Industry attack on roads bill

By KEVIN TAYLOR

Business groups, farmers and the Automobile Association have joined forces to fight a new law they say is anti-road transport and anti-growth.

This week the group begins a print advertising campaign against the Land Transport Management Bill, the biggest change in land transport funding and management since the 1980s.

The group comprises Business NZ, Federated Farmers, the Automobile Association, Forest Owners Association, Meat Industry Association and Road Transport Forum.

Business NZ chief executive Simon Carlaw says the group is looking to take the issue outside the normal select committee process.

The campaign will be aimed at the "ordinary bloke and blokess in the street", and will warn that the bill will not do what the Government claims. Polls are also planned further into the campaign.

The draft law, which is before the transport and industrial relations select committee, changes the purposes, roles, and funding framework of land transport agencies to allow an integrated approach that takes into account the Government's "strategic aims and priorities".

It also enables roads to be built on a tolled basis, or as public-private partnerships (PPP).

But the campaigners say it will achieve none of those aims. Their concerns with the bill include:

* Politicisation of road funding, which is currently allocated on an entirely economic basis using a benefit-cost (BC) ratio system. Road funding will be put in the hands of ministerial intervention, and the BC system kicks in only after projects have passed other tests.

* Elevation of social and environmental criteria for funding, which will allow cycle tracks and walkways to get money at the expense of roads.

* Onerous consultation provisions that will make it more difficult to get projects going.

* Disincentives for private investment through PPPs or toll roads.

Business NZ senior policy analyst Nick Clark said the bill added other factors into the BC system - such as whether a project would address social concerns, and environmental and regional development issues.

"It waters down that economic efficiency rationale," he said.

The Government has also increased the amount of money going to roading alternatives such as cycling and walking.

"We have got no problem at all with that," said Clark, "but what's happened is that road users' money is being spent on these things."

Under the bill, Transit and Transfund will have to be socially and environmentally responsible, but neither goal is defined.

Carlaw said it increased the danger of pork barrel politics. "You are taking away an objective criteria with the BC system, and basically putting it in the hands of ministerial intervention - against criteria that are so bloody vague as to be able to justify just about anything."

The bill's provisions on private funding of roads will also come under fire in the campaign. Business NZ says PPPs will also have to go through similar consultation, acting as a disincentive for private capital to be employed to help fund roads.

Carlaw said the bill clearly reflected the Green Party influence.

Business NZ contends that the Greens and others in Parliament think private money in roading is bad, so the bill's clauses are so onerous they effectively prohibit PPPs.

The bill prohibits BOOT (Build, Own, Operate, Transfer) schemes, which are common in Australia. It allows DBFO (Design, Build, Fund, Operate) schemes, which retain roads in public hands.

But Carlaw said the bill meant toll roads would just become overflow roads, only viable at times of massive congestion.

All this meant the bill contained disincentives for private capital to play a role in roading projects.

However, Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said businesses needed to think about what would enable trucks to move more freely.

Moving some of the cars that clog roads to alternative transport modes had the potential to free up freight transport more quickly and cheaply than building more roads alone.

She denied that the bill abolished "economic efficiency" as the criterion for funding.

Part of the bill's purpose was to ensure that land transport funding was cost-effective.

It also required land transport to be "sustainable", including economic as well as environmental and social sustainability.

Fitzsimons said that, of the additional land transport funding gained from lifting petrol tax last year, only $3 million went to cycling and walking and $90 million went on roads.

The cycling and walking funding would build less than 1km of motorway, she said.

"It is obvious that the effect of getting more people out of cars, and cycling and walking for short trips, will have a much greater effect on reducing congestion than a few hundred metres of motorway could."

She said the BC system was never very objective anyway and was "just a number that had the appearance of being a real measure of something".

She said the system gave undue weight to very small time savings for many people.

"Yet if thousands of people save three minutes on the way to work is that really a measurable improvement in their lives or the economy?"

Regarding the consultation issue, Ms Fitzsimons said many people seemed not to have read the clause stating that if you have already consulted on a project you do not have to do it again.

Many of the delays in roading projects were caused by a lack of consultation at the design stage, she said.

The bill created a framework that encouraged transport planners to look broadly at options early in the process, and to involve those affected in that process.

"The bill also means that well-supported projects, with mitigation built in, are more likely to get funded."

On private funding of roads, Fitzsimons said the main disasters with PPP projects overseas related to BOOT schemes - the type ruled out in February last year by Cabinet.

Transport Minister Paul Swain refused to comment because the issues raised were still being considered by the select committee. He said the Government intended to pass the bill in August or September.

The bill

The stated aims of the Land Transport Management Bill are to:

* Change the purpose, role and funding framework of land transport agencies, so an integrated approach can be taken that takes account of Government strategic objectives.

* Amend the Local Government Act 1974, Transit NZ Act 1989 and Land Transport Act 1998. Repeal the Auckland Transport Board Act 1928.

* Allow transport infrastructure to be built on a tolled or public-private partnership basis.