O'Rourke Denis: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10703. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I am surprised that the last speaker Mike Sabin gave a 1½ minute speech on such an important bill. I felt that the speech was undercooked unpalatable and indigestible and so is this bill. The Minister of Transport said that the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is about cutting red tape and saving money. In fact it is about much more than that. It makes some fundamental changes. It alters the objectives of the Land Transport Management Act. It changes the funding framework for land transport activities including roading public transport and road safety; it repeals regional fuel tax provisions; it changes the framework for assessing toll road schemes; and it establishes a policy framework for the relationship between regional councils and public transport operators.So I am starting first with the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Agency. The bill changes those objectives from the achievement of “an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport system” to the achievement of “an effective efficient and safe land transport system”. The deletion of the words “affordable” “integrated” and “sustainable” and all that those terms mean will be a huge mistake for New Zealand. Essentially the bill means that the Government is interested only in saving money as its first priority but actually much more is at stake. The agency should be seeking much better integration of transport modes. As the era of the dominance of fossil fuel transport comes to an end—and it certainly is mostly because of the increasing costs and risks of production and the increased competitiveness ofalternative energy sources. As the dominance of the use of cars for peak-time travel is increasingly non-viable in the big cities especially at peak times and as the competitiveness of other modes and the huge increases in the cost of the road network expansions and maintenance continue then increasingly it is going to be necessary to ensure a properly integrated system so that the best use can be made of all modes and of the alternatives to more and more cars and bigger and more expensive motorways which is what the Government’s agenda is really about.Similarly it is essential for New Zealand to design a transport system especially for freight from one end of this country to the other and especially also for personal transport at peak times in the larger cities so that the system is sustainable. That means economically socially and environmentally sustainable and if that ceases to be an objective as proposed in this bill then the vast effects of the transport system will not be adequately controlled or mitigated. As a result the very environment that we rely upon for healthy lives and a good quality of life will be significantly degraded as indeed it has been in many other countries in the world.The bill will also entrench the current situation that has been with us for decades under successive National and Labour Governments in which we do not have a genuine and comprehensive New Zealand transport strategy. The intent of the bill under which the Government will issue a Government policy statement on land transport will not be a sufficient basis upon which the planning and funding of our future land transport needs and options can be properly assessed. Land transport will continue to be I think a political football kicked about in different directions by whichever political flavour is in power at any given time. It will ensure that there is no coherent long-term strategy that we can work towards. It will mean the wasting of huge amounts of public funds on doing what we have always done: failing to provide for fundamental future changes that will be imposed upon us by global conditions and developments.We need an entirely new approach that converts our system to one that over time firstly makes better use of our vast renewable energy opportunities especially to produce electric power; secondly reduces the dependence on imported liquid fuels; and thirdly replaces more clogged motorways with attractive safe comfortable and affordable public transport options as well as facilitating more cycling at peak times. The bill is going in entirely the wrong direction.We should be learning from the lessons of other countries where the headlong race to build more road capacity has resulted only in more and more demand especially at peak times. You only have to look at cities like Los Angeles to see that—the city that has basically destroyed its own environment with the demand for the use of the motor car.You can also see on the same west coast of the United States the city of Portland which shows the right way to go. I went there and saw where they stopped building more motorways. There is actually an off-ramp that is cut off and does not go any further because at that time that city decided on a new direction the sort of new direction that New Zealand should be going in. That city provided a very comprehensive light rail system for its population which is now extremely popular and goes to most parts of that city—a city by the way that is not too different in population from our own city of Auckland. The effect of feeding demand with capacity is a vicious circle that costs vast sums of capital expenditure and increased maintenance costs and in addition causes very large increases in externalities such as the cost of accidents health care and deaths and increased costs in relation to pollution waste delays community severance business dislocation and so on and so on.I also note that some of the best aspects of regional transport administration will be removed by this bill. Firstly the non-voting representatives of a prescribed list ofinterests as members of regional transport committees are removed altogether. This reinforces this Government’s disregard for the integration of land transport modes and its determination to favour road transport over all other modes through planning and funding mechanisms. From my experience which in local government is considerable the quality of the input of volunteer experts in public transport transport safety cycling walking business operators transport operators the Automobile Association and on facilities for disabled people was very significant and is too valuable to lose. Worse still is the intention to remove the option of regional fuel taxes and that means that a regional council will no longer be able to persuade its population in favour of such a tax which could offer an inexpensive effective and fair way of funding important regional transport options. That will be lost too.Finally one has to wonder what is really behind these changes. It seems to me that this Government is excessively influenced by road transport interests. New Zealand First is focused on a modern sustainable transport system for New Zealand. This bill will not deliver that. We will vote against it.