promised that it will help to lift New Zealand and to get all the road problems out of the way but they will deliver absolutely nothing except a lot of kudos if one likes to the Green members who can go out there and skite about how they have now provided walkways cycle tracks and all the rest of it. This bill is an utter disgrace and I can say that the ACT party has opposed it from the beginning. It should be sent back to a select committee so that some proper work can be done on it and a proper bill put forward.