Williamson Maurice: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14010] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am delighted to be able to get into what I think will be the long long process of the Committee stage of the Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: What were we doing 10 years ago? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Harry Duynhoven thinks that is funny but I am delighted to say that— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: We got a lot of support Maurice. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Actually I do not need much support because we know exactly what we believe on this bill and why we believe that it is wrong. 
Now that the Minister of Local Government Chris Carter is in the chair there are a couple of things I want to start off with. There is so much material that I want to ask about but I guess the first question is this: why did there seem to be such a split within Cabinet when it came time for the announcement of this stuff in December? Dr Michael Cullen the Minister of Finance and Paul Swain the then Minister of Transport issued very positive press statements that mentioned roads and that said we needed better roading more roads in Auckland. I actually thought their press statements looked quite good. Then I read stuff from the Hon Judith Tizard from the Prime Minister Helen Clark and from the Hon Chris Carter the Minister of Local Government who is in the chair and in many cases—I am not sure about Chris Carter’s statement but I think his was one; I am happy to bring them down to the House afterwards—they never mentioned roads. 
Judith Tizard certainly did not mention roads in her whole press statement. It talked about Auckland’s needs for the future about integrated transport walking buses cycleways and walkways. It talked about the lot and I thought this is wonderful—where is the mention of roads? Roads as I think everyone in this Chamber will agree will be central to solving Auckland’s problems. Yes there needs to be more done in the area of public transport—I accept that. Yes there needs to be more done to encourage people to use alternative transport or to change lifestyles. But all those solutions are of the magnitude of about 1 percent. The number of people currently using rail in Auckland make 3 million trips a year. That is 0.3 percent of the passenger trips being made in Auckland. So even if rail patronage were to double by some miraculous change over the next few years it still would be an absolutely minute part of the solution. 
I think the Minister in the chair has a responsibility to tell us about this. I might have done him a disservice—I will go back and check his press statement from 13 December—but I know that several Ministers in their announcements never used the words “roads” or “roading”. In that great wonderful announcement about the world-leading solution for Auckland that was coming the words “roads” and “roading” were not mentioned. 
Then we get to some more embarrassing stuff in terms of the track record on this issue and it is to do with the funding of Auckland’s roads. This bill is supposed to be setting up the administrative processes to fix it but one of the most embarrassing things the Government has on its plate is the fact that its track record of putting money where its mouth is is so bad. This Government has been in power for 5 years. I asked the Minister of Transport a very specific question: how much money has been spent on the building of new roads both local and State highways by year for the last 6 years? The first number we got was for the full year of the last year of the National Government—$134 million—then we got numbers for the corresponding years from that point on. I have tabled them in the House today so they are on public record. In every year that this Government has been in power the amount of money it has spent in real dollar terms on new roads in Auckland both local and State highways was less than what the National Government spent. 
It could be said that that was because the Labour Government was so committed to spending its money elsewhere. I would have listened to that and said it was a reasonable argument until I had a look at Transfund’s books. Transfund has already told us that it will finish this financial year—tomorrow actually—with a $250 million surplus in the coffers. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How much? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It will have $250 million. The people of Auckland who are in drive time—unfortunately in Auckland that is any time from about 3 o’clock in the afternoon to 9 o’clock at night nowadays because it takes hours to get anywhere—and are listening will be asking why $250 million that was taken from them is sitting there when there is a desperate need for new roads. I am happy to go through the list of roads that need to be built. What is this legislation doing about it? It is setting up two new bureaucracies. I can just see the people stuck on the southern motorway right now saying “Yippee!” about having two new bureaucracies!