Gosche Mark: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
Gosche Mark: Public Transport Management Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:650;Page:18643] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is just amazing that three National members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are getting up and flapping their lips for the sake of it without making a single ounce of sense in the debate so far. They are concentrating on something from the Regulations Review Committee that I will reiterate. The Regulations Review Committee sent a letter. It got lost in the system. It was not the committee’s fault it was not anybody’s fault but it got lost in the system. We dealt with it last week. We gave notice of the meeting the week before. 
Hon Annette King 
: A whole week? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: A whole week. We said we would take this very simple stuff and look at it and we did and it took us 25 minutes. We had a report from the officials that said they agreed with what the Regulations Review Committee said and that they would change the Public Transport Management Bill accordingly. There was one change they had an option on: whether to delete a clause or to put in a consultation clause. They have gone with a consultation clause. We have had all this debate from the National Party’s three spokespeople on transport—who have not got a clue. 
We heard during the course of the submission process that there are three major cities in this country that spend big on public transport: Christchurch Wellington and Auckland. All support the bill. Christchurch says: “We’re doing this now. Pass the bill so we can legitimise it because we’ve been doing what the bill outlines anyway.” Wellington said: “We need the bill as it is and we want you to pass it.’ Auckland said—and this is something that needs to go on the  
Hansard 
 record because every territorial local authority and the regional council in Auckland agreed which is something that Aucklanders love to hear because they have not heard it for such a long time—that all of local government in Auckland agrees a further option needs to be added to the bill. It is called option C. 
Hon Annette King 
: It’s only an option. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: It is only an option and Auckland can use it if it wishes to. All of Auckland agrees on it except for the National Party. 
So what did National members put up instead? Aucklanders are going to like this. Everybody says that if we are going to have a viable public transport system we should have integrated ticketing and fares. Well Bill English has had his way. He has rolled Maurice Williamson who knows that to be the truth. Maurice has had to put up an amendment that says no people can have other tickets as well. That is what his amendment says. Bill English has won the day and Maurice has been rolled again as he was on his toll roads. 
I have to ask myself what has happened to Maurice Williamson. I have always known him to be extremely strong in his views and knowledgable on transport. Nobody else in National comes near him yet Bill English who would not have a clue because he has never seen a bus in Dipton has won the day on this one and integrated ticketing would go under National. National members also ask us to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the owners of these companies but not make them accountable. I know that one of Mr Williamson’s amendments would say that ferries are exempt from disclosing that information. So the taxpayer and the ratepayer give those companies loot and they do not have to tell them what they do with it because National’s amendment would do away with that. 
This is the real joke—2-hour bundling of services. Now we know how it works at the moment. Someone can register a commercial route in Auckland that gives people one bus in the morning and one in the afternoon and maybe one somewhere else. That is not the way to run a public transport system. It is a joke and National wants it to remain a joke because one of Mr Williamson’s amendments says we cannot bundle services in the way in which everybody who knows anything about public transport would bundle them. No National members say we can only bundle services for 2 hours’ maximum. What an absolute joke! National members want do away with integrated ticketing and with the ability of regional councils to have a sensible bus service train service or ferry service. National members want to hand out money to the private sector with no accountability and that is what they have come up with by way of amendments. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Absolute rubbish! 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: The member should read Bill English’s amendments—they have the member’s name on them—then he will understand them. We have already had a chance to look at them. Mr Williamson is saying we could have integrated ticketing but we could have other stuff as well. That is what is wrong now and it is why the system does not work. The member knows that because he has been around the world. He has seen London and how the system works there. Could Mr Williamson inform us whether London is running a system like option A option B or option C? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Option B. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Actually option C is the one that is run in London. The member has been there on the plane so often that he should know that. 
Labour members believe in public transport. When Maurice Williamson was the Minister of Transport $18 million went into Auckland public transport. Over $300 million now goes in. That speaks volumes for National’s commitment to public transport. Suddenly National is supposed to care about it. We heard David Bennett talking as if it was the most momentous thing this Parliament had dealt with in its last 9 years. I think it is pretty momentous to fix up the legislative mess that has been sitting there for a very very long time. That is why I support the bill. I listened to the major councils from Christchurch Wellington and Auckland and they all said “Fix it.” Well we have been fixing it by putting in real money. We now want to have proper controls the ability for integrated ticketing and financial accountability for people. 
When Aucklanders were getting only $18 million out of the Government we probably were not worried about disclosure because there was nothing to disclose. There were no bus services to speak of. Those services were run down; they were a wreck. It was what Maurice Williamson gifted to Auckland—a public transport system that was carrying fewer passengers in 2000 than it was in 1955 when I was born. That was his victory. He made sure that public transport was destroyed and that is because he does not believe in it. He gets a car. A bus is not something that he recognises—those big maroon things that go past the window outside his office. I have had to tell him a number of times in this Chamber that those things are buses and that ordinary people from his electorate get on them pay a ticket price and want to go into town to where they work. That is what is called public transport. National members could not give a hoot about public transport because they never use it and they could not care less. That is why they starved public transport of funds and the bus companies know that because they are now looking— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.