Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Land Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9742] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Actually Mr Key is not correct. A new report has come out in the last few days that shows that the cost to the economy of the congestion in Auckland is actually closer to $4 billion according to the Employers and Manufacturers Association. I will put that in a different form. It is a week’s holiday every 2 months. That is what this congestion is costing the workforce. This Government would rather buy-off the workforce with the promise of an extra week’s holiday than do something about the Auckland roads. 
These schedules are an absolute disgrace for a huge number of reasons. Most significantly they give the Minister of Transport enormous powers to appoint to hire and fire and to take this country back to pork-barrel politics. I remember being driven when I was a child— 
Jill Pettis 
: That would have been a long time ago. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It was a long time ago. That member is right about one thing. It is the first thing I have ever heard her say in this Chamber that I agree with. It was a long time ago but I do remember—because I get the right drugs—going around to the western side of Lake Taupo and seeing what a certain Prime Minister had been able to do— 
Jill Pettis 
: That’s right; I agree with the member. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Exactly. That was pork-barrel politics and we will see a return to that under this legislation and especially under the provisions in these schedules. We are already seeing that in the actions of the board members of Transfund. As the Hon Roger Sowry has pointed out the Labour Party president and campaign manager the Eftpos machine man Mike Williams is already on that board. The reason why we have a motorway in north Auckland that ends in the middle of a paddock is that we are already seeing political manipulation by board members and we will see more of that. We will see more vote buying and more appointments to that board. 
Under the provisions of these schedules the land transport strategies of regional councils have to take into account all the items that Jeanette Fitzsimons reeled off. We will see boards appointed to represent all those different factions of the community and we will see paralysis by analysis because they will never agree. How can all those different sections of a community ever agree on how a road should be built? 
Paragraph 14 of Part 1 in schedule 2 states: “Any steps that Transfund intends to take having considered ways in which it might foster the development of Maori capacity to contribute to Transfund’s land transport decision-making processes …”. I ask the Minister what on earth that means. What on earth is “Maori capacity to contribute to Transfund’s land transport decision-making”? Is that what Kara Puketapu was talking about this morning on  
Mana News 
 when he said that Te Puni Kokiri is totally useless in terms of looking after the needs of Maori? This was not some “cheeky whitey” making those declarations. It was Kara Puketapu who said that Te Puni Kokiri is not serving the interests of Maori when it looks at all the legislation that goes through this House to see how it affects Maori. 
This is totally meaningless nonsense but I can see people lining up already to be appointed to the boards of both Transit and Transfund. Gone is the separation of those two areas which the Hon Maurice Williamson brought in as he pointed out—and a good thing it was too. I guarantee that we will see on those boards people like Gary Taylor from the Environmental Defence Society. The society has already been favoured by this Government with numerous contracts. He was working in the Minister’s office and has now gone but we have seen numerous payments from this Government to someone who used the Resource Management Act to its greatest advantage to delay and stall consents for people. We will see more wastage of money.