Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Transport) Link to this
I move, That the Public Transport Management Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for their work on this bill, and I fully support the changes that have been made to improve its workability. If we want New Zealanders to move towards a more sustainable transport system, we must create a public transport system that is a realistic alternative to the use of the private car. It is therefore essential that New Zealand’s public transport services are affordable, integrated, accessible, safe, responsive to change, and, above all, economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. With the requirement to reduce our carbon emissions, and with high oil prices, there is a need to increase public transport provision. We are already seeing a rise in the number of people using public transport, with approximately 32 percent more trips being taken on public transport in 2006-07 than in 2000-01. This bill will empower regional councils to better plan and manage public transport services. It will give them the tools to do what they need to, when it is needed, and where it is needed.
More than 80 percent of services are contracted and subsidised by ratepayers and taxpayers. Councils set standards for these services, but they cannot do so for the 20 percent of services that are run commercially at the operator’s initiative without a contract. These are called non-contracted services, or commercial services. The bill would empower regional councils to impose controls on all commercial services. The current lack of control over, and information about, commercial services is hindering the ability of regional councils to achieve best value for money, and to effectively plan and manage public transport services. It is critical that public transport services are effectively planned and managed to ensure value for money from the $909 million of ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money that is forecast to be spent on public transport services in 2008-09.
A wide range of submissions on the bill were received, and a number of changes have been made in response. The most significant is the inclusion of an oversight mechanism to allow existing commercial public transport operators the right to appeal to the Environment Court against controls imposed by regional councils. A number of criteria for adopting controls, and appealing against them, have been added to the bill. This will help to ensure any controls set are justified. The bill also defines the transport-disadvantaged more clearly—not listing groups that may be transport-disadvantaged, but focusing on what it means to be transport-disadvantaged.
It has been made clear that accessibility standards, for example, requiring super-low bus floors, may also be set. Accessibility standards for public transport services have been defined so that it is plain that accessibility is not just about being able to get on to the bus or ferry but also about having access to information, identifying the correct service, getting to and using seating, and being able to get off the service in the right place.
A number of provisions have been clarified and improved, including setting out the development and content of regional public transport plans, who must be consulted, and when. New criteria for determining when the bundling of services is justified have been added. This bill will enable regional councils to set their notice periods for commencing, varying, and withdrawing commercial public transport services. The timing and process for decisions regarding registrations and deregistrations of service have been improved, so notice periods can be extended, while allowing operators a clear right to be heard.
At present, commercial services can be registered, varied, or withdrawn in 21 days. Operators can register some services as commercial if their tender for a contract is not successful, or even while tenders are still being sought, or register part of a timetable of services as commercial. This can inhibit competition for contracted services and give an operator a financial advantage for the contract of remaining non-commercial services in the timetable.
This bill will give regional councils more time to respond to changes in commercial services and ensure continued delivery of services to their communities. The bill will enable regional councils to access more information from commercial public transport services, such as detailed patronage information, and this will help assist in better planning. Monitoring powers have been added so that regional councils can ensure that commercial services are meeting the standard set in their region. Requirements for providing information about commercial services have been improved so that regional councils can use this information for developing plans now, rather than having to go through a complete planning process before being able to access this information. Where information is commercially sensitive, requirements governing its release have been tightened so that such information will be protected, unless there is an overriding reason not to do so.
Regional councils will be able to set quality and performance standards. Quality standards have been defined, and regional councils will be able to require the use of lower-emission buses and specify standards for such matters as accessibility, comfort, and customer service training. Performance standards will help to ensure that services are reliable and run on time.
This bill will enable the integration of services, ticketing, and fares across a region. If regional councils choose to use this provision, services can be scheduled to connect with each other. All operators will be required to accept the same tickets, and travelling on public transport will be made a whole lot more simple. I would like to take this opportunity—[Interruption] I beg the member’s pardon?
The member has just said that it will not be simpler. I would say that he has never travelled on a bus, because anybody who gets on a bus with one ticket, then has to buy three or four more tickets to travel on a ferry, a train, and a different bus service finds it very difficult indeed. I say to the member that he should try using public transport in Auckland to see whether it is simple.
I take this opportunity to signal my intention to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper. Given the recent passage of the Land Transport Management Amendment Act 2008, a number of minor and technical amendments are needed to align this bill with that Act.
Once again I thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for the work it has done on this bill, and emphasise the importance of this legislation in enabling regional councils to effectively plan and manage public transport and respond to rising demands.
This is a very good bill. It will certainly mean a lot to the passengers who travel on public transport. This bill is aimed at ensuring we have more people travelling on public transport than we currently do, and to better integrate it, to better align it, and to give better standards. It will give consideration to those who are disadvantaged in terms of being able to travel, and I believe that this bill will be widely accepted by the community. It provides options for regional councils; it does not impose them. It gives councils a range of tools that they can choose to use.
I am surprised at the deputy Leader of the Opposition, who is showing his ignorance in not having read the bill, in not knowing what is in it, and in not caring whether or not the travelling public of New Zealand have a better transport experience. We know that the National Party’s policy is to build toll roads, at $50 a week, rather than to provide more public transport for the people of New Zealand. We believe in better public transport, and we have taken public transport expenditure now, in conjunction with our ratepayers, to close to a billion dollars, which is up from the miserable $40 million a year spent by taxpayers and the National Government of the day. We are seeing real growth in public transport in New Zealand because of that commitment. I know that the Greens would like to see more. They will see more; public transport services will grow over the years. We will see that because of the ability to provide proper public transport services for passengers.
PANSY WONG (National) Link to this
We, National, on this side of the House, and the public, are looking forward to hearing the amount of the tolls this Minister will announce in a month’s time. Apparently Labour is very proud of its toll roads, as well. I also want to tell the good news to the Clutha-Southland people down there, because the Minister has challenged the Hon Bill English to use more bus services. So I am sure the Minister is going to put extensive bus services down there in Clutha-Southland so that the Hon Bill English and other good people can travel on them.
No matter how many times the Minister has muttered the words “public transport”, this Public Transport Management Bill has a very clearly stated objective. It is actually to clarify and extend the functions and powers of regional councils, in respect of public transport planning and regulation. It is all about control, it is typical of Labour’s intrusive micro-management, and it shows neither respect for private property rights nor the proper process for passing legislation.
Let me share with people listening in to this debate: currently we have two types of public transport service. One is commercially viable; the operators register with the regional council their intention to provide a service and they receive no subsidy for it. In the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee we listened to some of the operators during the committee process, and some have built up the commercial viability of their bus routes through the involvement of a family business over a long time. Others have been innovative to ensure that their bus routes have become commercially viable. But another type, which we know as contracted services, actually requires subsidies: public subsidies are required to make sure there is a service on that particular bus route.
Currently, the type of operators who provide public services range from city council - owned bus companies, as in Christchurch and other cities, family businesses, or large-scale commercial operators. Some operators, as I have indicated, have registered their intention for a bus route, and have developed it to a more popular base where public subsidy is no longer required.
Before this bill was introduced, there was indeed a quite extensive consultation process. It was carried out to look at three options. Option A, apparently, was the status quo, where bus and ferry services would continue to operate as a mix of contracted or commercial services, and regional councils would have limited control over commercial services that required no subsidy. During the select committee submission process, it was interesting that no matter what backgrounds these operators or submitters came from, they all hailed the Christchurch bus services as an outstanding success, and we remind everybody that the Christchurch bus services have flourished under the current legislative environment.
Option B was an option to empower regional councils to be able to impose control on commercial services. Let us revisit that: commercial services are services where operators register to operate without public subsidy. One can therefore imagine that commercial operators were very apprehensive. They received no public subsidy, but this legislation would introduce more power for regional councils to tell them what to do or what not to do. Members should think about this—we are down to micro-management, such as the colour of buses that a regional council might want to impose on the bus company. There might be pink buses to stand apart from red ones; I would probably welcome blue buses on the road.
So those operators were shocked to find out that the option B they had been consulted on was eventually different from the option B that had been introduced in the bill. Apparently, the Labour Cabinet, after considering the results of the consultation, have introduced more controls, and more powers for regional councils, than there were in the option that had gone out for consultation. But Labour has not had the decency, actually, in the foreword to the legislation to highlight the fact that option B in the legislation has been presented with variation. It is not the original option B.
It took quite a lot of effort for some of us to debate that, and to say that to be fair to the submitters who had been originally involved in the consultation, they should also be able to see the analysis done by officials, in order to offer them the comfort of the original option B and the revised option B, which, according to officials, consists only of technical differences. I can assure members that they are more than technical. But it took quite a bit to convince the committee that the analysis should be released to the operators, because the Labour-led Government always believes that it should keep people in the dark and introduce changes at the last minute to shut down debate or consultation.
The other option, which is known as option C, was to empower regional councils to prohibit commercial services, and to bundle commercial and subsidised services together. Can members imagine? If an operator of a family business, a bus operator, had developed a service over a long time, and had developed a route into a commercially viable one so that the operator did not need to receive a public subsidy, that service could disappear. The regional council could decide that it would bundle it together with something else, and take it away from that operator. Well, in the bill that was introduced, the officials advised us why they had decided to go against option A, the status quo. They said they also rejected option C because that option would prohibit commercial services in a region, which might lead to the reduction of opportunities for public transport operators to be innovative, and would reduce the control operators had over their own businesses. That would potentially undermine business confidence.
So even the officials had advised Cabinet—I presume—to ditch option C and go for option B. There was a shock, then, to select committee members—not to mention submitters—when the chairman of the committee, the Hon Mark Gosche, suddenly introduced the notion to the committee that most people liked option C. Well, it was actually not most people; it was the Auckland Regional Council, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, and councils largely from Auckland, that were saying “Isn’t it a great idea to give local government the total say on how people should run their businesses?”.
The chairman said that maybe the select committee should forget about consultation and the official advice, and go for option C. Then, of course, we said that option C was outside the scope of the legislation, but we were told by the chairman that he had had a quiet word with the Minister, and that it was all right because the Minister would welcome option C. That is terrible, I thought. Cabinet had rejected option C, and the chairman was trying to get the select committee members into the position of saying that the select committee rather than Cabinet wanted to impose option C.
Well, even New Zealand First, the doormat for this Labour-led Government, can see the writing on the wall in imposing option C and going against the wishes of the great majority of submitters, who had rejected option C. I just point out that I find this Labour-led Government’s total disrespect for consultation and the select committee process incredible.
The last thing I will say continues to be on this process. We found out that the good Regulations Review Committee, chaired by my able colleague Dr Richard Worth, had sent us advice on some major concerns it had about the regulatory-making powers in the bill. Unfortunately, the letter went astray, but then the chairman of our select committee would not agree to having a proper process for us to bring this bill back to the select committee for a proper debate before it was brought back to the House. National would not agree to a bill that had taken away private property rights and had ignored the consultation results.
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) Link to this
It is a very sad day when the National Party’s transport spokesman, the Hon Maurice Williamson, who is a former Minister of Transport and the deputy chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which dealt with this Public Transport Management Bill, is unable to speak. Why is that man not allowed to speak?
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member cannot draw attention to a member’s absence from the House.
Speaking to the point of order, I say that I did not. Maurice could have been sitting right there. That member has just pointed out that he is not even allowed in the House; I did not point that out. [ Interruption]
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
Does the member have a point of order on the floor? If he does, I did not hear it. The member does not.
Oh dear! The deputy chair of the select committee, who has been National’s transport spokesman for years and years and is a former Minister of Transport, is unable to take a call today. Has it something to do with the fact that he told the truth about the National Party’s policy on tolling—that it would charge New Zealanders $50 a week? National would give with one hand a $50 tax cut and take with the other hand a $50 toll on the roads.
We on that select committee have heard, year after year, about the Hon Maurice Williamson’s travels. He is the most travelled man in Parliament. He has been to every public-private partnership structure ever built in the world—every bridge, every tunnel, every road. He knows what those public-private partnerships cost in tolls. I do not get out of the country very often, but recently I was in Brisbane, and I went over the Gateway Bridge, which is just one of the toll roads in Brisbane. Can members guess how much the toll was? It was $2.90 each way. I know that Maurice Williamson is sure to have visited that bridge, because he has visited every bridge in Australia, he tells us. He knows how public-private partnerships work, he knows how much the public would have to pay, and he was telling only the truth about the National Party’s policy.
What is the National Party’s policy on public transport? Bill English said during the speech of the Minister of Transport that it was ridiculous to say that integrated ticketing and integrated fares would solve the problem. Well, Maurice Williamson believes that they would. Actually, he tells us that it is the National Party’s policy to have integrated ticketing and integrated fares—so much so that we all got on a bus outside Parliament to see the new smart-card system operating in Wellington, which could be turned into integrated ticketing and integrated fares if we pass this bill, if the regional council is able to have control. But, no, Bill English once again has had to put his transport spokesman in his place. He says that integrated ticketing and integrated fares are not National Party policy, that it is opposed to them, and that they are stupid. Maurice Williamson says that National is actually for them; he told us that in the select committee. He told the transport operators who brought a bus here not so long ago that they are a sensible idea, that they are a good part of the bill, and that National supports them.
So what is the truth? Is it $50 a week or $2 a week? Is it integrated ticketing or is it not? Well, we will wait and see whether the National Party can figure out something as complicated as that before the election. I doubt it can, because poor old Maurice has been sidelined. National members have probably buried him in concrete under a highway somewhere to keep him quiet. Even then we would be able to hear from him, because he would take his telephone with him and make calls. Everybody would still hear from Maurice Williamson what the transport policy of the National Party really is, and Bill English would be working full-time to close him down because he does not want anybody to be frightened by Maurice Williamson’s speaking the truth.
I was listening to Pansy Wong try valiantly to take the role that Maurice Williamson should be filling here today as National’s transport spokesperson. She said there should be no control over the spending of public money. She said it should be left the way it is. That is paraphrasing what she said, but she was saying how terrible it is that the Government wants to have some control over those in the private sector who provide bus, ferry, and train services in this country. The taxpayer and ratepayer subsidy is $909 million—not quite $1 billion. But we heard from the National Party members, who oppose this bill, that the local government authorities, which administer the subsidy on our behalf, are evil, stupid, and venal people who cannot be trusted to put controls on the wonderful people out there who run ferries, buses, and trains, and who, because they are from the private sector, know everything and can do everything without any control by the funder. Well, it will be an interesting situation if that party ever becomes the Government; National would just hand the loot over, just give it to the private sector, and it would not expect to have any control.
National says it would be ridiculous for the regional councils to even have a plan for a bus colour system. There is no control in the bill—we took it out—but we have said there should be a plan. Anybody who knows Maurice Williamson’s electorate will know that buses go there and back. Generally speaking, they are owned by one company, which has maroon-coloured buses. Everybody who wants to go to east Auckland—which is, unfortunately, represented by Maurice—knows to get on a maroon-coloured bus. National says it is OK for that bus company to paint its buses to look like a Milo tin or a Qantas aeroplane, but it is not OK for the people who pay the bills, the ratepayer and the taxpayer, to tell the company to put up a standard sign or to use a standard colour scheme. National members say that is an intrusion into the rights of the private sector.
The taxpayer and the ratepayer are paying for it, because most of those bus companies receive 60 or 70 percent of their income, their revenue, from the taxpayer and the ratepayer. In some cases, it is 80 percent. But National members say we should leave them alone, we should not tell them what to do, and we should not tell them that it would be simple for consumers to figure out that if they want to go somewhere up the coast, they need to get on a bus of a certain colour. No, no, those members say we cannot have that, because it is an intrusion into the private sector’s right to do business. Well, what a lot of nonsense! That is why the National Party is voting against this bill. It says that the private sector should be trusted with $900 million of ratepayers and taxpayers’ funds, without people elected by the community having any say about it. National says that, no, the local authorities should not be planning, and, no, they should not have control. It wants to leave everything to the market.
Well, we left it to the market in the 1990s. If my memory serves me right, the previous National Government, in all its generosity, was putting $18 million into Auckland’s public transport. Aucklanders wonder why their trains are dilapidated and why it is not easy to get on them at the moment. They wonder why their bus fleet is dilapidated. Well, when the taxpayer and the ratepayer are putting in such a pitiful amount, no signals are sent to the private sector to invest, so it did not. It did not build any new trains, it did not order any new trains, it did not do anything about double tracking, and it did not do anything about grotty railway stations that were open to the weather, covered in graffiti, etc. It did nothing about building wharves so that people could access ferries easily—no, no. Those companies did not do any of that, because National left everything to the market, and we had an absolutely appalling public transport system for a city the size of Auckland.
I have just been to Brisbane and I have seen the wonders of a public transport system that has integrated ticketing, that has a plan, and that has a Government and a local council committed to it. One can get on a Quick Cat ferry and go from one end of the river to the other on a daily pass costing $4.40. If one gets off the ferry, one can, within a certain time frame, get on a bus and travel by road—some of the roads have dedicated busways like the ones this Government has built—or get on a train, all on the same ticket.
Bill English says integrated ticketing is rubbish and the National Party is opposed to it. What would one expect from a visionless outfit like that which does not have a policy yet? If it does have a policy, Maurice Williamson is not allowed to espouse it, because he might tell the truth. This is our truth: public transport up and down the country. Local government has called for it; it supports it. Auckland—all the territorial local authorities and the Auckland Regional Council—was united around option C. The National Party opposed it. The Labour Party members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee thought it was worth putting it in the bill as an option. Members opposite, who oppose everything for the sake of it, oppose Auckland having a decent public transport system.
There are something like 200 different fares and products within the public transport system in Auckland alone. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority wants to have it down to 20, and it says this bill is necessary. That is why the Government has put it forward, that is why we have improved it in the select committee, that is why it is necessary, and that is why the National Party will vote against it.
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this
In the context of the last couple of weeks I did not think I would be saying this, but I will say it now: “Thank you, New Zealand First.” It may be part of a rotten coalition that is going down the tubes, but it has saved New Zealand from the extreme Labour vision for public transport. Just so the House is quite clear, option C was a grubby little deal done between the member for Maungakiekie and the chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee, with the Prime Minister’s oversight, which would effectively have given Mike Lee direct control of not just hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidy but also of hundreds of millions of dollars of private assets.
I do not quite know what other people think, but my experience of the Auckland Regional Council is that it is not the most flexible, responsive, and responsible entity in the country. New Zealand First saw what a huge problem this would be, and it vetoed option C, which is what the Labour Party wanted, and we should be grateful for that. I tell members who else should be grateful for it: passengers. I have listened to Government members, who have now given two speeches about public transport, and they never mentioned the word “passengers”. We have heard all about bureaucrats, and all about plans, and all about tickets, and all about what great legislation it is, but we have not heard anything about the people who use public transport.
Even if one goes with the bill, which is option B+—that is, option B with some of the features of option C—it is still a planner’s dream. If we go with this, the only way people will be able to get a bus service from one part of Auckland to somewhere else, is by turning up to the meetings, knowing how to make submissions, and sitting through a 2-year process to get the regional public transport plan changed—and we know how difficult that will be—and then hoping that some bureaucrat somewhere agrees that a person should be allowed to have a bus service. Even though it is completely commercially viable, planners have to agree that it has to fit in with their nice, neat, tidy plan about how the world should work. Then one might get a new bus service.
This is at a time when oil prices have gone through the roof, and public demand for public transport is higher than it has ever been, and growing faster than it has ever been. So just when it has to be innovative and dynamic, Parliament will take control of public transport in Auckland. It actually works fine everywhere else. Wellington and Christchurch are running just fine under the current rules. In fact, there is quite a bit of innovation going on. In Wellington the Snapper card is really going to take off. It did not need the Government to pass legislation to get the Snapper card and the inevitably integrated ticketing, which is a good idea if people want to use it. But people in Auckland will get a new bus route when the Auckland Regional Council gets round to changing its plans to a 2-year or 3-year process.
What about the people who are most dependent on public transport? They do not have the time or the money to be public busybodies going off to give submissions and sitting through long, boring meetings, because they are working every hour in the day that that household can work to keep body and soul together and to pay their bills. That is the reality of people—passengers, users—whom the Government has not talked about in 20 minutes of speeches on the parliamentary consideration of this bill. The Government thinks public transport is for the people who plan it. It thinks public transport is for consultants. It thinks public transport is there to go down the road of the large, failed, integrated ticketing projects in Australia, which in Sydney and Melbourne have fallen apart. This is exactly the vision that the Auckland Regional Council is trying to pursue—to spend $100 million on it, when it has failed in Sydney. The Wellington Regional Council has put in the Snapper card at no public cost. It has been successful, and the council did not need legislation to pass it.
This is a Labour Party dream: how to make sure that we turn our public transport service into all those things that are the worst aspects of public service. Right now our public transport works, because it is a combination of public subsidy, some legislative oversight, and private sector operators who run it, who are able to innovate, who are able to start new bus routes, and who are able to see public transport not just as a utility but as a service for the public that should operate the way the public want it to work.
For instance, if one lives in the wrong place in Auckland, where the planners are dead keen on this new urbanism and intensification, the planners think everyone should live in high-rise buildings next to a railway station. Well, even if they are right—and I think they are wrong; that is not the right carbon or environmental outcome—most people do not think so. The planners are trying to direct our public transport systems to do something that will not suit most people, as in 95 percent of people, because 95 percent of people do not live in high-rise buildings next to big car parks and railway stations, which is the model. They do not; they live out in the suburbs, often a long way from work; and with oil prices the way they are they need new and innovative public transport. This bill is designed for political control, for inertia, for endless complicated planning processes. It is designed to privilege those people who have the capacity to take part in this bureaucratic morass.
I can tell members that the new urbanist planners will have much more influence on the shape of public transport under this bill than the people who use the service—the 1 million Aucklanders who want good and better public transport. And up to now they have been able to get it. The bus-only route to the North Shore appears very expensive. It is mostly empty, but in terms of public transport measures, it has been quite successful. It did not need this legislation to do it.
The other effect of this legislation will be, if we are not careful, a downgrading in investment. You know, one of the reasons people do not like using public transport is that it is just not attractive. In the past, the buses and the trains have been dowdy and smelly, so people avoid them if they can. That is often the case—it is as simple as that.
There need to be people running these services so that investment in quality public transport and a good experience will earn some rewards from that investment. That is how we will get buses painted in a way that is attractive, ticketing systems that are easy to use and reliable, and integrated ticketing across whole systems—when there is a financial incentive for success. This bill is heading in exactly the other direction because Labour believes that anyone—[Interruption] There we go. Anyone who makes a profit must have ripped someone off; that is what Labour believes. This bill is designed to create the lowest common denominator. Instead of a dynamic and responsive public transport system that responds to the fact that oil prices are going through the roof, we are going to get a stodgy, lowest-common-denominator, over-planned, over-politicised public transport system. It may be the dream of Labour to spend millions and millions, and to pass laws to satisfy the planners and the bureaucrats, but National is with the passengers. We want a system that responds to the needs of the passengers—the people who get on, the people who use it, and the people who cannot afford to fill their cars. I can tell members that no one in Auckland believes that the Auckland Regional Council is interested in the passengers, and I can tell Sue Moroney that no one in Auckland believes that Labour is interested in them. They know that Labour is much more interested in the Auckland Regional Council getting bigger and fatter than in people getting better public transport. That is why National is opposed to this bill.
DAIL JONES (NZ First) Link to this
My ears were smarting and I was almost embarrassed as the deputy leader of the National Party started his speech. Did I hear correctly that he was saying “Thank you, New Zealand First.”?
I ask Mr Hide to tell us about all his secret trusts and to open his books. New Zealand First is the most open political party in New Zealand. We would never get Mr Hide to make a true statement outside this House. He hides in this House. He is very well named—“Hide”—he is a hider.
As far as the Public Transport Management Bill is concerned, New Zealand First has a consistent attitude of supporting land transport management. We supported it in 2004, and we supported it a few weeks ago. Of course, the National Party has a consistent attitude of opposing land transport management. It opposed it in 2004 and it opposed it a little while ago. Let us bear that in mind. The speech we heard from the deputy leader of the National Party, although I appreciate his compliment to New Zealand First, is consistent with his party’s failure to support a proper land transport or public transport management system.
New Zealand First went to a considerable amount of trouble with regard to this legislation. Peter Brown, who is busy at the moment on other public business, was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I met with Peter Brown and other interested people and another member of our team also met with Peter Brown and interested people, and we have taken a close interest in this legislation. What appears to have been the case is that we had the original option A, then we had, in fact, two option Bs—what I have been calling option B1, which was a compromise situation that was agreed, and then option B2, which was a variation of the compromise.
Now I always take the view that if people sat down and had a meeting and everyone has agreed, they should stick to that agreement. They should not, later on, try to use the power and weight from a certain section to bully another party. Some people are just bullies inside this House and they are puppy dogs outside. We take the view that when people have a meeting and have come to an arrangement, they should stick with that. If they are going to change the arrangement, they should have another good meeting and go through the exercise once more; they should not go around the corner and use a cudgel to try to browbeat someone.
We ended up with option B2, which was set away from the compromise, and then we had this option C. I read the explanatory note of the bill during the first reading—I do not have it here—and it totally condemned option C. In the explanatory note, the people who brought this bill to Parliament were highly condemnatory of option C. I cannot see how they could stand up in Parliament to support option C when they had totally condemned option C when they introduced the bill. New Zealand First will not be supporting option C in any shape or form. If any amendments are brought in the Committee, I say we will not be supporting a bill that has option C in it. Let us make that absolutely clear.
Many changes have been made to the bill. As an Auckland member of Parliament, I say that, once again, sadly, this is virtually an Auckland-type of bill. There are no problems, as I understand it, around the rest of the country but once again we are stuck with trying to sort out something in Auckland. Auckland, of course, has a particular geographical nature. It is an isthmus, very widely spread out, and it is uneconomic to run a proper transport system on a population of just about 1.3 million. As far as that is concerned, it is very difficult. Again, we are on an area of volcanic rock and that makes it very hard to go underground. I am not an engineer but I know that Auckland has peculiar topographical difficulties.
To make it clear, New Zealand First recognises that in the majority of regions public transport operates under a fully regulated model and it can be said that it often operates very well. There are other areas where it operates under a less regulated regime but it can also be said to operate well.
In Auckland there are problems particularly around integrating ticketing and bundling of services to some extent. I am familiar with the integrated ticketing system. I was speaking with someone on the plane the other day and asked him where he was going and how he travelled to work and such like. He used the busway on the North Shore and then he caught another bus or train to go to Mount Eden and he used the same ticket. I regard that as integrated ticketing. I understand integrated ticketing already exists in a form in Auckland. I also understand that we do not need to change the law even in Auckland to have integrated ticketing, if we want it.
It seems to be the case in Wellington—and I have just heard for the first time that there is integrated ticketing there. I have seen the Snapper card and I was very interested in it. In England there is another fish—there is the Oyster card. When my daughter greets us at Heathrow she gives my wife and me an Oyster card each. We get off the plane and we get on to the train and we use the bus. We use whatever we like; the system is totally integrated. That is a wonderful way of doing things and I am wholeheartedly in favour of an integrated system, whether it is called a Snapper card or an Oyster card, or whatever fishy name it is given.
I do not eat fish, so I have no idea what people talk about when they go on to fishy things. I am saving the fish population of the world; that is my contribution to the environment. I do not eat fish and stocks will not run out in 2047 because of me.
There are some who believe option C is a solution to Auckland’s public transport woes. New Zealand First disagrees and will oppose any Supplementary Order Paper that attempts to introduce option C. Let us explain why. In essence we believe Auckland needs an administrative structure that encourages investment, innovation, and efficiency. At the same time, it should hold transport operators to account to ensure that services provided are reliable, convenient, comfortable, and affordable. To achieve these attributes it is essential there is regular consultation between regional administrators and the transport operators. We believe that the bill, as returned from the select committee, achieves that balance, so we will support it at the second reading.
A comment was made about buses and the regulations surrounding the administration of the system, and when I first saw this bill I was very concerned about clause 10 and clause 12, which seem to have a considerable regulatory impact on what could be done, including, even, painting the buses in a particular colour. The question was raised by a Labour member as to who is paying for it. The Labour member seems to have forgotten that the buses are paid for by the private operators who own the buses. If someone owns the bus, surely that person has the right as to how the bus should be painted. That person wants, in many respects, to distinguish his or her company from a competitor’s, so will paint the bus however they choose. Stagecoach, as opposed to Ritchie’s Transport Holdings, in Auckland might want to paint a bus in a particular colour, and others might have their own style. They can say to the public: “We—X company—run our company and our business better than you and in commercial areas you should be using our operation because we are good and we are willing to say that we are good and we want our bus painted our way.”
In respect of that aspect of insisting that buses be painted in a particular way, although we can understand it, all we really need, from the point of view of someone like me who uses a bus now and then, is a sign that tells us where the thing is going. We can stand at a bus stop, see the sign, know where the bus is going, and hop on that bus. None of us is that deficient that we cannot work out where a bus is going. We should not insist a bus be painted in a particular colour when we do not even own the bus. When bus owners want to put on, say, a hundred new buses at a cost of God knows what a bus costs—about $400,000—surely they should have the right to paint their own buses in the way they want to.
I note that some work was done by the Regulations Review Committee. I could see very well, having been a member of that select committee in the last session—and having been in Parliament when that concept was first established many, many years ago—why we would be concerned about clauses 10 and 12. I must say that I congratulate the select committee on the work it did. Many amendments have been made to this bill. Clauses 10 and 12 have been changed, in some respects quite drastically and dramatically, and I am very pleased with the efforts made by Peter Brown to try, with the select committee, to produce a bill that goes some way down the middle.
New Zealand First wants to make sure that all New Zealand has a good public transport system. We appreciate that the solution in this legislation is mainly directed at Auckland, because, once again, Auckland is the problem. We believe that this legislation as it stands is a workable solution to the problems that exist at the present time, and we will be supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
Public transport needs a big hand up if it is to play the role that it needs to play to reduce car dependence, to reduce greenhouse emissions, to protect us from oil price rises so we can still get around, and to reduce congestion in our cities. The Public Transport Management Bill sets out to make progress in that direction, and the Green Party supports it. However, still more needs to be done. New Zealand cities are world famous for their poor levels of public transport and their high levels of car dependence. The famous transport academic from Western Australia, Peter Newman, says that car-dependent cities around the world have the highest proportion of their wealth spent on transport. Auckland spends 16 percent of its wealth on moving people around. That is four times higher than a city like Copenhagen, for example. So it is highly economically inefficient to have public transport services that are less than what they could be.
We also have a quote from Paul Mees, from the University of Melbourne, who says: “The decline of public transportation used since the 1950s has been the worst of any major Western city in the world. Even in US cities today the bulk of transport funding is going into public transport. Auckland defies this global trend.”
I want to talk about public transport in our cities from the perspective of a transport user. I will suggest that what Bill English has just said about the perspective of a public transport user could not be further from the truth. The travelling public, in Auckland and Wellington at least, are voting with their feet. They are moving out of their cars now. We have a reduction, for the first time in history, of vehicle kilometres travelled on Auckland motorways at peak time, and we have a very significant increase in the use of public transport. This is in response to rising oil prices, and also, I think, to congestion. The fact that the trains have benefited even more than the buses, because they are not subject to that congestion, just shows what a significant factor this is in influencing transport choices.
When as consumers we try to make those choices, what do we find? Well, Bill English admitted that we find poor-quality buses, we find poor reliability, we find unclear timetables, and we find a complete failure to connect. Who is running those buses now? It is the private companies that Bill English thinks should retain all the decision making. If we have poor-quality buses now that are old and dilapidated and not very clean, we need to be able to set standards for the quality of public transport services. But we cannot do so unless those services are contracted. That is why we need a fully contracted model. If I want to change from my train trip to a bus to get where I am going, the timetable is not integrated, the buses do not leave when the trains arrive, the tickets are not integrated, and, despite what New Zealand First has been claiming, I cannot buy a ticket in either Auckland or Wellington that will allow me to transfer from buses to trains on the same fare. They do not connect. Yes, we have a Snapper ticket in Wellington, which is very snappy, but it is only for the buses; it does not allow connection with the trains, at all.
We have public transport systems that are not reliable. I have a secretary who regularly texts me in the morning to say that the train has stopped between stations, that she does not know when it will start again, and that the trains are not on time. In order to solve that problem we need more investment and we need more services. If the public are moving from their cars to buses and trains, we need more buses and trains at peak hour to accommodate that demand.
Bill English says that private operators and private owners of buses will give the people what they want, but their elected representatives will not. Do we really believe that? Will we vote in those people who say that they will not give people the sorts of bus services they want, and that they will do something else just because they believe in it? I do not think so. The private operators have not been giving people what they want, which is why there is now a call to have greater public control over those services and greater powers for regional authorities. So, in fact, Mr English destroys his own case.
He thanked New Zealand First for protecting the rights of the monopolist bus companies against the overwhelming submissions of virtually every council and of the smaller bus operators—who do not get a fair go in the competitive system at the moment because of the monopolist behaviour of some big ones—against the submissions of the Planning Institute, and against the submissions of commuters. The travelling public will thank the Green Party for introducing an amendment in the Committee stage to insert option C, which is a fully contracting model, as an option. We will not impose that on any regional council. We believe that regional councils that are elected by the people can decide, in consultation with the people, what the best model is for their city. But they ought to have that option of a fully contracted system. We will introduce that amendment at the Committee stage, and we believe it will pass. I thank numerous colleagues for that.
Regional councils need to be able to ensure that there is coverage of the whole city, that there is a network of buses that go where people want and when people want, that there are common standards of comfort, quality, emissions, and reliability, and that all of these services connect. They cannot do that without the powers of this bill, and particularly without the powers of option C, which we will add back into the bill.
This in itself will not be enough. We are strongly supportive of this legislation. We have talked to the Government about it all the way through. It is a great first step, but more is needed. We have a system that tells people that if they want a new State highway or motorway in their region, central government through the National Land Transport Fund will dish out all the money—100 percent funded out of the fund. But if people want public transport as an alternative to that new motorway, they will have to pay for most of it themselves. That has always been a problem, because as soon as a regional council—however much its people are asking for public transport and however much it wants to provide it—puts up the rates to pay for it, it gets turfed out of office.
It has been distortionary of our transport system for years and years that State highways and motorways are centrally funded, yet if we want to build a railway to do the same thing, and to carry the same people the same distance across the city, Auckland or Wellington will have to fund about half of it itself. We need to change the funding arrangements in the National Land Transport Fund. We need to put public transport and roading on a level playing field. We need to make sure that those alternatives to new roading—those alternative choices for commuters—are funded at the same rate as roads are. Otherwise, we are asking them to compete with one hand tied behind their backs.
That is something the Green Party has campaigned on for years. I have a bill that has won the ballot and has been sitting waiting for its first reading for a year. It would change that balance of funding, but it is pretty obvious it is not going to get its first reading before the election. However, I look forward to it progressing next year and to our getting a level playing field for different transport modes so that at least consumers can have the choice of travelling the way they want to travel.
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this
Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou. The Māori Party comes to this bill fuelled by our commitment towards developing options to support cheap, free, regular, reliable, and frequent public transport. We are acutely aware that the transport sector is responsible for 45 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. Our capacity to achieve an integrated, safe, responsive, and sustainable public transport system is thus motivated by our commitment towards the impacts of peak oil, alongside our responsibility to prepare for climate change.
We are interested in any strategies to achieve vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce vehicle emissions, and public transport services are certainly a central part of that plan. As the Auckland Regional Transport Authority advised us, a good public transport system is one of the many tools to support sustainability and climate change initiatives. But our focus is also, as always, on he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What will be the contribution that this legislation makes towards improving the quality of life for our people? It is more than simply adding a band-aid to the perpetual problem of the urgent need to develop a high-quality public transport system for Auckland.
This House has long been aware that public transport in Auckland is inadequate. There is too much duplication between bus and train services and almost no coordination between services. Constituents in my Tāmaki-makau-rau offices are routinely describing public transport in our region as slow, infrequent, unreliable, and expensive. Worst of all, people who happen to live in the outlying suburbs of Auckland, Takanini, Massey, Clendon, and Rānui are often the least well provided for, yet it is these same communities where the people who need quality affordable public transport are more likely to live.
This Public Transport Management Bill is therefore desperately needed, not so much because of the general lack of satisfaction with our transport options but more because of the need to have the infrastructure in place to ensure there is public transport available for those who need it most. One of the most interesting amendments added by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee was the importance of regional councils considering the needs of people who can be considered transport-disadvantaged and consulting groups that represent them. In the submissions received on the bill, we heard a range of variations on a theme about what transport-disadvantaged could mean.
Age Concern, drawing on the World Health Organization report Global Age-friendly Cities, emphasises that accessible and affordable public transport is a key factor influencing active ageing, describing it as a lifeline from social isolation for those without access to cars. CCS Disability Action and the Human Rights Commission describe the provision of an accessible public transport system as pivotal to enabling disabled people to participate and live full and enriched lives. They drew attention to the issues associated with social isolation and exclusion when people are unable to move freely about their communities and are trapped within their own homes.
The National Council of Women told the committee that there is a lack of public transport in rural towns and in regions. In fact, as a consequence of the submission a new definition of “transport disadvantaged” was established to refer to those living rurally. The council also argued that city services need to provide better for shift workers and those wanting more flexibility in peak time. The proposed definition of “transport disadvantaged”, as put forward by the select committee, chose to focus on people being at least able to get to basic community activities and services, such as work, education, health care, welfare, and food shops rather than refer to specific interest groups or populations. That is a very useful addition to the bill and we welcome the intent of the legislation in clarifying and extending the functions and powers of regional councils to regulate public transport services provided in their regions.
The bill will enable regional councils to plan for the public transport services they wish to have in their region, and all of that is very positive, especially in the case of Auckland. But we in the Māori Party wonder whether this bill goes far enough. The undeniable fact is that world oil production is peaking now. There is an increasing rate of demand for oil but also an increasing rate of scarcity. For every new barrel of oil discovered, five or six barrels are being used. We inevitably find ourselves in a position in which we have become almost totally oil-dependent for transport. So it is essential that we apply our most creative thinking to considering long-term, feasible public transport options. We may need to electrify more transport, to prioritise urban design around walking and biking rather than create more traffic jams or exacerbate the suburban trap.
It may well be time to turn to the ingenious humans who have for some time been leading the world in providing public transport on a reduced energy diet. Cuba now moves masses of people across Havana during rush hour by a complex mass-transit system that requires little additional funds or fuel. Virtually every vehicle in existence is called on for an elaborate system of ride-sharing, in which commuters ride in handmade wheelbarrows and on buses, animal-powered vehicles, bicycles, and motorised two-passenger rickshaws. Imagine that here in Wellington. Ministers could travel to work in pairs in a rickshaw, and Associate Ministers could be issued with a wheelbarrow each. Imagine the savings that would be achieved.
One of the most innovative Havana inventions is the camel—not the spitting humpback version, but a large mule semi-trailer pulled by a truck that holds up to 300 vehicles. It may not sound like a going concern for Remuera or Kohimārama, but the point is that a massive attitudinal change has taken place that we could all learn something from. In Cuba it is nothing for Government officials to pull over and fill up their Government vehicles with people needing a ride. A donkey cart with a taxi licence nailed to a frame will be travelling in Cuban streets while a common truck has been converted to public transport by welding a set of steps on the back for riders to jump on and off with ease. Dover could ride on that. The Māori Party is keen to investigate all options, all strategies, to consider additional public transport options.
Mark BlumskyWheelbarrows, yes. We believe that we need to make a long-term investment in improved public transport systems to achieve less oil dependency, less smog, lower petrol bills, and significantly reduced emissions.
There is, however, one last thing I would like to raise about this bill—that is, our greatly weakened consultation processes. The select committee has recommended that the consultation provisions of this bill should be amended by deleting the requirement to consult the public and Māori. The rationale given was that such consultation was too onerous, yet, on the other hand, it was content to extend the requirement to consult commercial operators and to add in a two-phase consultation approach. That new approach consults operators and councils as a first step, then the wider public under local government processes.
We in the Māori Party believe that the effect of this new two-phase approach actually narrows the scope, the weight of public voice, and, significantly, the views of whānau, hapū, and iwi. To this end we will be submitting a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage to ensure that these limitations are adequately addressed. There ends my wheelbarrow!
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this
It is always a pleasure to speak in this House, and to speak, in particular, on behalf of the people of Auckland, and especially those of Epsom. I would like to thank Jeanette Fitzsimons of the Green Party for putting up option C. I can tell the House that, having considered this issue and having talked to the people of Epsom and the people of Auckland, the ACT party certainly will support option C. We in Auckland are sick of a commercial operator dominating the market and blocking out competition and choice—things that ACT favours.
I hear Dail Jones giggling away in the background. I would not mind if Dail Jones would argue this matter on the basis of policy. I find it very disturbing to have reports from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that Peter Brown said New Zealand First had to support option B because it had received money from Infratil. If that is the case—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
Mr Hide will stand, withdraw, and apologise.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
I now ask Mr Jones to stand, withdraw, and apologise.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
That is one all. Let us proceed with the game.
Well, that was a reason that Peter Brown gave as to why New Zealand First had to support option B. I am sorry but that was what the members of the committee heard—unless they have been misleading me. Maybe others there will confirm it for me. I see Mr Bennett nodding his head to indicate that what I said was an accurate rendition of what happened at the committee. I notice also that Dail Jones was not at the committee, which is a bit tough. David Bennett was at the committee, and he has confirmed what I said.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He is persisting with his disregard of your ruling. You have ruled that this matter cannot be raised any further, and I would ask you to take the appropriate action.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
I ask the member to desist and to be careful with his debate, because that kind of remark can lead to disorder, and that has its own ramifications. Would the member just speak to the bill.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Speaker’s ruling is 52/1 or something like that. A member cannot repeat in this House a defamatory statement that was made anywhere, and cannot regard it as a reliable statement to use in the House. If something is defamatory anywhere, it cannot be used in this House just because someone has said it somewhere else. That is Speaker’s ruling 52/1.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
That is the one referring to quotes. The member is quite right. That is why I have asked the member to desist and to get on to the actual bill, because he cannot get round Speaker’s rulings or the Standing Orders by the use of quotes.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I was not quoting from a document. I want to check with Dail Jones that nothing I am saying is potentially sub judice. Am I OK? Just about every time I get up here to speak, the matter becomes sub judice and the Speaker shuts me down.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I also want to know from Dail Jones whether there is anything sub judice about the Tiberius Corporation. Would that be sub judice?
We know that Mr Hide breaches the sub judice rule all the time because he is a political coward. He does not have the guts to say it outside the House.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
Mr Jones, this is getting to the stage of being out of control. To imply that someone is a coward is to challenge his or her courage, and that is a personal reflection. The member has been here a long time, and I ask him to be careful with what he is saying. I ask him now to withdraw and apologise for the use of that word.
I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I can, I believe, describe the actions of a person in a vigorous way, but not the person himself. I am describing Mr Hide’s actions when I use that particular phrase, not Mr Hide, which is why I put the word “political” in front of it.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this
Thank you, Mr Jones. I ask Mr Hide to desist and come to the bill. I remind members that under Speakers’ ruling 51/1 unparliamentary remarks from a member do not justify an unparliamentary reply. That ruling was from Speaker Guinness. I ask Mr Hide to be careful and speak to just the bill.
I will be very, very careful and I will speak to the bill. I forgive Dail Jones because he is under a lot of pressure, and why would he not be? I have never asked for him to withdraw and apologise, and I have never tried to shut down Dail Jones’ speeches, because I think he is fully entitled to speak. I forgive him for his slights of me and the ACT party, because I understand the pressure he is under.
I come back to the matter at hand, and it is this. This is why I support option C from Jeanette Fitzsimons. We put a subsidy of about $90 million a year, when I last looked, into Auckland bus services. What I find disturbing about how the subsidy operates now is that if one commercial operator has that subsidy, another commercial operator cannot run along that route—it is effectively blocked. It is a huge advantage to receive the subsidy. It blocks competition and choice. When I talk to the people of Epsom, lovely as they are, wonderful as they are, they ask what is wrong with having another bus run down the road, what is wrong with having a bit of competition and choice, and what is wrong with allowing the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to contract on a competitive basis. People in Epsom understand choice and they understand competition, just like the Green Party members do.
Yes, because they are wonderful—the people of Epsom; I have to be careful about praising the Green Party! They have fine memories, by the way, of Keith Locke. He will be telling everyone there to give the party vote to the Green Party—which I respect; we can work with those members on some issues—and he will also be saying: “Give your vote to Rodney, and I promise I won’t run naked down Newmarket in my birthday suit ever again.” Of all the people whom I would want to run naked down Newmarket, I would have to say that Keith Locke would be higher up the list than a lot of others I could think of.
Sue MoroneyThey love my yellow jacket in Newmarket. The people have spoken. I tell members the one thing people in Epsom do not like: red jackets. They hate red in Epsom and in Newmarket. They like every other colour. They like blue, they like Jackie Blue, they love Jackie Blue, but they do not love the Labour Party.
No one does. ACT supports option C, and I am a little bit disappointed in my colleagues in the National Party.
Yes, I know, I know. I am not being churlish, I hope, and I hope I am not being overly critical, and I hope I am not causing any upset that could derail National’s campaign or unhinge future Cabinet posts. I am a bit critical of the National Party because I thought it favoured competition and choice. No? Oh, it looks like it might be up for grabs. I ask David Bennett to say “Yes”; now would be a good time to say “Yes”. No, the National party members have learnt not to answer even simple questions. David Bennett is in favour of competition and choice, and that is what option C is all about—competition and choice. That is why the ACT party favours it. We are against any attempt to monopolise a service, and we know that with option C Auckland will get a better-quality service, it will get better value, and it will get better pricing, and if members add all that up, they will see that it cannot be too bad. Here is another reason for voting for it: if New Zealand First wants option B, members have to look twice at supporting it!
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this
After that very inspirational and entertaining speech, the first thing we need to look at is what the options actually were. Option C was the Government’s preferred option, which basically gave regional councils the greater share of control. There were two versions of option B, as New Zealand First has explained; there was B1 and B2. This is probably not the best analogy to describe the options, but B2 was the option that was followed in the legislation, and B1 was the option that was agreed upon between the parties. That agreement happened when the bus companies, the regional councils, and the Government got together, had a bit of a talk, and decided they could live with option B1. Although it was not quite the perfect scenario, it was the one they believed would make some change to assist in public transport, especially in the Auckland region.
But at some point the Government changed its mind and felt it could not live with the agreement it had made with all the parties involved, so it decided, at Cabinet level, that it would go out on its own. The Government then promoted option C, which basically gave the regional councils the greater share of control. The Minister came into the Chamber earlier and indicated that she will be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper on this matter, which will essentially change the legislation to option C. It will be very interesting to see how the parties in this House vote on that, and the indication we heard from New Zealand First today is that it will vote against that Supplementary Order Paper. I do not expect to see that happen, because from our experience in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to actually see New Zealand First carry through on its word and vote in that manner will be something that National will look forward to. The day I see it will be the day I believe it, I guess. But the ball is in New Zealand First’s court, and it may go against the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper and vote for option B2, not for option C. Mr Hide has raised some issues about how and why that may happen, but that discussion is for another day, I am sure.
Public transport is at the heart of the legislation, and I do not think anybody has a problem with supporting the need for a strong, public transport network in New Zealand. That is especially so in Auckland, which has the largest population density in the country. The region needs to be serviced by an effective and efficient public transport system, which will be a combination of buses and trains, and ferries for a city that has a harbour, as Auckland has. Many options can be taken and things done to assist in that process. One option may be integrated ticketing, and another may be to keep the private sector involved in the competitive aspect of keeping public transport an effective and efficient tool in our biggest city.
The Auckland Regional Transport Authority is the body that has the primary role for organising and managing the public transport of Auckland City and it does a very good job. It is a well-known body that has worked well within the community to achieve its aspirations. We look forward to seeing its preparedness to do that in the future, and maybe even the development of its ability to do so, as we see potential change in the structure of Auckland governance. There may be an extended role, perhaps, for the transport authority under such a change.
However, the authority is not the only body that can play an important role in this process; we need the private sector to also be successful if we want to have a public transport system in Auckland that is effective. The private sector role in public transport is very apparent at the moment. The private sector is probably providing the vast bulk of bus services in the city and it does that through a number of operators, with one large operator having a very high percentage of the market. That operator has done an exceptional job, as well. It has worked with the Auckland Regional Transport Authority in the past, and both parties have come to some very fruitful agreements and provided a lot of good services for the public of Auckland City.
We need to see that process continue. There is no way in which we can take both of those parties and then choose one to have the upper hand over the other. We need both the private sector and the regional council in order to be effective. That was the whole reason why they both came to the Government and reached an agreement. Option B1 was proposed and agreed upon. That is what we need to see happen in the future, but at this stage we are seeing a breakdown between the players. We essentially have a situation where the Government of the day is aligning itself with one of the players, and that is not good for Auckland’s public transport. What is needed in this case is for those parties to get around the table and to work out a viable solution that involves the private sector, gives the Auckland Regional Transport Authority the powers that it needs in order to do its job, and also gives the Government the confidence that public transport service operations will be delivered in Auckland City. That is the goal we should attempt to achieve in this House through this legislation.
But that goal is not being achieved through this legislation, and it will not be achieved if this bill, and the Supplementary Order Paper the Labour Government wishes to put through, are passed. That will seriously damage any chance of that kind of tripartite working arrangement becoming a reality for the benefit of Auckland public transport users. So I would encourage the Government to pull this bill—to actually go back to the parties and work out a viable solution that achieves its goals. The Government has got itself in a predicament now where it has a solution that is favouring one of the parties, and that is not acceptable for Auckland transport users long term, because it will not give the best gains for users as they go forward. That is a true test of governance, and a Government showing leadership in this area will be recognised if people can work out that they have made a mistake or have not actually reached a proper agreement, and then work towards a solution in the area. That is something we have seen lacking in this Government in its dealing with transport issues. We constantly see legislation put forward that is a quick-fix solution but does not take into account the parties and the roles they can play in reaching viable and successful solutions.
It has been an interesting environment in which to see how the options were progressed through the select committee, how they were progressed through the Government mechanism, and how we are now getting to a result that is not in the best interests of all the players involved. That shows a poor understanding of the issue by the Government members involved. It shows an unwillingness by the Government to work with all the people who can be involved in solving these issues for Aucklanders.
The National Party has opposed this bill because we see that this solution has gone too far to one side of the argument. It has not taken into account all the parties involved, and what their potential arrangements and contributions could have been towards reaching a greater solution. So the National Party is very disappointed in the result of this legislation. We believe that if the Government had stuck to the original agreement made by the parties, then the House could well have been passing legislation that was not what everyone wanted but was what everybody could have worked on together and achieved.
If this legislation passes and if the Supplementary Order Paper passes, I think we will see that the private sector involvement in Auckland’s public transport will be very much limited, and that will be to the detriment of the users of the services. I do not think that that is in anyone’s interests when we need to encourage people on to public transport, especially in a major city such as Auckland. Equally, we need to take into account the role of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, and the need for that body to have some control and provide some solutions it sees as important, as it works on long-term planning in the city of Auckland.
There is the prospect of getting that solution, but it will not come about through this bill. The process by which this bill has arrived at the option that has been voted on today is something that we have all found quite interesting, and an eye-opener into the way politics can work. This bill certainly does not represent the interests of Auckland’s transport users. It does not represent the public good of promoting public transport, and it does not represent the potential contribution that the private sector can make in solving those issues. Therefore we oppose this bill.
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) Link to this
I think the Public Transport Management Bill is a very positive bill. I did not have the privilege of sitting on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, and I want to compliment Mark Gosche and his team on their work. A bill that attempts to better integrate commercial services into a regional transport plan is a good one. In that context, I also want to say that this Government has, over the years, increased spending on public transport by what—1,000 percent? By what percentage have we increased investment on public transport? The chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee should know that; I am sure she does. It is by at least 1,000 percent.
One of the reasons why I am interested in greater supervision in respect of the commercial services is the announcement made by Maurice Williamson that we are to be looking at tolling on the Waikato Expressway, which would increase the cost to motorists going from Hamilton to Auckland by $100 or $200 a week. Therefore, ironically, the National Party’s intention to look at privatising and tolling some of our major roads is the real secret agenda. Funnily enough, that will be a huge incentive for people to use bus and rail services, even if they are commercial services with no public subsidy. Obviously, we will take a greater interest in commercial public transport services. I hope we can get a better middle course and not necessarily go down that road.
I have repeatedly asked the member for Coromandel, Sandra Goudie, to get up in this House and talk about the National Party’s plans to toll Kōpū Bridge, but she will not. Dare I say that public transport in the Thames area, between Thames and Ngātea, is also quite an important factor because that will be another—
Hon Dr Nick SmithScaremongering? That is not scaremongering. That is the truth. How can we be scared of the truth? The member should not be scared of the truth. That is what is in the top drawer of National’s policies. What is scaremongering about Maurice Williamson going on the Agenda programme and speaking the truth?
If the member looked at the transcript of the interview, he would see that Maurice Williamson talked about $5 a trip and he talked about tolling. I think he talked about 50 bucks a week, or whatever. That is what he said. The member should read the transcript of the Agenda interview.
That is not making it up. That is not scaremongering. In that context, this excellent bill has a certain resonance to it.
Obviously, we will take an interest in commercial public transport services, because, should National get into office, I would say that some of those intercity commercial services will get a whole lot more attractive. Certainly, the bus services in the Thames area—and Sandra Goudie needs to take a call on this—just got a whole lot more attractive. [Interruption] She will not take a call? She has been in the House, but she will not take a call. Is it National’s intention to put a toll on the Kōpū Bridge?
In the brief time I have to speak on this bill, I want to emphasise that it is good that the bill will improve the tools available to local authorities for providing public transport services to a set standard in our region. I think the leadership that Environment Waikato, if I can speak in terms of my region, is providing along with the city council is really good. I think there is some work to do in terms of the control and the working of the buses within our city, but I think this gives us a very good template and a very good model on which we can improve our integrated public transport services.
My final observation is to point out what an incredible achievement we have seen in this country after 9 years, in terms of integrated public transport services.
I am speechless. It is not often that I am speechless, but I am. These guys have not watched the interview on Agenda. These guys do not even know what their own spokesperson on transport has in store. They must know what is in store. It will be congestion charges, it will be tolling, and it will be the Macquarie Bank Waikato Expressway. Can members not see the grand opening? Roger McClay or whoever—
Hon Dr Michael CullenJim McLay; I am sorry, I apologise to Roger McClay. Jim McLay and the Hon Maurice Williamson will be at the opening of the Macquarie Bank Waikato Expressway. We can just see it! Commercial bus services between Hamilton and Auckland just got a whole lot more attractive under that terrible scenario.
Finally, I want to commend this bill to the House. It gives a very, very good platform for the future management of public transport in our region. I hope the doomsday scenario that I just painted never comes to pass.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority be agreed to.
Ayes 70
- New Zealand Labour 49
- New Zealand First 7
- Green Party 6
- Māori Party 4
- United Future 2
- Progressive 1
- Independent 1 (Field)
Noes 50
- New Zealand National 47
- ACT New Zealand 2
- Independent 1 (Copeland)
Question agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Public Transport Management Bill be now read a second time.
Ayes 70
- New Zealand Labour 49
- New Zealand First 7
- Green Party 6
- Māori Party 4
- United Future 2
- Progressive 1
- Independent 1 (Field)
Noes 50
- New Zealand National 47
- ACT New Zealand 2
- Independent 1 (Copeland)
Bill read a second time.