Hughes Darren: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
Hughes Darren: Infrastructure Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12513] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 I will make just a very brief contribution to finish off the points that Labour members have made on Part 2 of the Infrastructure Bill. My comments are in relation to clause 38 of the bill in Part 2 the amendments that we are making tonight to the Railways Act 2005. The next part that we are moving on to concerns matters about rail as well which we are very keen to explore in the Committee of the whole House this evening. It is an example where common sense has prevailed with respect to the definition of those who were captured by the provision of this clause. The bill as it was originally introduced to the House by the Minister for Infrastructure required that all licensed access providers had to publish criteria for access to their corridors on a publicly available website. If we go to clause 38 of the bill we see that it sets out there how it was originally worded: “Every licensed access provider and every railway premises owner … must…” and on it goes in new subsection (1A). But that has since been altered by the select committee. The recommendation of the select committee was picked up by the Government in quite a helpful way so that the Minister will declare by notice in the  
Gazette 
 which of those railway premises owners or licensed access providers are required to be the ones who publish their criteria for access on a publicly available website. That is pretty important. 
As the select committee report notes there are 80 such rail providers. They range in size from very small voluntary organisations that we all have in our community right through to some of those industrial rail operators and then to KiwiRail itself or the New Zealand Railways Corporation as it is known from a legislative point of view. What probably surprises me most about that is that there are only 80 of them. In New Zealand there are a lot of railway enthusiasts who take their great love of trains and of rail to try to provide in their own communities some form of service or tourist attraction or even fun rides for children either on a regular weekend basis or for fairs fetes galas and so on and so forth like that. 
Moana Mackey 
: Fete? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: The member says “Fete?” but at St Josephs School in Levin our gala was called a fete and that is a very good thing to know. It is a very cosmopolitan primary school. At St Josephs in Levin we had our own fete—very European. That was before they were popular; this was before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We were really quite avant-garde at St Josephs School in that respect. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Great fashions at country prices. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: They certainly do. So we have limited that right down so that it will be only the big players who will be required to do that. I think that is important. I had an opportunity during the parliamentary recess to visit Kawakawa with my colleague Kelvin Davis the Labour spokesperson for tourism who took me to see the— 
Paul Quinn 
: Looking for a new electorate? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Paul Quinn should be the last member of Parliament to talk about looking for new electorates. That man would be defeated in any seat he stood in. They could put him up in a blue ribbon seat—he would lose Taranaki - King Country! There would be a socialist flag elected to the Taranaki - King Country seat if Paul Quinn were the National Party candidate there. There is a reason why there is a big whip-round amongst National MPs and Labour MPs to ensure that he stands against Trevor Mallard in Hutt South and it is that at least there is a bit of a laugh involved in that. There are so many times when that man should resist the temptation to speak out loud but probably in that sense all I am doing is echoing generations of schoolteachers who wrote that in his school reports. I suspect he was a bit too busy with the candyfloss at the fete in that respect. 
Kelvin Davis took me to see the vintage railway people there at Kawakawa who are trying to develop a jigger service to go through the town. They are having some difficulties getting that past KiwiRail and the New Zealand Transport Agency but it was a reminder to me that there are many local groups who access parts of the rail network that are still able to be used but no longer have either commercial passenger or freight services running on them. It would be preposterous for the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway Trust to have to publish on a publicly available website the criteria for accessing their piece of rail so I support that provision in the bill. I think that is a good idea and I am sure Bill English was responsible for it. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 115 in the name of the Hon Bill English to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to.