Swarbrick Chlöe; Parker DavidCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Thank you Madam Chair. Just for the sake of informing officials at the start of my call I will be going to Waiheke. So I was obviously in the last bill just before applauding the Minister in his former role as Minister of Revenue around the work that he'd undertaken. But in this one as Minister of Transport I have got to say he's been dragging the chain on the issue of the Waiheke ferries he may know with the previous Minister of Transport on this issue as well.So just for the public who may not potentially be able to follow this one along at home what we are talking about here is a move away from the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) as put in place by the former National Government—then the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce. This is the sustainable transport framework or something along those lines—the sustainable public transport framework—which will allow for councils finally local authorities to run public transport services themselves as well as a range of other criteria that are outlined in the legislation through regulations. That is the marked change that Simeon Brown was just kind of referring to; the fact that there is no longer this requirement to contract out.So in the PTOM there are still a number of issues with regard to how the Minister previously could prescribe what are called exempt services"; services that are not subjected to—even within that contracted out PTOM framework for there to be services that are for example meeting cost and servicing requirements for public transport. It's typically presumed that public transport services operating within the PTOM are those which are considered integral to the public transport routes by local authorities.We currently have a situation in Tāmaki-makau-rau where we have one outlier amongst routes that are considered integral to the public transport network of that city by the local authority here—by Auckland Transport as the council-controlled organisation for Auckland Council responsible for this—and that is the Waiheke ferry route. That means that the Waiheke ferry route is not subjected to expectations and criteria on servicing and cost. And it has meant that my constituents on Waiheke Island have been subjected to for at least the past decade serious concerns with regard to the level of servicing and the cost of that service provision for them.This has led to Auckland Transport—an organisation not particularly renowned for its advocacy—making it explicitly clear that they need the Government to remove the legacy of that exemption decision made by the former National Government under pretty dubious means I have to say. I did an OIA on this and found approximately 300 pages of advice where officials were making it really clear to the former National Minister not to provide this exemption because it would result in precisely the anomalies that we're now seeing at this point.But my written questions to the Minister have demonstrated that this shift from the PTOM into the sustainable public transport model is going to see those exemptions grandfathered. So we're not going to deal with this issue of this one outlying exempted service which is not even currently required to meet the criteria of the PTOM which the Government itself is saying is not good enough.So my question to the Minister is how much longer is it going to take for him to revoke that exemption which is a simple Order in Council process? I know that only about a month or two ago we finally had the independent contracted report published. And I asked a range of questions to the Minister on that as well. And it transpired that the former Minister had not undertaken any of the recommendations of that independent report that they had received at the end of last year. So I'm just wondering how much more time is necessary. How much longer are my constituents on Waiheke going to have to wait for that exemption to finally be removed? Because Minister the evidence is overwhelming. The report itself made it abundantly clear that there are some very evident things that the Ministry of Transport that Waka Kotahi can do to start to get the ball rolling on this. But to date and as exposed in written questions it doesn't appear like too much has been happening.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Transport): Thank you Madam Chair. The member is correct that the passage of the Act doesn't revoke the exemption and that there would have to be an active decision taken in respect of the exemption to revoke it. I'm not in a position to give the member an answer as to when those decisions will or will not be taken tonight but I will undertake to get back to the member within two weeks with some further information.CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Just in closing this back and forth with the Minister I wanted to thank him for committing to get back to me on that point. There is an outstanding letter with his office that I sent a few months ago on this issue in particular so I'd very much appreciate that before the close of House business. Thank you."