Potaka TamaTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Before I start I wanted to pay homage to a great man a legend a warrior by the name of James Brown—no not the movie star dancer and singer that many of you are accustomed to but the leader the erstwhile rangatira of a tribe called Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki who passed away in the wee hours of this morning. He was a man who led the tribe from whoa to go a larger than life personality and someone who was all about competition in the ferry market on the Waitematā and te Pataka kai o Tīkapa Moana also known as the Hauraki Gulf.I want to thank the Minister for the opportunity to speak to the Land Transport Management (Regulation of Public Transport) Amendment Bill and echo my Te Pakūrangarāhīhī colleague Master Simeon Brown who articulated the sub-optimal use of land transport funds and other funds slushing around for alternative and quite illusory concepts of urbanising the entire Aotearoa New Zealand nation into public transport use in the cities. That's what it's really about. It's not about the efficiency or the competition of public transport; it's actually about a more sinister dynamic I'd call it that's come out of this Labour Government to try and make everyone urbanites to try and make everyone townies to try and make everyone live in the cities and live in public transport. But you know in 2012 we had the Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) the great National Party under Sir John Key and Sir Bill English which focused on a commercial basis value for money and competitive and efficient provision of public transport. But now we've got a new ideology we've got a new way of doing things. Although well-intentioned the assertion that the PTOM created problems for wages can be addressed without undermining the entire system.This bill hatches new principles based on mode shift and union appetites. This is a risk space we don't need to be in because out there will be a wolf—a wolf that is looking for more taxpayers to pay for these crazy ideas. The Bus and Coach Association they have discredited this idea. They have said that this bill disregards business realities and market dynamics. Uber the great company that we use from time to time opposes this bill; it doesn't provide any scope for innovation. And Fullers360 that well-known Scottish-owned ferry business on the Waitematā says that it appreciates that the Crown and local government need the ability to bring exempt public transport services within local government control but their experience has been that this almost unbridled power—remember that term unbridled power" from the former Labour Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer—leaves an operator with a permanent sword of Damocles hanging over their business. It's like ram-raiding through the public transport system.Now Labour argues that public ownership of assets and in-house delivery are good. I just can't keep up because last week and for the last couple of years they've been saying on resource management reform and spatial planning and three waters that councils are not so good at doing things but this week they are very good and can be trusted on public transport—bizarre flip-flop or flip-flap. Gymnastics all over again.Now scrapping PTOM takes public transport backwards. It removes efficiency. It removes a competitive market-based approach to service delivery. It removes transparency. It removes common sense. Even the Ministry of Transport in the regulatory impact statement announced that enabling in-house provision without contracts performs worse than the status quo. But that is exactly the pathway that our colleagues in the Labour Government want us to take now. The sustainable public transport framework will stifle innovation. It won't win the Nobel economics prize Mr Brown. It might win the Nobel Peace Prize; we don't know.We see this: in section 25 and section 116 of the Land Transport Management Act. In our view this bill won't fix the problems around wages and conditions. Immigration is a better way to address those issues. Competition creates efficiency not regulatory omnipotence and omniscience that this bill brings yet again. It doesn't like efficiency. Tax more public transport more and everyone will be happy. Kei te hē—it's wrong. Kia ora tātou."