Ward Mike: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Ward Mike: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19423] 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 Although the Finance and Expenditure Committee carried out a pro forma investigation of the Ministry of Transport a number of issues need to be debated. The Greens enjoy a close relationship with the Government on the transport portfolio. It is also a portfolio that has probably the greatest environmental impact of any portfolio. The Ministry of Transport is also the ministry that has the greatest energy footprint of any ministry. Transport is also the portfolio that has the greatest impact on New Zealanders’ lifestyle and health. I am pleased to note that the Secretary for Transport mentions the whole-of-Government approach in his report. There is certainly no area where we require a whole-of-Government approach more than in transport. It is an area rich with opportunities for savings and for making a substantial contribution to New Zealand’s Kyoto commitments while at the same time we prepare ourselves for a future where energy prices are likely to escalate dramatically. 
I want to focus on a couple of issues from the overview by the Secretary for Transport. The Secretary for Transport states that he wishes to reduce transport-related deaths and injuries—300 fatalities is the target and 4500 hospitalisations by 2010. Those are admirable targets. He also wants to enforce tougher enforcement measures for targeting speeding drivers—again that is admirable. But I suggest that probably the simplest thing that the Minister and ministry could do would be to reduce the number of vehicles on our roads. It is interesting that in spite of the call for more roads and more infrastructure there is probably more spare capacity on our roads and more spare capacity in this ministry than in any other sector. I did the sums the other day when Joel Cayford announced that $3.7 billion was to be spent on public transport and well in excess of $10 billion in total on transport infrastructure in Auckland over the next 10 years or so. I did the sums and I worked out that there were 700000 cars on the roads in Auckland with an average occupancy rate of 1.1 people per car. The roads in Auckland are currently cluttered with something like 2.5 million empty seats. If one has that kind of money to spend then it ought to be possible to get a few bums on a few more of those seats—700000 cars 1.1 people per car. 
Peter Brown 
: Pass a law! 
MIKE WARD 
: I do not think we need to pass a law. With that sort of money we ought to be able to give a few incentives. I remember the word Bernie Ogilvy used before was “incentivise”. We could do some incentivising and encourage and persuade people to hop into somebody else’s car maybe to travel to work with the wife or the husband occasionally maybe to catch the bus or maybe to move into town. 
Since the Secretary for Transport’s report was published peak oil and climate change have gone from being issues that the Greens were scoffed at for raising to become headline issues in most newspapers in New Zealand. Last week there was a full-page article on climate change on the front page of the  
Dominion Post. 
 It is no longer a laughing matter; it is already happening. We are seeing the consequences here in New Zealand it is happening all over the world and it will get worse. If something like 16 of the hottest years on record since records began to be kept have happened since 1980 and if that is the result of an increase of just 90 parts per million in carbon dioxide levels what will happen when we have a doubling of carbon dioxide levels this century? If that does not worry members it ought to. With the kind of money we are targeting at transport I believe there are measures we can take to change behaviour. I am pleased the Government is taking measures to change the culture. It is evident from the report that there are good intentions there. We hope that those good intentions can be turned into measures that will actually clean up vehicle emissions not just investigate methods of cleaning up vehicle emissions that will increase vehicle occupancy rates not just talk about it that will reduce vehicle volumes and that will implement comprehensive land-use reforms. 
So far successive Governments have spent a great deal of time on perpetuating certain bizarre transport behaviour. It is the kind of behaviour that the planet cannot handle and we deserve better than that. Why would people move into a house knowing that it is located much too far from all the places they need to be at spend half their life paying it off much of the rest of their life actually going to and fro and a fair bit of their life earning the money to do that? There are better things to do with one’s time than to sit in traffic jams and put up with road rage. I think the measures set out in the report may just achieve something.