Sowry Roger: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Sowry Roger: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9664] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 Part 1 of this bill is a shambles—an absolute shambles. The Minister knows it is because if he did not know that he would not be coming into the Committee with Supplementary Order Paper 165 which is some 12 pages long to change the bill. The Minister has had the bill back from the select committee for 2 weeks and he has come back with another 12 pages of amendments because in the last 2 weeks he has been done over again by the Greens. When those amendments are put into Part 1 it becomes a shambles. 
I want to speak to a couple of amendments to Part 1 for which we seek support. The first amendment is to clause 3(1). We believe that the purpose clause should be amended so that we start to make economically efficient land transport decisions. At the moment the purpose of the bill is to make decisions about funding and when making those decisions we have to have regard for a whole range of Green ideas around everything to do with the road. The objectives of environmental sustainability and social responsibility are included but there is nothing about economic efficiency or the creation of a safe responsive and economic land transport system. We seek to amend clause 3(1) to put that in. 
We also want to amend clause 3(2) to ensure that when Transfund New Zealand makes any decision on funding it has to have regard to whether the funding decision improves economic efficiency in land transport. At the moment under this legislation Transfund New Zealand—which has all the money—will have to make decisions but it will have to make decisions based on whether roads will be environmentally sustainable. The Greens have put all that in there. So if a road runs through let us say three rare ferns and a couple of old trees that will be it—it will not be environmentally sustainable. Every single argument will be around that issue. 
Phil Heatley 
: What about the taniwha? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: That is before we even get to the taniwha argument which is in there as well. There is nothing in the bill about economic sustainability and there is nothing that says: “This road should go here because it makes sense for the economy.” To achieve 5 or 6 percent growth a good roading infrastructure is needed and this bill simply will not deliver it. 
Under Part 1 we also want to remove that silly stupid nonsense that puts coastal shipping into the Land Transport Management Bill. Those of us who pay our petrol tax will find the money being used to subsidise foreign shipping vessels trundling around our coastlines. What sort of nonsense is it to have tax collected at the petrol pump being used to fund a coastal shipping operation and to subsidise a foreign vessel to pick up empty containers and ship them around the coastline? We think that that is nonsense and I say to the Minister we believe that those who pay their petrol tax money will also think that that is nonsense. We can understand why the Minister never talks about that; he is always very quiet about it. We want to see that part removed from this bill because we think it is a shambles. 
In fact this was the Minister who said when he was in Opposition that he was going to stop foreign vessels from going around the country from port to port and carrying domestic cargo. He has backed down and broken that promise. He has forgotten those speeches. Not only is he not going to stop it but he is also going to subsidise it. He will use taxpayer money to subsidise foreign vessels. Not only has he broken his word to the Seafarers Union that he was going to stop it—Mark Gosche made the same promise; he sat there for 3 years and could not deliver on it—but now his Government is going to subsidise it. Harry Duynhoven made the same promise as well and he knows he did. He backed down on it but now the Government is going to subsidise foreign shippers out of petrol tax money. New Zealanders will not get roads built out of their tax money because the money will be going into foreign shipping. 
Is there a cap in this part on how much is spent on subsidisation for foreign shipping? No there is not; there is no cap at all. Later in the proceedings we will move amendments to try to put a cap on to that as well.