Transport in the next parliament

I discussed yesterday that early signs are not looking particularly great for public transport, as the government continues to plough ahead with its road-centric transport policies. Something else which is quite interesting is to start thinking about which MPs will be playing the crucial roles on transport matters in parliament.

Over the past three years Steven Joyce has been Minister of Transport, with Nathan Guy being his deputy for most of that time. Rumours are abound that Joyce will take over being Minister of Economic Development. Whether that means he will give up any of his current roles (Minister of Communications, Transport and Tertiary Education) remains to be seen, but I’m guessing that he’ll probably keep transport. Being Minister of Transport must be about the best job in government, as you have your own revenue generating machine (being the National Land Transport Fund) which is automatically assigned to be spent on transport. You don’t need the OK from the finance minister to spend a bit more on this particular pet project, you don’t need to worry about having your budget eaten away by demands for tax cuts, the health budget or whatever. I also think that Joyce has become so personally involved in the transport portfolio over the past three years that he’s really struggle to let it go.

For Labour, Darren Hughes and then Shane Jones proved relatively ineffectual in scoring significant ‘hits’ on Joyce over the past three years. Jones managed to co-ordinate what was a pretty damn good transport policy in the end, but in parliament often seemed to leave it to Phil Twyford, David Shearer or Jacinda Ardern to ask the hard questions. Who ends up getting the transport portfolio is likely to depend on who leads the Labour party (I’m currently a fan of a Shearer/Parker team with Cunliffe as finance spokesperson, uniting all the factions). Phil Twyford’s excellent performance in the Te Atatu electorate (with a campaign based around the Northwest Busway), his in-depth knowledge of the Auckland Super City and his general interest in transport may make him a good candidate for the role. Auckland’s the most likely place where we’ll see transport being a political issue over the next three years – so it’d be good to have an Aucklander in the role.

For the Green Party, they are rather blessed with options to be their transport spokesperson. Gareth Hughes has done an excellent job since he came into parliament, often making Joyce struggle in parliament and also working really hard to build support for the Green Party’s transport policies around the country. That said, of course the Greens now have Julie-Anne Genter as an MP – someone with an extremely detailed knowledge of transport issues and from a transport planning background. I’m thinking it’s probably most likely that Gareth and Julie will share transport – with Julie slowly taking on more and more responsibility as she gains experience.

The next three years will be really critical in determining the country’s transport future. Since 2008 many of the transport projects being delivered (both roads and rail) were effectively being ‘finished off’ from what the previous government proposed. This will continue, to an extent, with rail electrification in particular being a number of years away from completion. However, the legacy of Labour’s last three years in power over transport will slowly drop away – and by 2014 it really will be the current government’s policies shaping our transport outcomes. While that’s a somewhat depressing thought, when I look at the prospective opposition transport spokespeople, I at least think we’ll have a better quality debate over transport matters in the next three years than we’ve had over the past three.

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