White Helen; Pugh MaureenHELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): I want to start by talking about some of the things that my colleagues have talked about today about the fear they have of the war that's being waged in this situation: I would have thought that the issue of transport and proper funding of transport was almost apolitical because it affects our entire community. I picked up an email recently from one of the principals in a school in my area and it's a school that's been subject to quite a lot of noise about what the Minister of Transport calls speed bumps" but they're actually raised crossings. So they stand above the road and they are crossings that go—Hon Simeon Brown: They're speed bumps.HELEN WHITE: The Minister's laughing at this point but I'm not sure he'll be laughing once he's heard the email that came in. It came in about the concern of the principal about the safety of children at his school and he starts talking about speeds in the area and how necessary they are because the children are walking to school. But he also talks about the impact of a lack of safety and he says "I'm not sure if anyone in this email list"—and he sent it to Melissa Lee and he sent it to myself and he sent it to Auckland Transport—"has attended the funeral of a child who has died as a result of being hit by a car. I have. It was in my time in"—and I'm going to leave the suburb out so it doesn't affect people—"and the student was hit by a car on a 50-kilometre road while riding a bike. The car wasn't speeding but it killed him. I vividly remember the call from my principal. I remember the immense grief of knowing that we would not see his joyous smiling face at school again. I remember the funeral. I remember the sobbing. I remember consoling his teacher as we stood at the open casket. I do not want to attend another funeral like this." Now I don't usually consider myself in this House to be a person who talks melodrama. But I think it's worth remembering that when taxes like this are cut and there is a shortfall and the mayor has much pressure on him to keep down the rates the results are likely to be that things go; things that need to be there go. When the Minister talks about speed bumps costing $500000—knowing that that was retracted because it's been in the media that it wasn't correct—there is a politicisation of an issue and a clouding of an issue that we surely have to see with much clearer vision than that. If the life of a child is at stake we are going to have to slow down the cars and we're going to have to do it by raised crossings. On the road that this principal's talking about—I know that area—it's an area with very very high walking and cycling as it is so it's even more necessary because of the vulnerability of those people. It's absolutely necessary. We take that seriously.I take the point that's been made that there are other tools—there are things like congestion charging—all for looking at those things. I was on that select committee I looked at that I was concerned and sceptical about it because it does depend on what the impact is on people who are living a long way away who tend to be the poorer people and they have to come to their jobs. But I can see the point in exploring those tools and doing it together. But what I don't like is when the Minister politicises an issue that should never have been political. What we have here is something that affects the very hearts of our communities. We must—must—keep funding for these kinds of projects. Instead the Minister has ring-fenced certain projects. It has been pointed out he's ring-fenced a project in his area that affects the people in his area. He has noticed the impact of busways in that area. But he has not ring-fenced the area of mine; he has not said that in the Mt Albert area we're going to give the same sort of priority to busways and—Hon Simeon Brown: Does the train go through?HELEN WHITE: Actually the trains that are here—there are bits that are cut out of the new train services Minister. So the comment that he's just made across the House about whether it affects the trains is yes we get some of that early stuff but we don't get a lot of the enhancement in the trains and I'll be asking about that in the committee stage so we better get ready.So what I am saying here is that these are priorities but it's not all I want to say here. It is not just about safety; it's also about the cost to Auckland in terms of its wealth. I have the portfolio of small business and I have manufacturing and have sat in the traffic and waited and wondered how much it's costing Auckland to be this congested. It is actually costing a lot and we know now that if we can get people out of their cars—particularly in the inner city suburbs because they can walk and they can cycle and e-bikes make that possible—if we can encourage them out and if we can have good busways then it frees up the capacity for the roads to be used in a productive way. So I am concerned about the price that Aucklanders will pay in terms of productivity because of this retroactive step of taking this away. I actually share the concerns of the mayor. This is money that was ring-fenced for Auckland and it is an alternative to rate rises and instead the Minister has taken away the specific ring-fenced tax to Auckland where Aucklanders pay for Auckland infrastructure and instead he's bringing in another tax which is actually through the driver's licence system and that goes to the whole of the country. How fair is that? Auckland loses its specific commitment and its specific build when it is so necessary and it loses it to the whole country. I note that we've had a lot of people jump up on the other side and speak for their whole 30 seconds and they haven't been from Auckland; we've had very few Aucklanders stand up on this one because it affects their constituents. It affects the constituents in Devonport and it affects my constituents—it affects them. This is not a future-forward piece of legislation for Auckland. is going to hurt Aucklanders and they're going to pay in another way through the driver's licence a different form of tax and they're not going to pay for things that they know are building a better Auckland for them. That's not going to happen and so I am very concerned to see that.I also just want to tell them something that's a bit of bad news which is that if they expect to see the fuel come down 10c a litre every time they go to the pump unfortunately that's very unlikely to happen. When I look at the fuel prices that have been in the North and I compare them to the fuel prices once you've hit the area where the tax applies you can't see that that's going to be a transparent drop in the price. It's very unlikely. It's extremely difficult to see where that's coming from because Auckland often has lower fuel prices. So there is no correlation. It's been pointed out by a few members and again we'll be asking in the committee stage about this: what is the mechanism that means we're going to see that flow through to the ordinary Aucklander? When this law comes in how are we going to make sure that it actually gets passed on to Aucklanders? I have some serious concerns about that.I'd like to just talk finally about this issue—about seeing this as a cost of living issue—because I live in the suburb and I think about what would cost more for the people in that suburb of Mount Albert. think about the issue of things like bus fares and how those affect our poorest people. So when we move away from things like half-price bus fares and cheaper bus fares and streamlined bus services who do we hurt? Which Aucklanders are most affected by that? It's a simple question. The people who are most affected are the ones who've got lots of kids or they live a long way out. They're the ones who miss out here and those are the Aucklanders that I believe we all want to see get a step up. It's not the people with the Range Rovers—it's not the people with the Range Rovers living in Freemans Bay. It drives me nuts that I can't ever find a park because I can't squeeze past the car without being very frightened of actually scratching it—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member's time has expired."