Tizard Judith: Third Readings 
Tizard Judith: Third Readings 
[Volume:622;Page:17246] 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I am absolutely delighted to take part in this debate on the third reading of the transport bills. I have heard a number of speakers in this House particularly the Hon Maurice Williamson saying that National is not going to support this legislation. I am absolutely astonished at what Mr Williamson says out of one side of his mouth in Auckland and what he then says in this House when he is surrounded by his caucus mates. It is really sad that the National Party has yet again failed completely to grasp the urgency that the whole of New Zealand sees in this transport area. 
Darren Hughes 
: What even Richard Worth? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: No okay not all the National Party members! Dr Worth would not see urgency in anything. But Maurice Williamson has been Minister of Transport and does know what an appalling mess National left this area in. We had Transit which had no plans for major projects in Auckland. We had the Land Transport Safety Authority with very little money to do anything coherently about transport safety. We had Transfund which seemed to be completely transfixed by the idea of legal risk and was trying to stop everyone including local and regional government doing anything in this area. This Government has got this whole sector moving. It has got New Zealand moving. It is particularly focused on the huge cost of transport congestion and transport problems in Auckland. That cost is not only to Aucklanders but to the whole country. 
There have been repeated assertions that Auckland transport problems cause about $1 billion worth of problems for the rest of New Zealand. This legislation is the second part of the Government’s legislative programme. We have put in place for the first time a New Zealand Transport Strategy. That strategy talks for the first time about the level of infrastructure the level of safety and the level of services New Zealand needs not just about what the Government is prepared to dole out to its mates on the basis of political support—like the old system whereby the National Roads Board had roading up to every National Party Cabinet Minister’s farm gate and county chairman’s farm gate and ignored the problems of the rest of the country. 
I am really proud that for the first time in my adult life we are seeing a Government grappling with the whole of New Zealand’s transport priorities to deliver affordable integrated safe responsible and sustainable transport for the whole of New Zealand. 
I congratulate the Greens who have worked very hard on this. I accept that their priorities are not always the same as ours but I absolutely recognise that their concerns are from the heart and that they recognise for example as National and ACT and all the others absolutely refuse to that there are as many people dying as a result of the health effects of transport emissions as there are in transport accidents and incidents. 
So I am absolutely delighted that for the first time we have a New Zealand Transport Strategy. We will have structures within the Ministry of Transport that can deliver good advice and good policy on that area. We will have coherent Crown agencies for transport. I look forward to working with Land Transport New Zealand. It will balance the need for safety which was of course at reasonable cost but “reasonable cost” was dictated by the previous Government—actually Maurice Williamson and Jenny Shipley. In many cases as my colleague the Hon Mark Gosche pointed out they did not put up any money so there were no safety services. That was particularly the case in areas like marine safety such as surf lifesaving and so on where lives can be saved. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Or the coastguards. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Also the coastguards. But there was no safety because there was no funding. 
Land Transport New Zealand will take on the operating responsibilities of the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund and will provide better planning better debate and better delivery in local government; and regional government can expect better understanding of its transport needs and improved responsiveness to them. 
What we had was a wonderful system of regional land transport strategies which should have been bottom-up debates about what the priorities were in every regional area. But what did we have over the 9 years of the previous National Government? We had Auckland going through its fourth and fifth iteration of its regional land transport strategy so we could say that all these projects have been examined they are necessary we know what the priorities are but many other areas—for example through the Horowhenua Rangitikei and Wanganui—have had appalling floods in the last year. We saw that the regional land transport strategies in those areas had two or three roads if we were lucky. The work was not being done because those places had no hope of ever getting better transport systems unless we got the work done in the major cities. 
So I am delighted to see the New Zealand Transport Strategy in place. We are starting to get local and regional government working towards it. We are starting for the first time to get a realistic assessment of what it will cost to provide New Zealand with a good integrated responsive safe affordable sustainable transport system and we are looking at our five priorities for transport. Those priorities are: assisting economic development assisting safety and personal security improving access and mobility protecting and promoting public health and ensuring environmental sustainability. 
This legislation will increase the scope of the Maritime Safety Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority to take account of the Government’s transport strategy. I look forward to seeing both of those organisations working in the public interest rather than just trying to fend off the vested interests which were trying to downgrade safety downgrade investment and downgrade the services that New Zealand industry needs in places like Whangarei Tauranga and the South Island. 
I am absolutely delighted to see this legislation well on its way through the House. I will address very briefly the concerns that the select committee heard from the National Party represented in the transport sector. We saw Tony Friedlander who I have to say is very fair. He always says that he is a National Party bagman: he goes around and does the fund-raising for them. Frankly I wish him well right now given the state of the National Party. But he has been attacking this Government on the idea that somehow or other we should move away from the benefit-cost ratio. This Government sees the benefit-cost ratio as a very useful tool but it is only as good a tool as what one puts into it. So if we place the highest priority on roads that lead to certain people’s farms then that is what we will get. 
Of course we heard the National spokesman on transport Roger Sowry say that his answer to New Zealand’s transport problems would be a six-lane superhighway between Wellington and Auckland. That is going to solve the transport problems of Northland of Southland and of Wellington! It is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder that man is on the way out! We now see that Maurice Williamson has been reincarnated I think for the third time and I dread to think what state he is in having been dead twice in the transport portfolio. But here he is back and he is going to be in charge of the National Party’s interests in Auckland and the rest of the country. Well who is responsible for the mess that the Labour-Alliance Government and the Labour-Progressive Government inherited? Maurice Williamson is responsible. I concede he was ably assisted by Jenny Shipley and Jim Bolger and all of those who went with him but he is the reason we have to deal with this huge backlog of investment planning and organisation.