Baldock Larry: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Baldock Larry: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9669] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to address some comments to Part 1 particularly the purpose clause and to make some reference to the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 153 and 158 which I have on the Table. The first amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 153 does address the issue of efficiency in subclause (1) of the purpose clause. Based on the comments made in the speech given by the Hon Roger Sowry I look forward to National’s support for that amendment. I can tell Mr Sowry that he need not bother writing his own amendment as he is recommending exactly the same things that I have put in my amendment. We do need to see efficiency mentioned in the bill and I welcome the Minister’s reference in his speech earlier to what he has adopted in Supplementary Order Paper 165 in his name. That is the second Supplementary Order Paper on the Table and it omits the word “cost-effective” and substitutes the words “allocated in an efficient and effective manner”. 
When we went through the submissions—and I admit I did not get to hear them all because the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee meets at the same time as the Local Government and Environment Committee—we heard that many many people were crying out for efficiency to be put into this bill and we have taken that very very seriously. We will be glad for the amendments that are passed during the Committee stage. Even though the ACT member has called them crumbs we in United Future are happy to make any amendments we can to the legislation in order to improve it. If we were to look at the crumbs that ACT may have we would see of course that ACT would be very very hungry for some time—very few amendments are ever made through its efforts. 
This bill does take a multimodal approach to transport and as I said in my second reading speech we do support that multimodal approach. But as I also said then the reason we want to see efficiency mentioned in the purpose clause—and also in connection with clause 20(3)(c) which Jeanette Fitzsimons referred to earlier so that it further strengthens the need for efficiency—is that the multimodal approach must be balanced by the requirement for efficiency. We welcome some of the common-sense approaches that are incorporated in this bill and the things that will come out of it. Certainly the walking buses are a great idea. They do help to improve some things but in no way can they solve Auckland’s problems or Tauranga’s problems and that is the problem with the ideology that lies behind the multimodal approach. 
I am astounded to hear Jeanette Fitzsimons say she does not understand what efficiency is and that she cannot define it. I will help her out this afternoon by giving her a definition of what United Future understands efficiency to be and telling her why we want efficiency to be included in this bill. We are not talking about the old cost-benefit ratio where we had to have a person die on a corner of a road in order to get that road fixed. Efficiency relates to the efficient movement of people and goods around a transport system. That is the definition of “efficiency” that United Future has adopted. It means that when people move around this country they can do so in an efficient manner without spending hours and hours sitting in traffic. It means that when producers—the people who work hard to produce the goods that keep our economy going—want to move their products to the market they can also do so in an efficient manner. 
The issue is not about spending money efficiently. After all every Government department should be spending its money wisely and efficiently. But land transport is about having an efficient system— 
Peter Brown 
: What are you talking about? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: That member obviously has not caught on because I have said before that an efficient system is one that moves goods and people around this country in a manner that does not waste time. I will not use the word “efficient” again so he cannot come back at me with that argument but I refer to a system that moves people around without having them waste time. Delays are inefficient. Surely we all understand that. What we want to see in this bill is that if we are to allow for a subsidy for rail or for walking and cycling in order to get people off the roads that subsidy is balanced by the requirement to prove that it will contribute to the overall efficient system that we are developing. The land transport system that we want in this country is one that will be efficient for everybody not just for cyclists or for those who want to walk. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I call Mark Peck.