Bad news for roads

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Bad news for roads

Simon Carlaw

Businesses are extremely concerned about a new Bill that’s bad news for the nation’s roads.  The Land Transport Management Bill, seemingly being rushed through the select committee process, will starve our roads of funding.

It may seem odd that a transport Bill should result in a worse outcome for our roads, but the MMP system often throws up nonsensical outcomes because of trade-offs among political parties.

This Bill reflects the influence of the Greens on the Government.  Green ideology says money should be taken away from roading and spent instead on railways, cycling lanes and walking tracks.

No-one would argue against rail, cycling and walking – they are important transport elements that deserve to be funded.  But punishing roads to do it is crazy.

Already our roading infrastructure is grossly under-funded.  That’s why Wellington can’t get Transmission Gully built.  It’s why Aucklanders sit in their cars for hours trying to get to work.  It’s why some regions in both the North and South Island will have no new capital works whatsoever during the next decade.  Investment in roading is a national issue and should be treated as such, but the Government’s current approach is to direct funding to a few favoured regions at the expense of others. 

Already we spend less on roads than most comparable countries - less than 1% of our GDP compared with, for example, Australia's 2.3%.  This means our freight can’t be moved as efficiently as in other countries, which adds costs to our goods and services, making New Zealanders poorer.

The Land Transport Management Bill would make things worse.  It would get rid of the requirement for economic efficiency and would elevate social and environmental criteria for funding - so cycle tracks and walkways could gain funding at roads’ expense.  It would require over-the-top expensive consultation, causing even more delays to needed roading projects and guaranteeing pressure groups the ability to stop some roading projects altogether.

The Bill would give wide powers for individual Ministers to direct the flow of roading money without sufficient checks and balances.  Ministerial instructions on funding need not even be in writing.  The potential for pork-barrel politics is obvious.

It would also put unnecessary obstacles in the way of tolling and private-public partnerships.  The Bill purports to allow private sector funding for new roads but in fact it would prevent that happening, by imposing requirements that would make it too risky for would-be investors to invest.  For example the Minister would have the power to decide if a project could be developed under a private/public partnership, then once a project's plans were drawn up, he or she could reject it.  No sensible investor would take part in such an arrangement.  The Bill also denies private investors the opportunity to develop the sort of ‘build, own, operate, transfer’ (BOOT) projects that have been so successful in Australia.

This is a complex Bill with many serious flaws, yet it is being rushed through the Parliamentary process with the objective of becoming law before July this year.

This is undue haste.  We could find ourselves with a crazy new law before anyone wakes up to its consequences.    

The Bill needs significant change to make it workable.  Business road-users would want to see several changes so that:

·                    more money collected from road users actually gets spent on roads;

·                    efficiency and safety are the test for spending, not Ministerial whim;

·                    the existing consultation processes are made to work properly, instead of adding further consultation layers;

·                    and roadblocks to alternative funding sources are removed.

Business is of the view that the Bill should be changed to make it consistent with the Government’s own goals for economic growth.  But it’s not just a business issue; it’s about people’s freedom to choose how and where they travel, whether in cities or rural areas.  Using the car to pick up the kids from school is a reasonable activity, as is using the car to get to work on time in places where public transport is unreliable or non-existent.  The Land Transport Management Bill would curtail our freedom for no better reason than ideology.  

Simon Carlaw is Chief Executive Business NZ