Fitzsimons Jeanette: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6073. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is just 2 years and 10 weeks since the Greens launched detailed proposals to get back the national rail network. In that respect we suggested that New Zealand track should be owned as a partnership between central and local government that there should be no initial debt and that the company should be required only to break even and maintain the network not to make large profits because rail is after all an essential service to all the rest of the economy which depends on it. At the same time as we launched our package the rail unions announced their campaign to take back the tracks. 
For 2 years we have campaigned and constantly talked to the Government about this and have been joined by many other groups in society. We have been joined by the major freight users by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions by the Wellington Regional Council by the Institution of Professional Engineers and by the majority of the public. This is an idea whose time has truly come. At last a deal has been done. We welcome a good deal for the taxpayer and we congratulate the Government on taking a really important step towards a sustainable transport future. 
It is 10 years since probably the most disastrous privatisation in New Zealand’s history. It was driven solely by ideology. 
It was driven by Ruth Richardson’s ideology despite Treasury’s own warnings of the risks that the network would be run-down and there would be more accidents more congestion and more pollution. Treasury urged the Government of 1993 to separate the tracks from the operations as had been done successfully in some other countries but the 1993 Government barged ahead regardless. It is about 10 years since I held a press conference at the Auckland Railway Station along with the local rail unions transport experts and rail users trying to explain to the media why this privatisation was so disastrous and why we must stop it. There was a big campaign in 1993. 
I have to reflect on the role of Fay Richwhite and Co. Ltd at that time in negotiating the sale. It was an adviser for the sale until April 1993 which was 4 months into the sale process and as soon afterwards as July 1993 it took a 40 percent share in Tranz Rail; sharing ownership with Wisconsin Central Transportation. There was supposedly a Chinese wall between the two aspects of its operations—the sort of “Chinese wall” encouraged by the Government of the time. When those investors took over they systematically took capital out of the enterprise restructured it financially until there was not much left. In fact it has been estimated that the three big investors Fay Richwhite and Wisconsin took out $370 million in profits—almost as much as they paid for it—and quit before the consequences of the run-down were apparent to the public. 
What are the consequences of that run-down? These days it is very hard if one is taking photographs to find a logging train to photograph. The logs are on trucks. Logs are no longer transported through the Rimutaka Tunnel; they go over that appalling hill road on logging trucks. That is because Tranz Rail is not interested in carting logs unless its customers own the wagons—unless the customer makes the capital investment and loads the wagons. Tranz Rail is closing sidings. It does not want to shunt and make up trains. The only thing that Tranz Rail seems to want to do is pick up already loaded and packed containers and haul them from one end of the country to the other and let someone else do the rest. 
Tranz Rail has been gradually closing down bits of its business one after the other for years. It has not invested in the tracks. We have buckling tracks all over the country and trains going slower for safety reasons. We have disrupted travel—for example passengers shunted off their holiday rail-trip on to buses. We have threats of closure of the Napier-Gisborne line breaking a vital link in the whole network. We have had five passenger services closed and the future of commuter services is in doubt. 
The Government did have to step in at this stage and we support it for doing so. Indeed it had to step in earlier to secure a commuter service for Auckland but if it had moved on the whole package 2 years ago as we urged it could probably have saved itself $81 million. 
It is really clear from the speeches made in the last few minutes that the National Party has learnt nothing from the events of the last 10 years. Bill English is quite willing to leave the rail system to run down and close. However I do want to pay some tribute to Richard Prebble. I do not very often agree with him but I want to give credit where it is due. I shall quote from his statement made in 1993. “My view is that a country needs a rail system and I don’t subscribe to the pure rational economic theory that the market will secure it if there’s a place for it.” He said: “The real fear of privatisation is that new owners could just want to maximise profits and run the system into the ground.” Well Richard Prebble had a lot of foresight at that time because that is exactly what those owners did. But that was before he moved from being a Labour MP to being an ACT MP and I commend the wisdom of his youth to him now. 
So why does rail matter so much to New Zealand? Why is it different from other industries that simply make products? It matters because transport is a key to economic development. It is a key to social cohesion and done wrongly it can have huge environmental impact. What happens when the rail service shrinks let alone actually closes down? We get far more trucks on the road. That means more congestion in the cities and more crashes throughout the country. It means more time lost in driver frustration and danger on the roads. It means four times the energy use per tonne-kilometre of freight. That is a conservative estimate and it is based on New Zealand statistics not international ones. Therefore that means more greenhouse gases worse air quality and more noise. 
What happens when commuter train services are threatened or closed? We get more cars on the roads—so more congestion more energy use more greenhouse gases worse air quality and more noise. What can we look forward to now? We look forward to $100 million of public investment well spent in fixing up the tracks. We look forward to the ability to run more trains faster over those tracks when they are fixed. We look forward to the rebuilding of services. We look forward to fewer trucks on the road less congestion in cities less air pollution and less danger on country roads. 
We hope rail passenger services will be restarted by a company that actually wants to carry passengers rather than wants to get rid of them. Of course it was not economic to carry on the passenger services that were closed; the company had never promoted them. The company did absolutely nothing to encourage people to use them. Those services were a wonderful tourist asset but they were left to run down and it is no surprise that they were then uneconomic and there was then a reason to close them. It is almost like we have had a company for years now that wanted to do itself out of business. 
We hope the Wellington-Napier systems can be revived; we hope the Auckland Tauranga and Rotorua systems can be revived; we hope the deep-south trip can be revived—all as well-patronised services that will enable New Zealanders to travel without having to take their cars and will enable overseas visitors to see the country from the comfort and convenience of a train. 
The action of the Government in investing in rail—in taking back the track into New Zealand ownership and setting aside money to invest in the track and improve it—is a big step towards the safe responsible integrated and sustainable land transport strategy that the Greens and the Government developed earlier this year. We face the challenge of turning round a planning system that was focused on more cars and trucks going faster and instead developing the sustainable integrated solutions that the 21st century demands. 
We look forward to cleaner air less congestion healthier children who are cycling and walking safely and better local facilities in towns and in the country so that people have less need to travel. We look forward to revitalised rail and re-energised communities and we look forward to real choice.