Williamson Maurice: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9696] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I want to cover this part that relates to the administrative provisions for Transfund and Transit. Firstly I want to claim credit in this Committee for being the Minister who created the beasts Transfund and Transit and separated them. When I became the Minister of Transport there was what I think was a grubby conflict of interest within Transit. Because it was both the funder and the provider of roads there were some quite perverse incentives for it to fund its own little operation at the expense of others. 
However I say to the Minister how disappointed I am that this legislation has not moved us forward and given Transfund a whole tool-box full of the funding tools that are so desperately needed and that are just taken for granted elsewhere. I was staggered to hear Peter Brown the New Zealand First member say how opposed to tolls he was. I ask that member to just reflect. Can he tell me a civilised Western World jurisdiction that we would like to be comparable with that does not have toll roads? That is the question. Some of the most left-leaning Governments in Europe have toll roads. Schroeder has toll roads in Germany and he is from the left. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Denmark. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes that is right. I know that right-wing countries like say the United States—which we obviously like to compare ourselves with in some way—has toll roads and Canada has toll roads. Tony Blair that Labour Prime Minister in Britain—I was going to say ever-popular but that is not quite the case any more—has toll roads. 
John Key 
: China. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: My colleague John Key interjects with the best interjection of all. The People’s Republic of China—the communists the reds under the bed—probably has more toll roads as a percentage of its network than anywhere else. I ask Mr Brown how he thinks the old blunt instrument of the flat petrol tax can continue when things like demand management will be an essential part of any formula in the future. How would he try to stem peak demand at peak times? 
I say to the Minister that I hope he looked at an example that I looked at in California—in fact it was present in more states than just California; it was also in some of the other west coast states—where some of the trucking companies were being allowed to have global positioning systems on their trucks and to pay time of day day of week and location rates. That would mean that if the trucking companies stayed away from the “Spaghetti Junction” that we have in Auckland during the peak time they would get a discount and if they did their goods delivery at 3 a.m. in Penrose rather than at 3 p.m. they would get a discount. I think the flat universal hubodometer-type charging that we have for the big trucks is a nonsense. 
When I first saw this bill come to Parliament I thought that it was weak and now that the Greens have nobbled it further it is even weaker. It is actually puerile. If the Minister wanted to get the roading system working he should have taken up the offer that the National Party made that we would make up the numbers needed to provide the Government with the tool-box that Mayor Banks the employers and manufacturers and so many other sectors have said is desperately needed. I see that Simon Carlaw quotes from Business New Zealand. There is a whole range of others also saying that. It is just not possible to go into the future using some sort of a communist socialist flat-earth thinking whereby we will all pay the same no matter what. I think one of the most bizarre proxies for our road use and charging—and it has not been addressed in this part—is rates. What on earth does the value of one’s property have to do with what one should pay for the roads? 
I would have loved to see something in this bill that moved us out of that flat-earth thinking moved us out of rates and moved us out of the petrol tax to some extent—although I understand that petrol tax will always be a reasonably flat proxy—and put in place some proper systems whereby Transfund could start some electronic road pricing. Maybe it would not be for ordinary cars to start with; I do not think most New Zealanders are quite ready for their car to have electronic road pricing. Yet they only have to flick over to Melbourne or to New South Wales and they think it is great there. So it is not that far away. We are not talking of nations that are so bizarre. Electronic road pricing is just across the pond and it will come to New Zealand. But what about electronic road pricing for our commercial vehicles? There is none of that in this part.