Twyford Phil: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Extension to Queens Wharf Fanzone 
Twyford Phil: Urgent Debates — Rugby World Cup—Extension to Queens Wharf Fanzone 
[Volume:675;Page:21371] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I agree with one or two things in the speech made by the member for Auckland Central—amazingly I do. She is right that some really exciting things are happening in Auckland. But you know what? Most of them were begun by the last Labour Government. The Rugby World Cup was secured by Helen Clark. The Wynyard Quarter revitalisation was begun under the last Labour Government. All of the improvements to the Auckland rail network and transport system—the Northern Busway electrification of the rail network double tracking of the western line new stations at Kingsland and Newmarket and the New Lynn upgrade—were committed to and funded under a Labour Government. Nothing—nothing as my colleague David Shearer has just said—has been added to that list of achievements since Steven Joyce became the Minister of Transport under this Government. 
Nikki Kaye raised the issue of council-controlled organisations so for the benefit of Ms Kaye and Steven Joyce the transport Minister I will explain to them and remind them why three Government departments advised this Government that the Auckland Transport Agency should not be set up as a council-controlled organisation. Treasury the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Transport all advised this Government that the transport agency would be more accountable to the public if it were run as a unit of the Auckland Council but all that Steven Joyce could do in the House today was launch a nasty personal attack on Mike Lee suggesting that he wanted to manage the day-to-day operations of the transport agency. Well no one is suggesting that. The transport agency in Auckland that is corporatised is the only transport organisation that is run by a council or that belongs to a council. It is the only one in New Zealand that is corporatised and this Government imposed that on a reluctant Auckland against the advice of three Government departments which all said that it would be less accountable. 
If there is one issue we have been debating for the last week in this House and if there is one issue that has jumped out of the fiasco that occurred in Auckland on Friday night it is accountability. Day after day in this House since the fiasco on Friday we have seen duck-shoving by this Government and a refusal to stand up and take responsibility for the debacle that occurred on Friday night in Auckland. 
There are many reasons why this Government should be accountable for the fiasco that occurred. We have had John Key standing up and putting his smiling face in front of the camera on dozens and dozens of occasions as he has invited the world to come down to party central a party zone that he personally selected. It is a tiny little strip of land on Auckland’s waterfront that can hold a maximum of 15000 people. But what has he done week after week for the last 2 years? He has been out there exhorting the world of rugby fans to come down to party central. Is it any surprise that 200000 people turned up to his party? No it is not. New Zealanders love a party rugby fans love a party and the Prime Minister has been inviting them down there. 
Because of the Prime Minister’s advocacy for party central the original plan that was put up by the Auckland Council for a number of different fanzones a number of different party zones fell by the wayside as all the attention went on to party central. But where is the Prime Minister now that it has turned to custard? He is nowhere to be seen because you know what? No decent photo opportunities are to be had when train passengers are dangerously scrambling up banks after getting out of railway carriages they had been locked into for the previous couple of hours. That is not the kind of glamorous photo opportunity that this Prime Minister seems to like. 
The Government has been micro-managing this issue; its fingerprints are all over it. Only a couple of weeks ago this Government made the decision—against the advice of Government officials—not to grant a half-day teacher-only day for Auckland schools. If the Government had taken that decision differently 300 buses would have been freed up to run as a reserve fleet in case something went wrong with the travel arrangements last Friday night. But what did this Government do? It rejected that advice. The upshot and consequence of that was that there were no spare buses in Auckland as an emergency fleet when things went wrong with the transport operation. 
This Government made that decision yet day after day we have seen that its Ministers have refused to stand up in this House and be accountable for it. What have they done? They have taken every opportunity to sheet home the blame for what happened last Friday night to the Mayor of Auckland Len Brown. Of all the people in this drama Len Brown has shown a dignified positive and constructive response. He has been willing to take his share of the responsibility for what went wrong on Friday night—unlike this Government. Len Brown’s officials were working with Government officials from last weekend to try to sort out the problem and to work out what needed to be done to make sure another debacle did not occur. From Sunday council officials were working with Government officials to work out what needed to happen. But what did Murray McCully do? Just like Muldoon he called a press conference and issued an edict. He did not even have the common decency to ring Len Brown and tell him what he was doing. Like some little tinpot dictator he pretended to extend martial law over the Auckland waterfront as if he were the big man as if he were taking control and as if he were taking responsibility. But what was he doing? He was simply enacting the same reserve powers under the Rugby World Cup legislation that the council and Government officials were planning to use together in a positive and constructive way. What has Murray McCully done? He has publicly given the elected Mayor of Auckland a slap in the face. 
Well what is it with this Government? What is it with this Government that it cannot work constructively with Auckland? Its relationship ranges from finger-wagging and lecturing to abuse. What did we see 6 months ago? We saw Murray McCully abusing the chair of the Auckland Regional Council on television in the media because he did not have the social skills and the political skills to negotiate some kind of constructive agreement with the elected leadership of Auckland over what was going to happen on Queens Wharf. That is typical of this Government’s relationship with Auckland. Every step along the way the behaviour of this Government has looked like a calculated insult to the people of Auckland. The Government has treated Auckland’s elected leadership with contempt. We saw that the other day when a number of Cabinet Ministers sat down with the Auckland Council to give it feedback on the draft Auckland plan. What did those Ministers say to the Auckland Council? They said: “Oh yes we think your plan’s really good except don’t think that this ridiculous idea of having metropolitan urban limits in a compact city is going to fly—don’t think that is going to fly. We don’t support your idea of a compact city and while you’re at it you can forget this idea of a city rail link because that’s never going to get off the ground while this National Government is in office.” They treated the Auckland Council with contempt like a bunch of hick gangsters blowing into town and pretending that they know best. 
When it comes to Auckland this Government always knows best. We saw that in the super-city process. We saw it with all the discussions about the council-controlled organisations where this Government insisted on corporatising Auckland Council’s operations—75 percent were turned over to the council-controlled organisations. We saw it by the way they rammed the super-city down the throats of Auckland without giving the people of Auckland a say in a referendum. 
David Shearer made the case that this Government has no interest whatsoever in modernising Auckland’s transport system giving it an overhaul and making it a world-class transport system. If there is one thing that we can conclude from the debacle last Friday night it is that Auckland is desperately overdue for a modern world-class transport system. But this Government does not want to pay any attention to that. Every single opinion poll in the last 2 years in Auckland has shown that there is one thing that Aucklanders want to see fixed by the super-city and it is public transport. Yet what is this Minister doing? He is robbing every other piggy bank in the transport budget he is robbing rural roads he is robbing road safety and he is robbing urban public transport to fund his gold-plated “roads of National Party significance”. What did the Minister do when he rocked up to the Auckland Council meeting a couple of weeks ago? He poured cold water on the thing that Aucklanders most want to see: a modernisation of the rail system and construction of the city rail link. 
Friday’s debacle showed that the Auckland public transport system is antiquated and run down. We are using rolling stock that came from Perth 20 years ago. It desperately needs an overhaul. It is time this Government opened its ears and listened to Auckland and learnt to work constructively with Auckland. That is what Aucklanders want to see.