Court Simon; Parker DavidSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Minister I just want to come back to clause 6 Procurement procedures" before the House moves on to the next part of this bill.Procurement procedures. So clause 6 amends section 25 of the Land Transport Management Act and it removes the requirement that the procurement procedures under the Land Transport Management Act don't apply "to [the] procurement of a public transport service." Now Minister we haven't really had a clear explanation of why that is.Of course there's been some concerns that tenderers have lowballed. If there's a price-quality component where some of a tenderer's qualities are evaluated and given a weighting and the price is evaluated and given a weighting under a typical price-quality tender evaluation process it may well be that the local council or regional council procuring a public transport contract got the weighting wrong. Maybe instead of the qualities that they could have given more weighting to—like for example I don't know driver pay and conditions smoko breaks bathroom stops who knows; massages—they could have put anything in there as a quality measure and given it a weighting.But if regional councils and local territorial authorities didn't do that and they gave price a greater weighting well isn't that something that the New Zealand Transport Agency—NZTA—through its National Land Transport Fund through its activity classes for public transport could have provided some guidance to local government as to what the price-quality weighting could be? Then wouldn't it have been far more likely that the type of services offered came in at maybe a slightly higher price but had a different set of qualities.Minister if that's the outcome that the Government wanted there are a number of different ways to direct it. Yet when we look at section 25 "Procurement procedures" in the primary legislation this bill seeks to amend it says 25(2)(a) essentially in approving a procurement procedure the agency must look at the ability of "persons to compete fairly for the right to supply outputs required for the preferred activities". Minister what this will do is it will give councils the almost exclusive right to essentially buy services and put the private sector out of business. That's what they're afraid of Minister and that's what this bill does. In approving procurement procedures the agency—we're talking about the New Zealand Transport Agency trading as Waka Kotahi—must encourage "competitive and efficient markets for the supply of outputs required for approved activities." under section 25(2)(b).Minister this is a small nation. If we can't encourage effectively functioning markets for the provision of services—whether it be buses to pick up people and take them to work; or whether it's for physical works contracts so we can actually build the roads or the bus expressway; or for professional services contracts so that for example New Zealand Transport Agency trading as Waka Kotahi can actually get some advice about how to procure and maybe add some additional weighting to the quality metrics so that maybe they have a higher weighting than price—Minister all of these things are available to the agency. They're available to a Minister who might want to set direction through a Government Policy Statement on land transport as the Minister did just last week when the Minister released the Government Policy Statement on land transport 2024-27 which included activity classes for public transport where all of those directions are signals to be given.Minister isn't there a risk that this sets a precedent that by removing the requirement to encourage competitive and efficient markets for the supply of outputs required for transport services that it actually removes one of the pillars of procurement that the taxpayer demands from a Government that is authorised to spend on behalf of the taxpayer?Because if we can't have competitive and efficient markets for the supply of outputs for one type of transport service Minister is it likely that will also carry over into other types of transport services? Does this set a precedent Minister and was there any other way to achieve this measure? Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Transport): As a matter of ideology the last National-ACT Government when they set up the Auckland City tried to distance the control of the Auckland Council over all the things they owned and ran. That was a matter of ideology from Rodney Hide at the time trying to force the corporate model upon Auckland City even when they didn't want it. We're not requiring them to run any other model but we're allowing them to run services as they think fit. They do have to obviously meet cost-effectiveness and efficiency objectives as well as other objectives and a sensibly governed city would.I would again make the point that there are many other cities around the world including in the Land of the Free—the United States of America—or many parts of Europe many parts of the world where councils run their own public transport systems because they believe it to be more effective."