Ward Mike: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ward Mike: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16926] 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 A great deal of legislation that we pass sets out to sustain the unsustainable and to perpetuate behaviour that has no future. That has been true of most of the transport legislation that has come before this House and of most of the transport initiatives that have been followed in this country for a very long time. This bill I suggest is culture-changing legislation in that it sets out to persuade people to behave in ways that give my children a future and to change the behaviour of waste. It sets out in fact to look at the underlying problems and to address them.  
I have never driven. I have managed to live a reasonable life in spite of not having driven. Part of the reasonableness of my life has been that I have not had to run a car. I have worked fewer hours spent less time in going to places and spent less time in travelling than most people. I find it rather bizarre that in a time when we have never had so many cars and so many roads we have never spent so much time in travelling. One has to say that maybe we have been getting it wrong. I would suggest that this piece of legislation in fact addresses that—getting it wrong—and tries to get it right.  
What sort of a future are we looking for? A future where the streets are safe enough to send our kids out on to a future where we actually have choices about how we get to places and a future where in fact we will be able to climb into our motor cars when we need to because I suggest they are going to be around for a while. This bill does that. This legislation is good culture-shifting legislation. As I said before not much of our legislation is culture-shifting legislation. Most of it sets out to perpetuate unsustainable behaviour. We probably do not have a lot of time to get more of this kind of legislation in front of the House. I think we have an aimlessness and a pointlessness out there that this legislation addresses as well. One cannot have two cars in every garage. May I say that in the Tasman District—a district adjacent to my city of Nelson—67 percent of households last year had two or more cars. I tell members that the cost of those cars is that people are working to earn two or more incomes per family. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That is their choice. 
MIKE WARD 
: This bill does not take away choice; it gives choice—genuine choice. Having umpteen different models of motorcar is not choice. Having a choice between safe cycling safe walkways safe buses regular buses frequent buses and one’s car is choice and this bill sets out to give that kind of choice.  
I mentioned earlier and I have mentioned at times to the Minister that I hope we will have the expertise to make sure that local authorities in providing that choice genuinely consider the needs of the transport disadvantaged in such a way as the rest of us those of us who do climb into cars—and I am one of those these days; it is somebody else’s car and I pay for it but I do climb into cars—but who actually have other choices. May I say I actually still catch the bus from the airport from time to time and it is probably quicker than getting a cab. One might have to wait a little longer for the bus but it gets one here to Parliament just about as quickly as a cab. It goes through the tunnel and misses out on the queues of traffic. That is the kind of future that I think this bill will provide for all New Zealanders. Wellington does that well. In Auckland one sits in queues of traffic that is going nowhere extraordinarily slowly. I fail to understand the good sense of that; I do not see any good sense in it. But Aucklanders do sit there forever in their cars going nowhere.  
So the Greens have much pleasure in supporting this legislation. We believe it is good legislation. We are proud to have been part of forming this legislation and we look forward to seeing it passed.