Mapp Wayne: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mapp Wayne: Transport Legislation Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16913] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I will take up the invitation of my colleague the Hon Maurice Williamson and refer to the schedules. I guess that most people would reasonably think that a Transport Legislation Bill deals with various items of transport— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Cars and trucks. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Some people would even say cars and trucks and so on. I have been carefully looking at schedule 5 and it refers to the Transport Services Licensing Act—fair enough. It refers to the Transport Accident Investigation Commission Act—fair enough. However there are also references to the Immigration Act the Electoral Act and the Health Act. There is even reference to the Oaths and Declarations Act. There are references to the Privacy Act and indeed the Ombudsmen Act itself.  
So Part 2—innocent though it might seem on the face of it—amends a whole swathe of legislation. In fact it amends 26 separate Acts and that is not speaking of the regulations which have already been pointed out.  
I wish to refer to another serious matter in clause 54 “Transitional regulations”. These are normally quite innocent but what it actually says here is that rather than the Act coming into force on 1 December 2004—we will return to that matter in the next debate—the Minister under these transitional powers is given the power to bring various parts clauses provisions sections and subsections of the Act into force when and as he pleases. So here we are passing legislation virtually under urgency because the bill has to be passed in the next few days yet the Minister is giving himself these extraordinary executive powers to in effect thwart the will of Parliament.  
In the weekend the Government announced a constitutional inquiry. Do members think it will refer these sorts of executive powers to that inquiry? Of course not! When we get serious issues like this with the executive bound to decide when where and if it is going to introduce legislation into effect these sorts of things are expected to go unremarked. I guarantee that the Minister will not take a call on this matter. But maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. Maybe he is actually reading up on these issues right now so he can make a proper response. Because he ought to because we need to know that the executive will not abuse the authority of this Parliament.  
The people here are elected are accountable to their constituents and to parties who are part of this Parliament for the legislation we pass. These debates are recorded. Do we think the Minister will be issuing press releases as to when he introduces particular clauses regulations and so forth? No the Government will just do it. It will be a  
Gazette 
 order I guess. How many people read the  
New Zealand Gazette  
these days? How many lawyers even read it? The answer is “very few”. So this Parliament is empowering the Government to pass into law this legislation by stealth.  
I am surprised actually that New Zealand First would want to be part of that. New Zealand First is voting for this bill. It had particular concerns but it is voting for these kinds of clauses. I would like to think that it has properly considered the way this works because it actually flies in the face of the opening clause. No wonder this provision is buried at the very end of the bill! No wonder it is buried in this kind of clause! Because although the Government intended to delude the public that they would get new transport legislation on 1 December 2004—the very first clause says that—in reality we are empowering a Minister of Transport to do this. My colleague has referred to maybe future reckless Ministers doing this. I suggest this Minister will be the reckless Minister who will introduce it whenever and however he wants.  
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I want to address clause 51 “Dissolution of Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund”. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee heard a submission and then a follow-up clarification from the Automobile Association. That organisation represents more than 1 million people in New Zealand a quarter of the population many of whom will be listening to this debate. The Automobile Association raised a very important concern—that is the bill dissolves the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund and instead forms Land Transport New Zealand but it does not address the end of the funder/provider split. That is the really important issue the association brought up. 
The Automobile Association acknowledged that it is not a complete return to the bad old days when the Minister of Transport who lived out the back of Waipukurau had the road from the corner to his house tar-sealed. The association acknowledges that it is not a return to that but it did specify that in its view not enough was done in the bill to safeguard special interests to provide checks and balances and in its words to ensure that special interests whether local in nature or otherwise were prevented from influencing the transport funding allocation process. 
At the moment as I understand it in terms of current funding arrangements the Minister approves the output classes of funding but when this bill comes into existence he will approve the funding for the national land transport programme. Admittedly under the new situation he will not approve the funding for specific projects project by project so that will provide some independence from political pressures. However when the Minister approves the national land transport programme he will include in that programme specific projects within each funding category. 
Yet the Automobile Association—an organisation that represents so many people and an organisation I might say that supported the overall philosophy of this legislation and the tidying up of Crown entities—has raised concerns about that. This is an important issue and I would like the Minister to take a call and reassure New Zealand that the Automobile Association’s concerns are not valid and that there was no need to address them in the bill. 
We at the select committee asked the Automobile Association to follow up its concern with an example and it gave us the funding of the road safety education programme. Under the present situation the Land Transport Safety Authority has a road safety education programme but under the new legislation other agencies will be competing against Land Transport New Zealand for that funding. I do not have time to go into that example in detail but I would be interested to know the views of other parties in Parliament. I know that New Zealand First always supports the Automobile Association and its submissions and I wonder how that party feels about this concern. 
I finish by summing up the Automobile Association’s concern. It said that there would be a potential conflict of interest for Land Transport New Zealand—that is the new entity—in making allocation decisions regarding road safety advertising education and information provided by itself vis-à-vis road safety engineering and enforcement activities provided by outside agencies. However that issue was not addressed satisfactorily by the current legislation.