Bennett David: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Bennett David: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18638] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 As we have debated the Public Transport Management Bill some serious issues of process have come up. The Transport and Industrial Relations committee a select committee that had functioned quite well for a number of years had a number of difficulties with regard to the information that was filed in front of it. The way that some parties on that select committee acted in respect of information and of their voting status and the way that the select committee was not given due entitlement to discuss and consider all the issues are really a reflection of what we are seeing from this Government. 
The New Zealand First - Labour Government is a dying Government. This Government is in its last days and it will do anything to pass what it sees as being its legacy for New Zealand. It is a legacy whereby the Government has not actually achieved the goals that the people wanted their Government to achieve. The legacy is built around personal ambition and personal reflection—not about the issues that count for New Zealanders—and it is based not on honesty and truth but on fallacy and the deception of the public through a number of pieces of legislation. 
This bill is another example of such legislation. It is an example of Labour rushing things through saying one thing and doing another thing. It is another example of Labour making an agreement with the commercial players in an industry then changing its mind just at the time that it wants to enact legislation. It is another example of how New Zealand First works with industry and also with the Labour Government when it needs to can do and wishes to. The bill is tainted by both political parties that are together on this bill having changed their tack to the detriment of passengers in the Auckland area especially. 
There is an issue in public transport and there are some major players there that the public need to be aware of. Those players are firstly the passengers themselves who need a public transport system that provides them with alternatives for their transportation. Secondly there are the players in the industry who provide a lot of the transport networks and opportunities. Thirdly there are the regional councils who have a vital role to play in providing some direction to the services. All those parties need to work together and it is the Government’s job to be the glue in between all of them and to provide some solutions. 
The Government had a solution which was agreed to by everyone concerned. But then suddenly Labour decided it had a better idea. Maybe it was influenced by the Greens. Maybe it had to do a deal with them and they tried to get a higher public transport component in the deal which is why option C became a viable option. Then we had another option that sort of came out of the headwind of New Zealand First for some unknown reason. The movement has been away from what had been glued together as an agreement between the main parties and now we see a political debate between the ideals of what the Government wants in terms of total control and what New Zealand First is talking about with regard to the bus industry having its own mandate. 
Let us go back and discuss this issue in a proper way in order to get a common solution that is for the benefit of public transport users in Auckland. Let us go back and look at the solution that was proposed and agreed to by the people involved. That is what the Government needs to do. We do not need to be debating a bill that reflects just one ambition or one desire and does not take into account the reality of what could be found to be a common solution. We face that real dilemma here today and it is to the shame of this Government. This Government is passing legislation without due regard to what it could actually achieve. The Government is trying to pass legislation to give a mandate to its supporters and to try to pay back people who have supported it. New Zealand First and Labour will be known as a Government that tried to pay back its supporters in the last month of its term and they will go down together as parties that have been doing that together. That is a tremendous shame because we believe that there is the option of implementing what the parties agreed upon that we should go back to what everybody had agreed upon as a workable solution and that that could actually provide the options that public transport providers and users wish to see provided. 
When we look at the procedural aspect of what happened in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee we see that a mistake was made. There was not the information provided and the process followed that one would normally expect and the Regulations Review Committee took the very unusual step of writing to our select committee and informing us of that. A special meeting was held about that issue and the process involved left a lot to be desired. I do not blame my chairperson Mr Mark Gosche. He was under instructions I think from higher up in the food chain of the Labour Government. He would have been told that whatever happened it was up to him to get this legislation through. He would have been told not to worry about taking the approach that he would normally engage in to the select committee process. 
Mark Gosche knew that he was not doing the right thing but he had to do it because he was told he had a deadline to meet. He had only 2 weeks of House sitting time left and he needed the bill to be passed before that deadline. There was no reason why Mark Gosche needed to call that meeting so quickly. There was no reason why he would want to push the legislation through but he was told from on high that this bill was one thing Labour wanted to get through in its dying days and that it was his job to beat the process to go above the process and to just do whatever was required so that the legislation before the Committee today would be passed. 
It is a shame when someone uses the political process in that way. Why would people want to use the political process of New Zealand in a manner like that just to fulfil their private ambitions of passing legislation just to pay back their supporters or just to pay back the interests that some parties in the New Zealand First - Labour Government feel they need to? This legislation is not about looking after passengers. Passengers need support and direction; they do not need a Government that just goes to one side of the argument. There are players involved in the decision making on this issue. Those players had together come to a decent solution that was in the best interests of passengers yet the Government has ignored that. The Government has gone beyond that. It has abused the process of the select committee and it has abused the process of this House effectively in doing so. The Government has done that just in order to pass its own legislation. 
Mark Gosche’s career which has had high pinnacles in this House will now be in tatters after he had to use the select committee process in that way. He will not be a happy man—he is better than that and he knows he is. He could have dealt with this legislation in another way: one that actually satisfied all the parties involved. His problem was that he ran out of time; he had only 2 weeks in which to pass this legislation. The Government has run out of time; it has only 2 weeks left. It knows that so it is trying to do all the little quick-fix solutions that it can in its remaining time. It is just a shame to see a career like that of Mark Gosche being abused in this political environment to fast track legislation that needed time to be debated and that needed to go back to the select committee so that we could relook at the issue and come to a full solution that would actually be in the best interests of the public transport users of New Zealand especially those in Auckland. 
Public transport users need that kind of support and they need a Government that will provide solutions listen and be ready to work in the best interests of all the players—not just in the interests of certain political agendas and parties.