Mapp Wayne: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14027] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 One of the extraordinary things about this debate is the way that the Green Party goes on about its responsibilities to the environment. I have been informed by a colleague that the car of one of the members of the Green Party—a co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons—failed an emissions test. That is an absolute fact. It is extraordinary that a member of a party that professes real concern for the environment would drive a car that was so polluting that it should not have been on this country’s roads because it was dangerous to the health of citizens. Fewer platitudes from the Greens and more practical action would be appreciated. 
Keith Locke 
: Any evidence for that statement? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: In fact it was supplied by a Minister. One of the very disturbing things about this bill is the—[ 
Interruption 
] I was advised by colleagues; I tell the member to ask his own colleague. One of the disturbing things I heard earlier today was an assertion by the Minister in the chair Chris Carter that this bill would establish a single organisation that would take all the roading responsibilities off the local authorities. The Minister is a member from the Auckland area so one would think he knew the content of the bill. Unfortunately that is not true. Mr Carter who has now returned to the Chamber was wrong when he said that. In fact we have more authorities here; we have another bureaucracy created—not the elimination of bureaucracies but yet more bureaucracies. Now the local authorities will still be dealing with all their local roads and Auckland Regional Holdings and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority will be dealing with regional roads only. Most of their funding will come from Transfund yet neither Transfund nor Transit is included in this bill. So rather than solving the problem the bill is simply adding another layer of bureaucracy. That fundamentally is why National is voting against this bill. 
There is a proper way of dealing with these issues and that is to have an integrated organisation. The Government keeps claiming that this bill provides an integrated organisation. Even the bill itself makes that claim but it is false. It is a false claim. We still have central government with its two major entities plus the ministry; we still have the Auckland Regional Council and the entities created by this bill that come under the Auckland Regional Council; and we still have the local authorities—eight of them as the Minister noted. All of them will be making different decisions about roading in Auckland and all of them will have different funding streams. We have not solved the problem—or more accurately the Government has not solved the problem. That is the reason why National is opposed to this bill. 
We believe that there is a proper approach and Dr Brash spoke about it last month. It is to have a single entity collecting together the local authorities the regional entity and the national entities; to bundle them together in one entity and to give it both the funding and the authority to make decisions. Under the system that the Government proposes we will be waiting and waiting and still not getting solutions. That is why we had to wait for such a long period of time for the northern regional busway. It was the simplest possible project. It goes alongside the motorway. It did not require land acquisition or anything of that nature because the Crown already owned the land. Yet it still took 8 years. The Green Party demanded a review—even though the project was actually to provide public transport—which simply added another year. 
So this system will not fix the problem. There is a better way. National announced that better way last month and that is why this country needs a new Government.