It was an interesting day in parliament yesterday, with the Green Party dominating the member’s day to such an extent that the only bills that were actually debated were from the Green Party. One of those bills was the Climate Change (Transport Funding) Bill, put forward by Jeanette Fitzsimons. This bill was originally drafted in 2005, and I imagine it was designed to put some pressure on the then Labour government to “put its money where its mouth is” – or more specifically, to match up its transport funding priorities with the grand plans it was spouting about New Zealand becoming a world leader in terms of climate change response. To read Jeanette Fitzsimons’ superb speech promoting the bill, click here.
The purpose of the bill is outlined below:
The purposes of this bill are to alter the funding priorities of the National Land Transport Fund over time so that, after five years, funds are allocated mainly to travel demand management and infrastructure and services supporting transport modes other than the private motor vehicle.
Effectively, to get our transport funding in line with most of the rest of the world’s and support a shift to funding transport modes other than the private car. The most important section of the Bill is shown below:
The proportion of the national land transport fund to be spent on activities within the activity classes specified in subsection (6) shall be not less than—“(a) 20% in the first year after this Act comes into force; and
“(b) 35% in the second year after this Act comes into force; and
“(c) 50% in the third year after this Act comes into force; and
“(d) 60% in the fourth year after this Act comes into force; and
“(e) 67% after the fifth year after this Act comes into force.”
Now of course this is exactly the opposite direction to where the government has taken transportation funding over the past few months. By taking money away from basically everything except building state highways, the government has embarked upon a process of almost flabbergasting stupidity and taken our transport funding priorities right back to the 1960s.
Regarding my opinion of the actual bill, of course at a fundamental level I love it. It is exactly what New Zealand needs in order to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil and to do something about CO2 emissions from transport – which are among the fastest growing of any sector. However, I must say that even to me this bill seems quite extreme. Such a significant change to the way transport projects are funded, over such a short time period could lead to projects being half completed or important “stage two” projects not having enough funding. Furthermore, there are legitimate concerns that funding would not be available for road maintenance. If I were to suggest a couple of changes, it would be for the bill to have excluded road maintenance and public transport operational costs (subsidies) from the changes, as you simply cannot abandon the maintenance or operational costs ofinfrastructure you have already built. So therefore the changes outlined above would have only applied to new infrastructure. Furthermore, I would have suggested that the timeframe be extended a bit, so that the change happened over a 10 year period instead of a five year period.
With those two changes this Bill could have been a fantastic step towards a more sustainable transport future. Unfortunately, it was voted down without even going to a Select Committee where these changes could have been made. A very frustrating, if expected, outcome.
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