After two and bit years of chaotic mismanagement of the transport portfolio by Phil Twyford and Julie Anne Genter, National will present a credible transport plan this election.
Unlike Labour, we have a strong record of delivering.
We are the party of infrastructure and we’re proud of our record on transport investment.
The last National government invested more in transport than any other government in New Zealand history.
We spent $12 billion on the first seven Roads of National Significance: transformational projects to connect our regions and unlock the potential of our cities, towns and provinces.
No-one would argue that Auckland isn’t better off for the Waterview Tunnel, Puhoi to Wellsford road, the Western Ring Route, and Victoria Park Tunnel.
Those are National’s transport legacies to Auckland.
Down the road, the Waikato Expressway has created a much better and more efficient connection between our largest city and Hamilton.
It has had a transformational effect on the entire region.
In Wellington, after 50 years of talk, National got on with the job of building Transmission Gully as part of the Wellington Road of National Significance.
Our opponents say – or used to say – that National is just the party of roads.
That rhetoric belies the reality.
A record $2 billion was invested in public transport under National from 2015 to 2017, and now public transport use is at record levels.
It was National, in fact Simon Bridges as transport minister, that got the transformational City Rail Link project in Auckland under way.
Compare this to the Labour-led Government which cut $5 billion from the state highway budget and cancelled 12 projects including Melling, Petone to Grenada, the East-West Link, and the Tauranga Northern Link.
Then almost two years in, and they’ve essentially re-packaged and re-announced what they cancelled.
This is great news for our regions, but it’s deeply disappointing that it took more than two years of faffing about to get here.
Light rail in Auckland was Labour’s flagship promise on the campaign trail in 2017.
They said it would be built from the CBD to Mt Roskill by 2021, and then to the airport by 2027.
Two years in and there are no business case, no route, no costings, and no consents.
Unlike Labour, we have a plan.
Transport will be a major focus area for us this year.
We’ll take a significant, credible and costed transport package to the election.
That package will be marked by three characteristics.
First, it will be a pipeline of projects.
We want to set out a vision of what transport in our cities and regions could and should look like.
Second, it will be multi-modal.
You will hear more from us about how to improve our buses, our rail networks, alongside our roads – and how we can use technology to decongest our cities and make it easier to get around.
Third, the package will be significant.
We’re the party of infrastructure, and we intend to campaign on that message.
Last year, we released a transport and infrastructure discussion document.
There’s lots in it, but there are four things in particular we’ll focus on, including a move from fuel tax towards road user charges, congestion pricing, integrated ticketing and governance reform.
We’re proposing quite a big change in the way we fund transport.
Our current system is a mix of fuel tax, which is levied on petrol, road user charges on diesel vehicles on a per-kilometre travelled basis, and vehicle licensing fees.
But fuel use is becoming a poor estimate of road use as vehicles become more modern and fuel-efficient.
Our proposal, over time, is to shift all vehicle users onto road user charges which would see everyone on our roads make a contribution to their upkeep.
We will also focus on congestion which costs our economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
By putting a price on congestion, we encourage people to travel at different times of the day, or take a different route, and use public transport.
That’s standard practice in many cities around the world and has been consistently recommended by experts here in New Zealand.
Both Wellington mayor Andy Foster and Auckland mayor are in favour.
It’s time to get on with it.
I’m keen to get started on integrated ticketing.
London’s Tube has accepted contactless cards since September 2014, allowing people to pay for their travel with a simple swipe of their credit card or even phone.
The same system is integrated with the bus network.
By comparison, people still pay for the train in Wellington the same way they did 30 years ago – with cardboard monthly passes or cash and coins.
We can do better.
Finally, we will look at how transport is managed and governed in Wellington.
We’re proposing introducing new regional transport authorities in Wellington and Canterbury that would run the public transport systems as well as manage cycling, parking and roading.
As you can see, we have a solid plan backed by a strong record of delivery.
You’ll hear more about it over the next few months.
