Beaumont Carol: Climate Change (Transport Funding) Bill — First Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Climate Change (Transport Funding) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4848] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Climate Change (Transport Funding) Bill and its referral to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. This bill put forward by Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons focuses attention on important issues of transport that are crucial to our people and our economy. We need to look not only at the implications of moving people and freight but also at the implications that transport has for economic and social development. We also need to look at the implications for quality of life in our cities and the implications of transport for our environment. This bill specifically seeks to ensure that a greater proportion of the National Land Transport Fund is spent on transport modes other than the private motor vehicle. It also aims to identify the responsibility of the Minister of Transport in ensuring that transport decisions meet the principles of the Land Transport Management Act. Objectives include safety sustainability integration and responsiveness to local needs. It is important that the Minister undertakes those responsibilities. 
The previous Labour Government understood the importance of balance in the area of transport. We recognised the importance of roads and we put in place significant funding after a period of extremely limited funding by the previous National Government. We should compare the efforts of the current National Government with the previous Labour one. National talks about $10.7 billion over 10 years being invested in State highways whereas in Budget 2006 Labour announced a 5-year $13.4 billion spending project in New Zealand’s largest ever roading programme. Labour however recognised the importance of a motimodal— 
Paul Quinn 
: Multimodal. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
:—multimodal programme of transport involving roads public transport sea freight and rail I say to Mr Quinn. That programme involved roads public transport sea freight and rail. This approach is fundamental. The extra funding going into roads to reduce congestion and improve safety over time is effective only if we also find alternatives. To do otherwise means that inevitably those roads reach capacity and we are back to where we started. This is a model that we can see in Auckland time and again. In fact Auckland is often used as a case study of worst practice in transport management. Significant road building alongside comprehensive plans for public transport was what Labour had in place for Auckland. 
But recently that comprehensive plan for public transport was put at risk by the National Government. Subsequently a number of announcements were made seeking to reassure Aucklanders but those announcements were incomplete and potentially pushed the burden back on to Auckland ratepayers. I ask members to also consider the issues of funding for public transport over the next 3 years. The Government is looking to reduce public transport services by $85 million. It is also looking to reduce public transport infrastructure by $250 million and walking and cycling facilities by $15 million. These will mainly affect people in Auckland. So much for the Government’s super-city plan! How can it grow without effective transport? 
The Minister of Transport does not seem to get it. He continues to refer to the figure of 85 percent of Aucklanders using motor vehicles to get to work each day as the justification for greater emphasis on spending on roads. He fails to understand that if there is not a viable alternative of affordable accessible regular reliable transport going to the right places then people have no choice but to continue to use motor vehicles. We have one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world and that will not change until we have real choice. People are willing to use public transport—and they will—as any of us who have lived in cities with decent public transport will know. I back up Kennedy Graham by saying that clearly there are different options based on scale size and density of population. But public transport does not just work in large cities—look at Wellington. In Auckland we know that people want better public transport. Whenever public transport improvements have been made such as the Northern Busway the use of public transport rises sharply. 
Many important issues have been raised in this bill and I look forward to it being referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee where we can put further effort into discussing these issues.