The Road Transport Forum is urging the Government to take a “measured response” and not resort to “over-regulation” in response to a damning report on NZ Transport Agency’s failures.
The review by consultancy firm Martin Jenkins found the NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector over a number of years and the Ministry of Transport failed in its monitoring role.
Transport minister Phil Twyford has hit out at the previous government and says it directed the NZTA to focus on building roads at the expense of keeping people safe.
Up to $45 million is being put into the NZ Transport Agency’s regulatory role following the review’s recommendations.
RTF chief executive Nick Leggett says the report makes for “sober reading when it comes to past performance of the regulator and its monitoring agency”.
“But it is not unique in government for the regulatory side of an agency to be in conflict with its other mandates. It is also not unique for career public servants to not be the right people to manage and oversee regulatory roles.”
Leggett says the report notes tension between the regulatory role of the NZTA and its other imperatives of infrastructure and investment.
“Our view is that road safety is about more than just a strong regulatory approach, you need infrastructure and investment to ensure safe roads in the first place.
“The behaviour of drivers and professional operators is one thing, but if the infrastructure they are using is not safe, it is academic – accidents are going to happen.
“We would like to see a measured response to these reports that balances the roles of the NZTA. We don’t want to see a pendulum swing into over-regulation and more expense put on road users to pay for that over-regulation.”
Leggett says the RTF wants to see NZTA staff empowered to make good decisions and a return to data gathering to inform strategy and practice.
“We agree in principle with the Government’s initial response to the recommendations … However, we have some concerns about what the reality will be of the role of the Statutory Director of Land Transport and the Government’s proposal to spend $45 million initially and recovering costs in future via the National Land Transport Fund.
“We don’t want all the eggs going into the regulatory basket. It is imperative there is equal weight given to infrastructure and investment. Additional costs on road users are not appropriate in the current economic environment. Business owners are struggling as it is.
“We also don’t want to see more compliance functions and costs, quite the opposite. If there can be some streamlining, for example on the implementation of the health and safety regulations, we would support that.
“There is still more detail we would like to see, particularly around the powers of the Statutory Director and costs and funding.
“We would like to acknowledge the work that has been done in the past year by NZTA to improve its regulatory functions, and the work that the Ministry of Transport has done to better monitor NZTA. We have been building good relationships with both agencies and know that there are some skilled operators who deserve recognition,” Leggett says.
