Coddington Deborah: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:13999] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 That last speech was like listening to a Hans Andersen fairytale. We can imagine how Auckland would be if we all moved around it by lying on our backs on bicycles pedalling with our feet in the air. Would it not be a glorious city then! In that situation it really would deserve the name “Dorkland”. That is the patronising sort of drivel we have come to expect from the Greens who expect everybody to be herded into public transport. They forget that most people in Auckland who are trying to move around are just mothers picking up their children from different schools going to the supermarket or dropping children off at soccer. They cannot use a bus or a train. The Greens would say that we should walk everywhere. I have actually heard one of the co-leaders of the Greens say that we should not be allowed to drive to the corner dairy—we should be forced to walk. Well that is the whole point of the Greens’ philosophy: not to care about individuals but just to save the planet. 
Courier drivers have to make a living by getting around Auckland. The physical nature of Auckland means it is impossible for public transport ever to be a serious alternative to the car. Aucklanders do not have a motorcar fetish. Aucklanders hate being stuck in gridlock. They loathe the fact that they cannot get to where they need to be on time or else have a clear run and are half an hour early. One cannot plan anything in Auckland any more. That is a disgrace and a disaster but this bill will do nothing to fix it. This Government had the ability to fix that problem with the Land Transport Management Bill. I agree with the Greens that just building more roads will not solve the transport problem. If we build more roads then yes people will pour on to them. We will never solve the transport problems in Auckland unless we have pricing mechanisms. As soon as people have to pay to go on a congested road they think twice or three times about using it. 
This bill has gone through without enough thought as to what it will mean. It will set up two new organisations to plan fund and control transport in Auckland—to make decisions. Decision after decision will be made but nothing will be done until this Government does something serious to address the Resource Management Act because while resource consents are needed for every little kilometre of road for every culvert and for every little stretch of roading that is improved or built we will never get anywhere. If this Government was really serious about addressing the Resource Management Act instead of setting up a cosmetic damage-control type of review led by David Benson-Pope it would stop the iniquitous funding that goes on shown by this Government employing in the offices of one of its senior Ministers Gary Taylor who is known to be anti the Resource Management Act. Gary Taylor is the head of the Environmental Defence Society and he actually hires himself out as a consultant to people who are objecting to resource consents. That person was hired to work in the office of the Minister who is Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Control and was paid by the taxpayer to be an adviser. At the same time he was lobbying for funding from the Government for grants from the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for the Environment to set up a website—$50000 for a website to advise people on how to use the Resource Management Act to object to resource consents. 
How on earth can New Zealand take seriously this Government’s proposal to look at the Resource Management Act and what it is doing to block development when on the one hand it sets up a review committee and on the other hand it is happy to fund lobby groups and lobbyists to actively campaign to oppose developments? The Government also gives money to the Forest and Bird Protection Society. It funds the society’s legal costs when it opposes resource consents under the Resource Management Act. It funds a whole host of lobby groups that set themselves up to object to developments. Many of those developments are new roads or are connected with transport infrastructure. That is the crux of the problem and that is why we are opposed to this bill. 
Many of the things in this legislation are anti-Auckland. It is patronising towards Aucklanders. I do not usually agree with Brian Rudman who writes for the  
New Zealand Herald 
. He is usually on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me but I totally agree with his column on 5 April this year when he said that Aucklanders should decide how to spend their assets not this Government here in Wellington and not people who do not even go near Auckland. The assets that will be taken out of Infrastructure Auckland belong to Aucklanders. Those assets were paid for by and belong to Aucklanders but Aucklanders have not been allowed to decide what happens to them since the previous National Government was in power and Jenny Shipley decided that Aucklanders would not be able to decide that. This Government had the chance to turn that around. Instead of Government members criticising National why did they not take the opportunity to do something and let Aucklanders decide what happens to those assets? Not only will Aucklanders be unable to decide what happens to those assets but 15 percent of the assets will be given to the Auckland Regional Council to do what it likes with. We know what that means; it means propping up the bottom line. It means propping up the Auckland Regional Council’s shortfall if it comes to that. That money and more should be spent totally on solving Auckland’s transport problems. 
There is no reason why more money from the consolidated account cannot go to pay for fixing Auckland’s transport problems. It is all very well for the rest of the country to sneer at Auckland and say that it should solve its own transport problems. It has actually got to the stage where Aucklanders are prepared to pay for their own transport solutions because they are so desperate. However Auckland’s transport problems cost the New Zealand economy an estimated $2 billion a year. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Oh made up! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: That is how much the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues cares about Auckland. That Minister asked the  
New Zealand Herald 
 why the eastern motorway should proceed just so the people in Pakuranga can have an extra half-hour in bed. That is what she said to the  
New Zealand Herald 
. She now denies that and says she has been misquoted. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: She just said: “I don’t deny it.” 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: She accepts that she said it? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Yes. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: That is good. She has changed her tune then. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: What happens to the three queues of cars when they hit the queues— 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: The Minister should get some pricing mechanisms introduced for the road problems. She should look at some of the private-public partnerships that were originally in the Land Transport Management Bill. All the submitters who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in support of that proposal put forward very clear and good reasons to go for public-private partnerships and congestion tolling. But no this Government had to do a deal with the Greens. So Auckland does not have those mechanisms and money paid by the poor old motorist is being siphoned off and put into cycle lanes and walkways so that as the spokesperson on transport from the Greens says we can save the planet and do not run out of oil. People have been saying for the last 50 years that we will run out of oil but motoring just gets cheaper and cheaper. 
The ACT party is opposed to this bill which will not do anything to solve Auckland’s transport problems. When the National-ACT Government is in office then members will see what really can be done to solve those problems.