Williamson Maurice: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16894] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I will start with a very generalised call on Part 1 and make it clear— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: One of four speeches. [ 
Interruption 
]  
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but all members should be seated or leaving showing courtesy to the speaker on his feet. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: A little delicate flower like me gets offended by that sort of behaviour. I make it clear in my first call—one of four calls as my good colleague Wayne Mapp said—that the Government has made a complete foul-up of this legislation. Had it done most of what was in the bill the Opposition—the National Party for sure—would have supported it. The bill was reasonably technical. It was about realigning some of the transport structures about bringing policy back into the ministry and about saying to people like those at the Land Transport Safety Authority: “You stick to operational things. Places where the Minister has a little bit more direct control over it like the ministry are where we’ll do policy.” However the vast bulk of people who made submissions on this bill—I have a copy of all the submissions that were made to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and will refer to them as the debate unwinds—had one serious reservation which I would be very keen for the Minister to try to explain. The reason the National Party will oppose this legislation centres simply on that one issue.  
 Let us look at some organisations some of which I think are pretty respectable pretty decent and pretty sensible: the Bus and Coach Association (New Zealand) Inc.; the New Zealand Marine Transport Association; the Rental Vehicle Association of New Zealand just to name some that put together a joint submission; and the Road Transport Forum headed by Tony Friedlander who usually makes sensible and constructive comments about legislation and what it could do. If we look at what those organisations have to say we see that in general they all refer to the nebulous concept “sustainable” which is now being introduced into our transport legislation as being an undefined term that no one knows the meaning of. But the one term in the past that everyone could hang their hat on and feel comfortable about was a measurable term—one where we could actually stick some numbers in. There would often be debate about how money numbers went on to the plus side and on to the minus side when working out a cost-benefit analysis but whenever a proposal was put up either by a Minister or by a Government the one thing we could say on transport legislation was: “This will proceed only if it has got safety at reasonable cost.”  
I cannot understand why any political regime—whether the extreme left the extreme right or anywhere in the middle—would not want that to be the test. If we do not make that the test then safety at any cost would mean we could do anything that is wild and madness beyond belief. The current Minister may not do that and the Minister who follows him may not but who knows about the future? When this legislation is on the books we may have a coalition Government in Parliament that has some sort of lunatic-fringe Minister saying: “I’m going to make everybody walk rather than drive cars because it will increase road safety.”—and it would; it would meet the first test which is safety. 
Hon Annette King 
: And obesity. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes. The Minister of Health has a big smile. If everyone walked it would fix a problem in her portfolio as well. If we put in the second part of the condition “at reasonable cost” it would mean that the entire economy would collapse. The entire nation would not function. However if we remove that test a Minister would be able to go ahead and put in such a ludicrous example. I know I am testing Parliament by taking an extreme example but there could be something that is not quite so extreme where the costs are substantially more than the benefits. So the historical thing we have had in transport legislation has always been that test: safety but at reasonable cost. One measures what it costs to do the particular initiative proposed measures what the benefits from it will be and as long as the benefits are more than the costs one goes ahead with it.  
I simply have not had an answer either through the select committee process or through the first and second reading debates in this House and I will be looking to the Minister to give this Committee a realistic answer as to why the Government has removed that almost multipartisan sensible agreed almost guideline guarantee for the public. If there are things to be done in the future in the area of road safety maritime safety civil aviation safety and so on all of which are important why on earth would we as parliamentarians in passing legislation want to remove that one guideline? So I finish as I started by pointing out that we would have supported nearly everything else in this bill had it not been for that one issue.