Duynhoven Harry: Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Duynhoven Harry: Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10414] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to follow my colleague Peter Brown from the New Zealand First Party. He is a man of principle and that principle is that New Zealand First cannot make up its mind on this bill and will abstain from voting on it. 
Simon Power 
: No they can’t find Winston Peters. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: When the leader of New Zealand First is back that party may well decide which way it will jump on this bill. Mr Brown and I have served together on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee over many years. However I have to say that it was a little rich of him to have a go at United Future for not having a permanent member on the select committee. I remember that when I was formerly the chair of the select committee I used to make special provision for Mr Brown to be a temporary member on a regular basis. 
I want to turn to the purpose of the Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill. This bill was put up with a view to expediting a toll road in that particular area and events have really overtaken it. The Land Transport Management Act which is now in place will really take over what the bill was intended to do. It allows for public-private partnerships in the building ownership and management of roads which will allow for the provision of roading where otherwise the normal funding mechanisms would not apply or would not see that road built for the foreseeable future. I am sorry that the Minister of Transport is not available to be here tonight to talk on this bill because that is one of the issues he has spent a huge amount of time and work on. As members know I have not been on the select committee for some time and as a result of that I have not been directly in touch with this particular bill for a little while. But I know from discussions with my colleagues and from the work that was done on the Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill and the Land Transport Management Bill while I was a member of that committee that this bill was considered seriously. The Government certainly feels that the bill has really been overtaken by time and the events that have followed particularly with the enactment of the Land Transport Management Act. 
On 12 December an Auckland transport package is to be announced by the Minister of Transport. It will outline the future direction not just for roading in Auckland but also for all transport needs in Auckland. The purpose of this bill is one of the cases that has merit—of course it does. That is why it will be considered with all the other cases alongside it to determine the priority for addressing roading and other transport needs particularly of course in the Auckland area where there are such big problems resulting from many decades of non-investment or insufficient investment in transport links. The issue is not just one of roading but also of rail ferry services public transport buses bus lanes and integrated transport systems that simply have not been developed to keep pace with the population. The issue in Auckland is a simple one: the city is outgrowing its infrastructure and that really does need a considerable amount of effort work and money to be spent. The Land Transport Management Act provides a mechanism whereby all projects can be considered on an equal basis and have their merits fairly considered and then as a result those that are of the highest priority will go ahead. 
The Government intends to vote against this bill simply because time has overtaken it and its purpose has been overtaken by the Land Transport Management Act. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 National totally opposes the Government’s move to discharge this bill tonight. I listened carefully to the Associate Minister’s comments on the bill when he said Labour does not think this bill needs to go through because in 9 days’ time Labour will make an announcement in Auckland that all the projects—roading and public transport projects—will be assessed again and ranked and then the Government will do the top ones. How totally pathetic is that? Aucklanders know that those projects have been assessed time and time again. At the beginning of the year the Penlink project was high on the order of projects to be done in Auckland. In fact Auckland had the majority of the top 30 projects on the nationwide roading strategy that was released in January of this year. But by the time the final version of the strategy came out Auckland had very few projects in the top 30. 
Now we see a new plan that the Associate Minister has announced tonight whereby on 12 December the Government will rank the roading projects again rank the public transport projects with those and then come up with a list that has a road a bus lane and a train station on it—and everyone in Auckland is meant to thank the Government and say that is novel. Mr Duynhoven knows that has been done in Auckland time and time again and that it will solve absolutely nothing. 
My other point is that this bill was introduced on 12 December 2001. At the time of the bill’s introduction the Government told the councils in Auckland that it supported this legislation but instead it has changed its mind backed down introduced some other legislation and said that that legislation will solve the problems of Auckland. The Government already knows that it will not do so. If the legislation that Mr Duynhoven told the House has overtaken this bill and will solve all the problems is so good why is there to be another announcement on 12 December? I thought that the problems had been solved a few months ago so what is the point of another announcement? Is it just more spin for Auckland or is it that the Auckland mayors are saying to the Government the same thing that they are saying to us: that this Government has failed in terms of Auckland’s roading? We know that it has. 
We know that the Rodney District Council wants this legislation. We know that the Labour members of Parliament in Auckland do not want it. 
Simon Power 
: Why? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: The reason is political. The reason is that Labour holds no seat north of the harbour bridge so it does not want this bill to go forward. The reason Labour does not want this bill to go forward is that everything in roading now is done on the basis of political patronage through Mike Williams’ Transfund-Transit committee. Everything is done on the pork barrel. The man from Otago is gone; he is history. His local newspaper when asked about him says that it cannot understand why no one ever sees him. He is the invisible man from Otago; the man whom nobody knows. I do not even know his name. 
This legislation would have had the Penlink road being constructed right now. If the Prime Minister had confidence in Mr Duynhoven he would have been up there cutting the ribbon on the Penlink road next year. I read Matt McCarten’s book over the weekend. Matt McCarten identifies Mr Duynhoven as being the person the Prime Minister wanted to give a ministerial post to but knew that he was not up to it. She tried to think of another option for him. We know what that was. Mr Duynhoven had to sit out for 3 years come back in to the House chair the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee play around with his beloved transport committee—but without any responsibilities—and get the House to legislate in order to keep him here. For that Mr Duynhoven is eternally grateful to the woman who kept him out of Cabinet because she has kept him in Parliament. Mr Duynhoven could have cut the ribbon on the Penlink road but he will never do so. At the end of the day the political ideology that says we must not have a toll road has won the day. The Government has capitulated to the Greens and has put extra rounds of consultation and environmental concerns into the transport legislation. For goodness’ sake a road has to be socially responsible! That all means that not one dollar will be spent on Penlink. 
We can imagine the great announcement that Mr Duynhoven has told us about tonight. He will be in trouble with the Prime Minister for that because that was a secret for the 12th. That is why Mr Duynhoven could not be in Cabinet. He has blurted out here in the House that roads and public transport stuff will be ranked together according to whether a project is environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. We know that roads in that area will not be ranked but buses and trains will be. That is Labour’s cunning plan. There will be more buses and trains more subsidies from the Auckland Regional Council paid back through the Auckland ratepayers and no more roads for Auckland. 
It all could have been so simple. This bill went to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which Mr Duynhoven formerly chaired. If he had worked a bit harder and concentrated a little on the job in hand then he could have got this legislation through. National members tried time and time again to push through this legislation but we could not get there because the numbers were against us. At the end of the day the majority jumped to the Prime Minister’s tune and Mr Duynhoven jumped higher than most to her tune. This legislation could have been passed and that would have ensured that a road was being constructed as people drove north this Christmas. The road would not have been opened by then. The Prime Minister probably would have opened it; she probably would not have let Mr Duynhoven do that. Instead she would have opened it probably in the middle of next year. 
That piece of roading could have been being built right now. Instead we see nothing. We see no road at all. We have only Mr Duynhoven’s plan as announced to the House tonight that on 12 December the Minister of Transport will hold a press conference in Auckland and announce that all the roading projects and public transport projects—and no doubt some walking ones—will be considered and re-ranked against each other and then the top ones may be funded. What a load of absolute nonsense that is! If that is the best that Mr Duynhoven has been able to do as Associate Minister then it is no wonder the Prime Minister had to talk to Matt McCarten say she had a chap who needed to be given something but who needed to be kept out of Cabinet because he could not be trusted there and ask Matt McCarten what could be done with that chap. 
Darren Hughes 
: No. 13. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: That member lusts after being No. 13; he lusts after getting ranked as high as that. We will wait to see whether he ever rises to those giddy heights. Mr Hughes is the only 20-year-old who has to ask a 45-year-old for a date to get publicity from that. Probably she was a 55-year-old actually. That aside this legislation should have been passed and the road should have been being built right now.