Locke Keith: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Locke Keith: Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14013] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 1. The Green Party of course is supporting this bill. I want to talk particularly about the purpose of the bill. Part 1 states that one of the purposes of the bill is to improve the integration of the Auckland regional land transport system. A lot of people talk about integration. John Banks the Mayor of Auckland who has a somewhat different position from the Green Party on these matters sometimes talks about integration too. So I think it is worthwhile looking at what integration is about. To people like John Banks it is essentially the code word for a motorway system as the backbone of transport with perhaps a bit of rail buses cycling and walking thrown in. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Before the dinner break I was talking about how the purpose of the bill refers to the need for integrated transport and about the fact that some people—and I mentioned John Banks—who use the word “integration” are really focusing on a whole motorway structure with a bit of rail bus ferry walking and cycling hanging off it. That is what some people call “integrated” whereas when we go around the world and look at other cities we see that their transport backbone is public transport—particularly rail transport. I think that is where Auckland has been missing the boat over the last few decades. 
What we need to build particularly south of the harbour bridge is a true backbone of rail transport as the hub for public transport in Auckland generally. There has been a huge decline in patronage from the old days when there were 100 million passenger movements per year. There is around half that number now although that figure is coming up quite rapidly. When people argue against really putting the emphasis and money into rail I think they should just look at Auckland today where the problem is not that people refuse to go on trains but that the trains particularly around commuter time are full. 
I went to see the marketing manager of Connex Auckland which is taking over the operation of the Auckland rail system very shortly. That manager has the rather unusual task of not wishing to encourage increasing commuter patronage at this point in time because every time Connex Auckland puts on a new train it automatically fills up and it has too many passengers for the trains it has now. The big task before Auckland—and hopefully this new structure in the bill will advance it—is that of getting a better track getting many more carriages double-tracking lines and improving the stations etc. So the job of that marketing manager is really to get these trains running right on time and to have good quality public transport for Auckland. 
I think that one of the tasks of the new Auckland Regional Transport Authority which is being set up under this bill will be to get the trains and the stations up to scratch. I think it is envisaged and possible in this bill for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to actually own those carriages etc. and to bring them on stream. Auckland Regional Holdings as I understand it is more the permanent asset infrastructure base and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority will be in charge of making sure—together with the operator Connex Auckland—that the carriages are there. 
The backbone of a true rail infrastructure is developing with the Britomart complex having opened but unfortunately there are too few trains going into that complex to date. There is work proceeding on double-tracking the western line—that is good—and talk about treble-tracking the line coming in from the east. But if we are to develop a true rail backbone particularly where there is a weakness along the eastern corridor we need to reject the idea of building another motorway down the eastern corridor. We need to reject the old vision of motorways being the backbone of transport and really develop services along that eastern rail corridor which at the moment at peak times are really quite infrequent.