Transport bill meets strong opposition

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 4

Transport bill meets strong opposition

PA Wellington The Opposition strongly opposed the controversial transport legislation abolishing protection for the Railways Corporation when it returned to Parliament yesterday. Changes to the Transport Amendment (No. 5) Bill include wide enforcement powers for traffic officers, described by Labour’s transport spokesman, Mr R. W. Prebble (Auckland Central), as having a severity one would expect in a police State.

The acting chairman of the Commerce and Energy Select Committee, which has studied the bill since its introduction last year, Mr D. F. Quigley (Nat., Rangiora) described the powers as tough, but necessary. “The toughness is a reflection of ingenuity and ruthlessness of those few road transport operators who are going all out to break the law for a quick profit,” he said. The measures were designed to catch those individuals, but also to ensure that no innocent person suffered.

The bill provides for the 150 km road-rail competition limit to be phased out over the next three years, beginning jn June next year. Heavy trucks carting goods beyond 150 km will be charged a capacity-related distance fee, which will be scaled down over the three years. The legislation also provides for a switch from the present quantitative licensing system for road transport firms, to a less restrictive qualitative licensing system. Instead of having to prove that any new transport licence will not harm existing businesses, applicants seeking to enter the industry will have to prove only that they have the financial backing to run the new service.

The main changes made to the bill by the select

committee related to the enforcement of the 150 km restriction.

Mr Quigley said the Railways Corporation estimated it was losing $4O million in revenue each year through illegal businesses, and it further estimated that by March next year it would have lost 8 per cent of its present traffic. The committee was told there was a growing practice of padlocking or sealing loads to make it difficult for traffic officers to inspect them, Mr Quigley said. While recognising the need for locking to avoid pilfering in some circumstances, the committee was concerned that it not be used to beat the 150 km limit.

The bill now provides for traffic officers to be given the power to seal loads they cannot inspect on the roadside and it will be an offence to break such a seal without a traffic officer’s consent.

“The difficulties experienced in tracing loads are compounded by the loads being taken into depots and broken up behind closed doors,” Mr Quigley said. “They then emerge as different consignments and are often difficult to recognise. “The measure suggested to detect this practice is that traffic officers having good cause to suspect illegal cartage be given the power to enter premises where goods are loaded and unloaded, and inspect both the loads and any documentation associated with them.” Mr Prebble said the bill was going to have a big impact on all New Zealanders — “on our environment, our roads, our way of life.”

It -would bring social, environmental, and economic disaster, he said. Roads would be clogged up with juggernaut truck and trailer units and clear evidence existed that the road toll would rise as a result. Provincial towns would suffer most, losing bus ser-

vices which at present provided a vital link with the rest of the country. No guarantees existed that transport costs would be lowered by the moves. The bill was not founded on reason and research, but on Right-wing ideology. The quantitative licensing system would produce chaos, Mr Prebble told the House.

Mr Prebble said the bill was the most radical measure concerning the environment that the present Government had introduced, yet no environmental report had been obtained on its effects. The environment would be violated by noise and pollution from big trucks.

Miss Ruth Richardson said in the House that submissions by the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association showed it cost 96.4 per cent more to take goods from Wellington to Hastings by rail than it did by road. Alex Harvey Industries had said taking a quart beer bottle from Wellington to Hawke’s Bay by road cost 55 per cent of the rail charge.

An independent study done for Wattie Industries showed that the company could save $1.3 million a year by using road transport to take goods from Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay to Auckland. Transport time would be cut from 3.8 days for rail to 10 hours, and fewer goods would be lost through pilfering and damage.

The committee had estimated that by allowing competitive forces to prevail an annual saving of between $4l million and $53 million could be made, Miss Richardson said.

Referring to possible Railways job losses the bill might' cause, she said the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association had said 400 jobs were at risk, but if efficiency in the transport system was not achieved, some 10,500 jobs in South

Island industries would be lost during the next five years.

Mr P. B. Goff (Lab., Roskill) said trucks had been involved in 101 of the 513 fatal road accidents last year. They had also been involved in 312 serious accidents and 593 less serious injuries. It was quite clear that trucks were in a disproportionate number of those deaths. One in five had involved trucks, but trucks made up only one in 20 vehicles on the roads.

The Social Credit leader, Mr Beetham, said he had supported the introduction of the bill because it aimed to increase the cost efficiency of the land transport system, but as it had come back from the select committee, it would do nothing but replace one monopoly with another.

Railways would be further run down and a new monopoly would progressively develop in the hands of road transporters, especially those with Australian connections.

“This bill is ultimately going to serve no purpose but further entrench the sort of inefficiencies from which, so the Government says, this bill is supposed to protect the economy as whole,” Mr Beetham said. The Minister of Transport, Mr Gair, said the bill would give consumers the choice of the most appropriate mode of transport.

He said if the shift of traffic from rail to road was 18 per cent as expected, there would be about 2500 jobs lost. That represented 12.5 per cent of the Railways work-force. The Railways Corporation was preparing measures to allow for early retirement, retraining, relocating, and voluntary redundancy, and these would meet the requirements of unwanted workers “provided they cooperate with the corporation and the board.”