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:14029] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Following on from what the Minister said in talking about the busway the problem with the old system was that everything was related to making it easier for cars to get down the motorway. The problem with the North Shore busway was that funding was available only for little chunks of it at a time according to the benefit-cost ratio and one had to prove that one could get cars down a bit quicker if one had that chunk of busway. They were handicapped for years but now we have a whole new land transport strategy a Land Transport Act and new bodies linking into that. Whole projects can be dealt with rather than bits of projects and things like the busway or the rail developments that are going on through Auckland speeded up. 
This is not as other speakers in the National Party have claimed breaking up the system even more or adding just one more organisation. It simply ties the various bodies together. There is already a system in Auckland of developing a regional land transport strategy involving representatives of local bodies and other interests. That strategy then governs what the new body being set up—the Auckland Regional Transport Authority—has to take into account. That new body is not now constrained by all those other local bodies in the region fighting with each other. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority will develop a land transport programme for the whole of Auckland with priorities in it. It puts those proposals directly to and works with Transfund and the local authorities to fund those projects. 
They do not need to be as in the past just roading projects. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority board has to take social and environmental responsibility very much into its deliberations and it has to meet all the concerns of the land transport strategy that I will outline later. It also has to tie in directly—and this is where it is not competitive—to the Auckland growth strategy which is the development of Auckland around nodes along transport corridors. The logical thing to do is to have a good public transport system along those corridors. All those corridors except on the North Shore are essentially rail corridors—sometimes having a road alongside as well—but set up so that one can develop a much more efficient rail system and services along those corridors linked in with the growth strategy. 
There was concern from Deborah Coddington that the Auckland Regional Transport Authority had to take into account the effects on communities and worry about them. I think she may be worried that if affected communities are taken into account the eastern highway will not be built. One just needs to remember that last Tuesday there was a public meeting of 750 people from those affected communities and other citizens in Auckland who unanimously opposed that eastern highway. At a meeting hosted by the Auckland City Council yesterday—and I was one of the people giving a presentation—there were a myriad of arguments against that eastern highway and how it would detrimentally affect communities the environment the creek the waterfront and everything along that route. That highway will not go ahead if the provisions of this bill are properly applied. What is worrying National members is that at last we are going to move the emphasis away from just a motorway system to one based on public transport with a rail backbone. 
Another aspect of this bill that came up under discussion is that of Auckland Regional Holdings. One of the good provisions is that it will not be able to sell off Ports of Auckland. We know from all the debate over the Westhaven marina and everything else just how important it is not to have Ports of Auckland completely out of public control. Under this bill Auckland Regional Holdings will not be able to sell more than 24.9 percent of Ports of Auckland.