Gosche Mark: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Gosche Mark: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12820] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I rise in support of the first reading of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. It is a further step in this Government’s progress in terms of providing the administrative infrastructure to carry on the significant work we have been involved in both in the building of roads and in the improvement to public transport. I am pleased to see that this Government is committed to improving our bureaucracy—the agencies and Government departments that are charged with implementing transport policy. 
I recall that back in 1999 when I became the Minister of Transport it probably took me a week to meet with all the Government agencies and departments that had been set up but now we will see that number reduced again. I am sure that that is a good thing because our experience was— 
Simon Power 
: Why is this member against bureaucracy? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: —it was just spread too thinly—that the expertise in transport as previous Ministers of Transport will know is not large. We do not for instance have university courses—or we never did when I was the Minister—that people could go to that would set them up as good bureaucrats policy analysts and implementers of transport in New Zealand. We found that many of those people were working in different organisations but this bill will put Transit New Zealand and Land Transport New Zealand together into one entity a New Zealand Transport Agency which I think will be able to carry out its work in a much more efficient and proper way. That follows on from the work that the Minister of Transport has done in the Next Steps process which looked at the structures and which has come up with what this bill now delivers. 
The other important issue in the bill that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I chair will be looking at is around the question of regional fuel tax. That will be allowed for in this bill should it pass—which I am sure it will—and that will allow an excise duty of up to 5c per litre to be added on to the existing duty and to be used for each region after the regions have been through a process that will involve the Minister. In this bill we have also put together a better planning process. It has new structures again that are probably streamlined in a way that will get much better results and it has plans that will be more realistic in their time frames. So I am very pleased that this legislation is coming forward. 
 Some important challenges still face us. We have a huge road-building programme throughout New Zealand. I travelled back and forward to the North Shore on the weekend as many Labour Party members did and quite frankly it was very hard to go anywhere on the North Shore where there was not a busway being built a new road being widened motorways being improved and so on. That is a picture we will find up and down the country. However we do need to continue the process of better planning. We do need to allow for extra funding so that transport infrastructure or services that are important to a region can be brought forward sooner than the current funding regime would allow for and that will mean that regions that are prepared to pay extra will get their infrastructure more quickly. 
The other thing that needs to be noted in this bill is the use of the fuel excise for land transport only. That is something that I think every member of this House would support. I do not think any party would vote against that particular element of the bill. If it did then it is not following its own policies because all parties have said that they want what is collected off the motorists to be spent on the transport infrastructure and services in New Zealand and surely that is something we will do. Just as an added little bonus there will be some of that relief that the pleasure boat maritime search and rescue boat safety education and maritime safety services people have been asking for. That is another small part of this bill but it is important for people who feel that it is wrong to pay excise duty on the fuel that was purchased as if it was going to be used on our roads when in fact it is being used on our oceans. 
I look forward to the opportunity for this bill to be referred to our select committee. It is as I said a very important step down the path of improving our transport infrastructure. It deals with a better bureaucracy in terms of the new transport agency; with the question around a regional fuel tax; and with the hypothecation of the fuel excise taking care of better planning. I know that we will be able to make improvements to this bill through the select committee process and I look forward to bringing it back to the House next year.