Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I'm very pleased to be able to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and I firstly want to address the very interesting peroration we just had from the previous speaker Chris Bishop which did provide some interesting information about the history of rail in New Zealand and the National Party's position on it at various times. But very few points actually came close to addressing what the concerns of the National Party might actually be with the substance of this bill. The problem is that there are several core fallacies that sit at the heart of the National Party's analysis of rail. As soon as you mention it it's kind of like National Party bingo. David Bennett pops up and says socialism" as soon as you talk about rail. It's just this Pavlovian instinct. And we had another good one from Mr Bishop which was the claim that rail in New Zealand is not viable as a transport mode because it doesn't make a profit—because it doesn't make a profit.Chris Bishop: I didn't say that.MICHAEL WOOD: Mr Bishop should check the Hansard because this was one of the assertions near the very beginning of his speech. And of course the interesting thing about that assertion is that it never gets applied by the National Party to roads. Does anyone have a reasonable expectation that there needs to be a profit made out of the New Zealand roading network? Never. But we always get this fundamental objection to any investment in New Zealand's rail network that doesn't turn a profit as if that somehow undermines its role as a core piece of transport infrastructure in New Zealand.What Mr Bishop also did not address was actually the core purpose of the bill and why the National Party might object to it. At its heart what this bill does is says that in a country like New Zealand—particularly a small country I would argue—it makes sense that we have an integrated transport network that we have a model for planning and funding our transport infrastructure that is actually linked together that allows us to make rational decisions about where the money best goes to get the best transport outcomes. Whether it's around the efficiency of freight decongesting the country environmental impacts—let's actually look at the ability that we have to invest as a country and then make rational decisions about whether that should go into roading solutions or rail solutions or coastal shipping solutions or whatever it is.What is important about that approach is that it shifts the dial on the approach that we have had for so many years in New Zealand where we haven't had a mode-neutral approach but where the investment has just virtually automatically gone to roading. That is one of the reasons—coming to one of the points that Mr Bishop raises he's quite correct when he says that 93 percent of freight in New Zealand currently goes by road. Without doubt road has been and is and will continue to be an incredibly important part of the New Zealand transport infrastructure system and will probably continue to be the dominant mode by which freight is sent around the country. It's a strawman argument; no one is arguing against that. But of course people do make their choices about the infrastructure that they use based on the quality of the infrastructure that is available to them and the fact that we have had decades of rundown and asset stripping of our rail system has in fact made the rail system less efficient and less capable and less of an option for people who might wish to use it.I remember one of my very first select committee annual reviews when I was elected as a member of this House was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in the previous Parliament. I remember the poor bloke the chair of KiwiRail turning up and telling us about the utterly woeful state of the infrastructure that he had to oversee. So we have a freight network in New Zealand in which trains have to slow down to a virtual crawl because they're going over bridges and other pieces of infrastructure that are 100 years old and need a massive amount of investment to actually make them a viable option. So one of the core things that this Government is about is having a mode-neutral approach and about making the investments so that people whether they are looking to send freight around the country whether it is passengers in our cities actually have real transport choices—Chris Bishop: Why don't you pay for it then? MICHAEL WOOD: —and then can make rational choices about the best way to send—"why don't they pay for it?" Well it's exactly the same question with roading of course. Hon Members: Fuel tax! Excise tax! MICHAEL WOOD: The Government makes investments—yes. And this is the point that Mr Bishop forgets about this bill as well: this bill is about rail making user charges and paying into the National Land Transport Fund—that is what this bill does. So the objections of the members opposite that somehow this is about a free ride for rail are utterly spurious because the bill itself says that rail should make a contribution and then as a Government we make rational decisions. That is what they are arguing against—they are arguing against an integrated transport network and a mode-neutral approach to making transport investments. That is the core of it—the National Party's fundamental unhealthy almost screwy sort of love affair with as many big roading projects as possible at the expense of actually making the best transport decisions that are available. Let me make this point as well the point around cross-subsidisation. Under the previous Government in 2016 KiwiRail actually undertook a study that was carried out by Ernst & Young that actually looked at the economic contribution of rail to New Zealand's economy. What the Ernst & Young study revealed was that actually rail delivers $1.6 billion of benefits to the transport system. Chris Bishop: Oh yeah. MICHAEL WOOD: This was a study that Mr Bishop scoffs at that was carried out under the previous Government in 2016 and they suppressed it—$1.6 billion of decongestion benefits that the rail system at that point in 2016 as parlous and rundown as it was delivered to the broader transport system. So those members shouldn't talk about cross-subsidisation unless they are prepared to look at the benefits from rail that actually accrue to the rest of the transport system as well. That goes to the very point about this bill. It is just stupid policymaking to put our transport modes in different buckets and not have an integrated transport planning and funding process. That is all this bill does. What do those members object to about having a transport funding mechanism whereby we say "We're mode-neutral and we make the decisions based on the best investment and the best outcomes for New Zealand's transport network."? It is bizarre that the National Party can't deal with that. This bill is important and at each level it ensures that rail is brought into the transport planning process—in the National Land Transport Fund but also at the regional land transport planning level. Members and people watching this debate may not be aware but we do have a regional land transport planning process whereby territorial and local authorities and local residents can front up to a committee—I think it's about once every three years—that makes decisions that feed into the national land transport planning process about what the important projects might be in each region and I have gone and submitted in Auckland to that effect. This bill will ensure that at that level as well people whether they're in Auckland or Wellington or Christchurch or the regions are able to front up to their regional land transport planning committee and actually talk about the investments that would make a difference in their area. They can advocate for roading projects and they can advocate for rail projects or other transport modes. Again it's actually about having an integrated approach at every level. The story of rail in New Zealand is one of a nation-building piece of infrastructure. You only have to go back to the 1880s and Julius Vogel and his vision for a connected New Zealand in which people and freight could move around. It was an essential part of the building of this country. But then in a period of significant decline and rundown and abuse through the 1980s and 1990s—rail was of course privatised during the 1990s under the National Government of that era—it was shamelessly asset-stripped by foreign corporate raiders. Hundreds of millions of dollars were basically stripped out of that system and taken overseas by fat cats and New Zealand was left with a rail system inherited by the fifth Labour Government that was utterly on its knees. So I pay tribute actually to the Government and particularly Michael Cullen who intervened to make sure that New Zealand had a functional rail system. Without that decision New Zealand's rail network was in absolute dire straits. Since that time we have actually seen a significant renaissance of rail whether it's on the freight front or whether it's in our cities where investment—which mostly commenced under the fifth Labour Government—has delivered massive increases in patronage. Commuter patronage in the Auckland region since 2010 has gone up I think by about four- to fivefold or 400 to 500 percent—absolutely outstanding stuff. This bill which comes out of the Future of Rail report initiated by this Government—and I acknowledge our partners New Zealand First and the Greens who have been right in behind this—is about building a viable future for rail a mode-neutral integrated planning and funding system to deliver the best possible transport network for New Zealanders to get people and freight moving freely around our country. It is bizarre that the National Party opposes those things but not surprising given their bizarre anti-rail bias. But I think that New Zealanders in the cities and the regions all over our country are going to be right behind this excellent piece of legislation and the further renaissance of rail under this Government. Thank you Mr Speaker."