Twyford Phil: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Land Transport Management Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10698. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is a shame that the senior member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee David Bennett could not summon up more thought more intelligence more substance or even more wit in that last contribution. It is really a shame that a bill as important and far-reaching as the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill did not get a more serious treatment from the member opposite who gave it only 3 minutes.There are a number of reasons why the Labour Party opposes this bill and Darien Fenton summarised them very well. It is true that this bill narrows the principal legislation’s purpose statement and decision criteria in a way that we feel is retrograde and unhelpful to the future of New Zealand’s transport system. It is true that this bill reduces the say that communities all around New Zealand have in setting the transport priorities that they pay for with their petrol tax and their road-user charges. It is true that this bill perhaps most damagingly opens the door and facilitates more long-term debt and use of toll roads to fund a National Land Transport Programme whose priorities are fundamentally wrong and that is why we oppose this bill.More than ever—more than ever—the transport system in New Zealand needs to take account of sustainability. It needs to take account of social well-being the needs ofcommunities the environment and economic efficiency. Unfortunately what this bill does is cement in place the very narrow and distorted definition of economic efficiency that this Government has used to justify its roads of national significance. The National Government has gone on this motorway-building binge for the last few years wasting billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money building white elephant duplicate over-engineered and gold-plated motorway projects that will be an albatross around the necks of future generations of motorists.The bill also abolishes the regional fuel tax which is just part and parcel of this Government’s systematic stripping away of the powers and the options that local government might have to fund its own transport priorities. We have seen it recently in the debate in Auckland where within minutes of the report of the Auckland Council’s consensus-building group on funding options being released—and noting that he had not even read the report—Gerry Brownlee the Minister of Transport ruled out the very recommendations that that body of expert opinion recommended including a regional fuel tax to fund Auckland’s future transport agenda.But I want to focus the rest of my comments tonight on an issue that has not had much attention in the debate so far and that is a really insidious part of this bill which strips away the democratic rights of Aucklanders in setting the priorities of the transport programmes services and infrastructure—trains buses and ferries—that they pay for with their road taxes with their road-user charges and petrol excise duty and with their rates. This bill takes away the power to make decisions about Auckland’s transport system and hands those powers to Cabinet. It puts those powers in the hands of the executive at the expense of local government and the elected representatives of the people of Auckland. I think that is just unforgivable.It is just the latest move by this Government to clip the wings of the Auckland Council which it cannot abide. We have seen so many examples now that it is hard to keep track of them. There is a whole debate going on about the response to the housing affordability crisis in Auckland and we will come to that on another day.What this bill does is it strips Auckland Council of its right to determine the priorities for spending what is currently about $459 million a year. Thirty-three percent of the rates that Aucklanders pay goes to Auckland Transport. This bill takes away the ability of Auckland Council to have a say in setting those priorities. It is the only council in the country that is losing its democratic right. It is the only one and why is that? It is because this Government has a difficult problematic relationship with Auckland Council. The wrong guy won the mayoralty and the Government has never ever got over it. That is its problem and it will come back to bite it.There are two reasons why the measure in this bill is particularly offensive. The first is that it amounts to a giant loss of accountability for that $459 million a year that Aucklanders contribute out of their rates to transport. They are losing representation while they are being taxed. It is taxation without representation. It is a fundamental democratic principle that does not seem to be a matter of any importance to the National Government. It is quite happy to say to Aucklanders: “Never mind what you think. Never mind that 63 percent of Aucklanders want to see the city rail link built as a matter of priority. We in the National Government are going to impose this from Wellington.” Gerry Brownlee the “Minister of Gridlock” from his comfortable ministerial office in Auckland is giving the big middle finger to 1.4 million Aucklanders and saying: “Never mind what you think 1.4 million Aucklanders. You pay your rates you pay your taxes but I know best and I am going to set your priorities for Auckland. Never mind what you think.”This Government loves to treat Auckland with contempt. It is its No. 1 sport. We saw it actually right back in the setting up of the Auckland super-city when Treasury andthe Ministry of Transport advised Cabinet that Auckland Transport would be more accountable if it was set up within Auckland Council as a department. But Steven Joyce knew better. Steven Joyce advised Cabinet: “No set Auckland Council up as a council-controlled organisation—that way we can better control it.” That is exactly what this Government has set out to do. It wants to control Auckland Transport by requiring in this legislation that it act consistently with the Government policy statement. So Auckland Transport will take its marching orders not from the people of Auckland but from Cabinet. That is what is going on with this legislation. It is Cabinet telling Auckland how it is going to run its city and what the priorities are for its transport system.Andrew Little: They always do that.PHIL TWYFORD: That is exactly right.There is another basic principle of politics in Government called subsidiarity. Subsidiarity means that decisions should be made as close as possible to the location where the consequences of those decisions are felt by those people who live with the daily consequences. It is Aucklanders who have to live with the consequences of this Government’s policies and its priorities. It is Aucklanders who sit in traffic for an hour in the morning and an hour at night because this Government does not give a damn about their transport system and continues to want to impose a 1950s ideology of suburban sprawl and motorways. That is the mindset of the National Party and it does not give a damn. It does not give a damn that Aucklanders are actually crying out for something different.I want to say something to conclude about what National has done in the transport area. It has poured billions of dollars into gold-plated wasteful motorway projects. It has neglected public transport. Not a single new piece of public transport infrastructure has been initiated since these turkeys have been on the Treasury benches—not a single piece of new public transport. It is an absolute bloody disgrace. National has neglected rural roads. It has neglected State highways. It has run down KiwiRail. And now in this bill it is doctoring the legislative framework for our entire transport system in order to take power away from local communities and give it to Cabinet. What an absolutely disgraceful record. And I say to the National Government that it has gone too far. There is not a shred of consensus left in the transport sector after 4½ years that this Government has been in power.If there is a good thing that comes out of the wasteful mismanaged ideologically blinkered management of transport by this National Government it is that the next Labour-led Government will lead major reform. It will lead major reform and the legacy of the National Government will lie in tatters. I say to the members over there that all the things that you have done for the last 4½ years will be swept away because people do not want the kind of transport system that you have ushered in over the last 4½ years—not you Mr Assistant Speaker; these people on the National Treasury benches. There will be major reform. People will notice the difference. There will be public transport in our cities. The local roads will be maintained properly. There will not be billions of dollars wasted on motorways as the National Government has done. And that actually will be the legacy of that party’s tenure on the Treasury benches.