Sitting date: 16 Sep 2025

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (AUCKLAND COUNCIL) (TRANSPORT GOVERNANCE) AMENDMENT BILL

First Reading

Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister for Auckland) on behalf of the Minister of Transport: I present the legislative statement on the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: I move, That the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to consider this bill.

This bill is the most significant reform to transport governance in Auckland since Auckland Council was formed back in 2010—

Shanan Halbert: The only decent thing you did in transport.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Sorry, what was that?

Shanan Halbert: The only decent thing you did in transport.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Oh, well, we remember "Auckland Light Fail" from the other side, don't we? How did that go? How did that go? Well, we're actually getting some stuff done on this side of the House. "Auckland Light Fail", Mr Shanan Halbert. I know he was also the campaign director for that by-election, remember that? Another fail.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Back to the bill.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Anyway, this bill, of course, signals the Government's commitment to improving transport in Auckland, working closely with Auckland Council, and ensuring stronger accountability to Aucklanders for decisions made on transport. The transport network in Auckland is struggling to efficiently and effectively move people and goods across the city. This undermines economic performance in our biggest and most important city. Some of my colleagues might disagree with that last line there, but it is the truth.

Many of the transport functions ordinarily performed by local authorities are currently the responsibility of Auckland Transport, a council-controlled organisation, governed by an unelected board. While a board can bring expertise to particular functions, locally elected members in Auckland are removed from transport decision-making. This is despite the fact that rates-funded transport expenditure is the largest component of the council budget.

Public accountability is also a key element in transport decision-making, providing strong incentives to undertake projects in a way that does not waste public funds and responds to public sentiment. Public trust and confidence in transport decision making in Auckland is low, with a survey showing just 32 percent of those surveyed believe Auckland Transport listens and responds to Aucklanders' needs. So ensuring democratic accountability for decision making for transport in Auckland is a key element of these reforms.

The other key element is to establish a system whereby the Government and Auckland Council can work together in a long-term direction for transport in Auckland and align priorities. A key impediment to progress currently is the fragmentation of Auckland's transport system. Governance, funding, and delivery are spread across Auckland Council, the Government, Auckland Transport, the New Zealand Transport Agency, and KiwiRail. There are duplicative planning processes without a coherent direction.

Auckland's importance to our national economic goals in governance, and significant investment in transport, makes it essential to work with the council on a shared, longer-term direction. We need to work together to optimise our joint funding, maximise economic growth opportunities, and develop a shared view on different funding and financing—

Shanan Halbert: You cut their funding, Simeon. You cut their funding, in the millions.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: This is a guy who wants to interject, saying we've cut funding in Auckland when we've released the biggest national land transport programme in history, and we're actually delivering things, unlike "Auckland Light Fail". Of course, we remember, just before the last election, they were scrapping around going, "What do we do in Auckland? Let's dream up a harbour bridge." Well, we've been talking about and needing to get that done. Actually, they forgot they needed to do the geotech under the harbour, which is what this Government's actually doing. Anyway, Madam Speaker, back to the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Back to the bill is a good idea.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: Back to the bill. I just enjoy the member's interjections from the other side of the House, possibly a little bit too much.

Shanan Halbert: Tell them about your cuts.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: The whips are telling him to be quiet, and I know, Madam Speaker, you're telling me to stay focused on the bill.

This bill is about making sure that we do work with the council. That has happened in the past. But, effectively, what this bill does is it formalises what the last National Government did, which was put in place the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, which was to bring the Government and council together for long-term planning, to make sure we have one single plan and a direction moving forward. That's exactly what this piece of legislation does. It does it through establishing the Auckland Regional Transport Committee (ARTC). The new committee, called the Auckland Regional Transport Committee, will comprise of both ministerial appointments and Auckland Council appointments, will have independent chair, and will be charged with aligning Government and Auckland Council priorities and providing longer-term direction for transport in Auckland.

The committee will develop a 30-year transport plan for Auckland for approval by the Minister of Transport and Auckland Council. The plan will focus on promoting productivity and economic growth, efficient asset management, and maximising the value of public transport. The ARTC will also develop the Auckland Regional Land Transport Plan for approval by Auckland Council.

The bill also transfers most transport functions from Auckland Transport to Auckland Council. This includes shifting policy and planning functions, such as approval of the Regional Land Transport Plan (RLTP) and the Regional Public Transport Plan to Auckland Council. For too long Auckland Council has not been able to have the say it needs, as the one of the major funders, over the policy and planning decisions made by Auckland Transport. Auckland Council will also be responsible for delivering the transport capital programme and for renewals and maintenance of transport infrastructure.

Furthermore, Auckland Council become the road controlling authority for Auckland. Some people say, why are we doing this piece of legislation for Auckland? Well, we're actually just aligning for Auckland what every other council up and down this country has—every other council up and down the country is the road controlling authority. We are aligning that for Auckland. Furthermore, we are going to be delegating to local boards some specific transport powers by this piece of legislation. Of course, when local boards were set up, under the last National Government, the entire intention was for those decisions to be devolved down to local communities so, again, local people could hold their elected members to account for those decisions.

Local boards will soon be able to make transport decisions on local and collector roads, including setting speed limits, closing roads for events, managing parking, and creating cycleways. And, of course, we've seen the infestation of speed bumps across Auckland—hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on speed bumps. Of course, the only way we've been able to stop them is we get people like Sean O'Loughlin, in my electorate, who have to judicially review Auckland Transport to show that, actually, they haven't been following the law.

Well, actually, we are going to be putting these decisions in the hands of elected members, and if you don't like the decisions they're making, you can vote them out. A philosophical approach to democracy, which has been around for hundreds of years, we are now applying back to these types of decisions.

Decision making on arterial roads and all roads in the city centre will be the responsibility of the governing body of Auckland Council. The governing body will also make all remaining decisions not allocated to local boards. A greater role in transport decision-making by local boards will strengthen democratic accountability and ensure that decisions are made closer to the community where local voices and expertise can be heard.

The bill transitions Auckland Transport into a smaller transport council-controlled organisation (CCO) focused on public transport services, which is critically important to moving people efficiently around our city. Streamlining the transport CCO will result in an organisation dedicated to providing high-quality public transport—the

novel idea of making sure the buses turn up on time, making sure the train network maximises the investment that this Government and Auckland Council has put into the City Rail Link (CRL), making sure our ferries are operating to schedule. It is critically important that that is a singular focus of this new organisation, to deliver the reduced congestion that is critically important in our biggest city.

The bill contains transitional provisions that will guide the shift to the new arrangements while preserving the day-to-day flow of network operations and delivery of capital investment. The bill sets out that a six-month transitional period will apply, signalling the need for a timely transition while outlining the actions that must be taken for a successful transition. During transition, the transport CCO will continue with the existing operational functions of Auckland Transport until directed to stop by Auckland Council, enabling the current management of Auckland Transport to focus on delivering existing work until new arrangements are in place.

Auckland Council will also appoint a Transition Director, responsible for preparing and executing a transition plan. The transition plan will set out the transition approach and timeline, deal with employment matters, and outline how assets, liabilities, and contracts will be shifted to Auckland Council.

The Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill was the fundamental reset that the transport system in Auckland needs, that the people of Auckland have been asking for for many years, and will lay the foundations for a higher-performing system. Higher-performing transport is critical to our economic growth, critical to Auckland's economic growth, and to the productivity of our biggest city.

I'm proud to be commending this bill to the House. I look forward to the submission process and the submissions from the public—from Aucklanders—around how it can be improved. But ultimately, this is the reset that this Government has promised. Now, we're delivering, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour): Such short memories. Some of us were here in 2009, when the super-city legislation went through. Some of us were fighting against the many changes that that Government had put up, including the anti-democratic corporatisation of Auckland Transport that that side of the House had supported at that time. We were here when Rodney Hide brought his Auckland super-city agenda to the House, and that side of the House, at the time, were very supportive and voted us down on every single one of our amendments—I think there may have been a record number of amendments that were put up during the committee stage at that time. We were opposed to the anti-democratic establishment of the Auckland Transport council-controlled organisation that was set up under their watch. It's only taken them 16 years to come to this House and say that they were wrong.

We do need to give a bouquet to the Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown, who has really led the charge on these changes. Fortunately—fortunately—in this particular instance, and there aren't many of them, the Government has chosen to listen. They have chosen to listen to someone that's not in their caucus or not making donations to them, perhaps.

We did not support the way that Auckland Transport was set up back in 2009, and now what you'll find is that we will be supporting this legislation in the House. Every progressive, every Labour councillor in Auckland is also supportive of this move.

We've been watching this closely. It's good to see that Mayor Wayne Brown has had such an influence on this Government. We give all the accolades to him, not to Minister Simeon Brown. We support it because it reflects a clear request from Auckland Council for greater control over local transport decisions. This is about restoring democratic accountability and ensuring Aucklanders have a stronger say in how the transport system is run. The Minister himself said it in his speech: no other council in the country runs like this; every other council in the country has control over what happens in this regard, but Auckland Council had that taken away from them in 2009, under a National-led Government, when they pushed through the super-city legislation.

There are some concerns that the current model has not delivered the outcomes Aucklanders deserve, and this bill really is a step towards fixing the mistake that was made back in 2009.

Genuinely, on this side of the House, Labour supports localism where councils are empowered to lead, not sidelined by central government. We will engage constructively at select committee to ensure the final legislation is fit for purpose and delivers better transport outcomes for Aucklanders, because that is what this is about. Over the course of the last 16 years, we have not seen that achieved as a result of a decision that was made by a National Government back in 2009.

I find it really interesting that Minister Simeon Brown forgot or chose to omit any of the history on how we got to this point and the fact that he's having to make changes to National Government legislation. Very convenient.

There's not much else to say. We look forward to the select committee process. We look forward to being constructive in that process. We give our accolades to Mayor Wayne Brown and all of the progressive and Labour councillors on Auckland City Council.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I have to agree with my colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who was previously speaking to the history of Auckland Transport and how it was a product of a National-ACT Government with a very ill-advised restructure of Auckland that did reduce democratic accountability. At the time, I would have said that reducing elected representatives is not actually a way to make local government more accountable to the people; it just makes more large bureaucratic structures that are harder to engage with for the average person. When you go overseas to countries that have really great infrastructure that's working really well, usually there's more democratic oversight, although often the narrative here in New Zealand is that, somehow, politicians are the problem. Actually, when you have really active engagement with more representatives, the representatives are the ones who are directly accountable to the people and who have the most incentive to go out and directly engage with people.

What was ironic with Auckland Transport is they had this set up to be guided by expert opinion and to move ahead with things, but they almost never did. Even though they didn't have as much democratic oversight, they seemed less responsive in terms of delivering transport outcomes that might have faced some opposition initially but eventually are actually the things that worked better, like removing car parks on arterial lanes so that you can have a more productive flow of people and goods, as opposed to storing someone's private vehicles at an underpriced cost, usually.

We will support this bill to at least the select committee. I don't think it's perfect by a long shot, but, well, look who is in Government—obviously, we're not going to agree with a lot of what they're doing. Ironically, we'd probably agree more with Wayne Brown on transport than with anyone on the Government benches. Wayne Brown was certainly a big supporter of the surface light rail that the Greens have always advocated for and could have seen delivered if it hadn't been sidetracked into a mega-project. But, of course, this Government isn't doing any long-term planning for public transport in Auckland, which is our largest city and the one that is probably going to continue to grow quickly.

I was in Sydney not too long ago, and I was really blown away by how much progress they've made with their public transport system. They're probably the only Australasian city that has a higher density of people than Auckland, but they have significantly higher public transport patronage and incredibly frequent, joined-up services going right across the region—I mean, all the way to the Blue Mountains, you can get an electric train. Of course, that is a result of substantial investment in infrastructure that gives people real choices about how to move around. When you do that and you have really, really frequent, affordable public transport, many more people will use it, and then you end up with somewhat less congestion, although they're still spending a truckload of money on some highways which will inevitably not pay for themselves.

Auckland needs to have that vision. Back when I first moved to Auckland, there was the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, who had shown a lot of leadership and long-term planning. That's why we got Britomart, we had the renaissance of Auckland rail, and we had the campaign for electrification, which the Greens and local mayors championed—and, of course, Mike Lee at the time, who is the chair of the Auckland Regional Council. Of course, that electrification delivered, despite Steven Joyce and the National Government delaying it by several years. Simeon Brown did something similar with delaying the trains that they've just purchased for the lower North Island. We would have had those a couple years earlier if he hadn't tried to distract and vice signal by forcing people to look for fossil fuel options, even though they're going to cost more.

Look, one of my biggest concerns about this, actually, is: why are we establishing an Auckland Regional Transport Committee where voting membership comprises ministerial appointees? Where else do we have that in the country? Nowhere. Already, central government has far too much control over local transport decisions.

If we want good transport decision-making and we don't want flip-flopping between Governments, the solution to that is actually to give more power and more money and more autonomy to the regional level or the local level for communities to make those decisions, and stop having central government reach in and try and dictate what happens, like Simeon Brown did when he was the absolute micromanaging, cars-only transport Minister. Thank God he's no longer in that role. We have a much, much more sensible transport Minister now, but not as good as when the Greens were in Government.

CAMERON LUXTON (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill that's about reforming governance and planning frameworks for our biggest city. It's going to be creating long-term plans between central and local government—who are, after all, the funders of our roads.

Democratic oversight is something that has been put forward in speeches and contributions to this House, and that is an important, core part of this bill. It's a practical step towards a 30-year transition plan jointly agreed to by democratically elected Governments and councils. Auckland Council will become the road controlling authority. It means voters will be able to judge for themselves whether their elected leaders are not just good at speeches and slogans but also delivering roads which are smooth, buses and routes that make new Aucklanders and visitors to that great city get where they need to go on time, and make sure money is spent well.

ACT has been saying for years that councils need to stick to the basics: roads, rubbish, pipes. Ratepayers deserve a voice. Every dollar should count, not be wasted on slow zones, on raised crossings, on cycleway vanity projects. They need to be focused on fixing what matters, and that's what we're doing here tonight.

ANDY FOSTER (NZ First): I have been asked by our whip to take a short call so I'm going to do that. That's been [Interruption]—ha, ha! It's by our whip.

Look, there's been long frustration with Auckland Transport as an organisation, one which I think the residents of Auckland feel does not listen to them and does not respond to their concerns. This is this Government doing exactly that: responding to their concerns. Transport is intensely political, and people want the decision makers to be accountable to them. Auckland Transport certainly did not feel like that.

As a Wellingtonian, I can say that we are certainly looking forward to our council being accountable to us in a few weeks' time. This is a collaborative model between the Government, its agencies, our biggest council, and also its local board. So it is localism done very intensely. To the Hon Julie Anne Genter talking about no long-term planning, this model which has been proposed specifically sets up the requirement to deliver a 30-year plan for transport. I think that is a very good thing.

This has been a long-held desire, as we've heard, of Mayor Wayne Brown, so I'm sure he's going to be delighted by this. My New Zealand First colleague Jenny Marcroft had a bill in the House to do very similar last August, so we strongly support this as well. We strongly believe in responsible local democracy and the local board empowerment, as I said, shows this localism. I look forward to submissions and to the select committee process. I commend this bill to the House.

DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a great day for restoring local democracy and accountability at Auckland Transport. With that, I look forward to welcoming people in submissions as part of the select committee process. I commend this bill to the House.

SHANAN HALBERT (Labour): Thank you, Mr Speaker. There are benefits to this particular bill. It's been longstanding—the issues that we have had around Auckland Transport. It is interesting—fascinating, in fact—in the House tonight that Government members do have a short memory. This structure and establishment of council-controlled organisations (CCOs) was introduced by the then National Government and the ACT Party at that time.

What's important is, if I go back to 14 May, I wrote to Minister Simeon Brown because at that time, the mayor was outraged at some of the issues of changing parking fines, which he wasn't able to do as our mayor. I put that to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee—Andy Foster was the chair—and all Government members voted down the opportunity to have an inquiry on the future of Auckland Transport and to give Aucklanders their say. So tonight—[Interruption]—and just to acknowledge the shouting from the other side of the House—here we are, 18 months later, introducing a bill.

I want to acknowledge Wayne Brown, because this piece of work wouldn't be in front of us in the House without him. He's had to push so hard with this Government to get any action and outcomes from the Minister for Auckland and from this Government. Instead, what this Government has done is cut funding by the millions from public transport in our largest city. So they do need to take some ownership around that as well.

I'm looking forward to the select committee process on this—again, we've got more shouting from across the room when they're held accountable to their failures of the past. What is concerning in this bill, and what I'll be taking particular interest in, is that the Minister has the power to approve which functions the new CCO gets to delegate. Additionally, why has the Minister been given approval powers for classifications of roads? If the goal of this bill is to return decision-making power to Auckland Council, then it doesn't make sense for the Minister to be given this level of authority. But it is typical of this Government that they give with one hand and take with the other. I mean, we had another example around fuel excise that the Prime Minister will have to return to the House and explain himself, no doubt, tomorrow on.

But the reality is that this bill is needed. It creates change from a structure that hasn't achieved everything that it's needed to and that's copped a lot of flak. With that, can I acknowledge Dean Kimpton and the team of staff at Auckland Transport that over many years have done incredible work, really—thankless work—across the city of Auckland. But it is realistic to say that there are challenges in front of Auckland Transport that need to be improved.

So this particular bill does achieve some of that. Labour is supporting it to go to select committee. It is important that Aucklanders have their say and, yes, it is important that there is more localism around our future transport network. It also does come with some caution, though, that as politicians we make decisions that get us elected. The caution there is not everything in transport is popular. So I'm really interested in how that will be managed when those decisions about investment, about projects, about infrastructure aren't naturally popular with the public. Those are going to be difficult decisions for local boards to make and for councillors to make. So there's some consideration there, and no doubt that will be teased out in the select committee.

So, without further ado, Mr Speaker, we do support this local government bill. It is important. Tēnei te mihi ki a koe, ki a koutou hoki.

[I'd like to acknowledge you, and everyone else as well.]

Dr CARLOS CHEUNG (National—Mt Roskill): Credit to our Minister for Auckland, Simeon Brown, and Minister of Transport, Chris Bishop, for bringing this bill to the House. For people in Mt Roskill, this means having a real voice in shaping a transport system that works for us—one that is reliable, efficient, and future-focused. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): After a mere 16 years, this bill, thanks to the advocacy of Mayor Wayne Brown, has another go at establishing a workable structure for Auckland Transport. Rodney Hide, back in 2009, backed by the Key Government of the day, insisted on what we characterised at the time as a highly undemocratic and corporatised structure for the new amalgamated Auckland City. We spent days and days, actually, debating the super-city legislation in this Chamber, including the legislation that established Auckland Transport as a stand-alone entity. It wasn't just Auckland Transport; the great majority of Auckland's assets and its operations were corporatised in so-called council-controlled organisations—ironically named CCOs, because they were not controlled and, in fact, were barely accountable.

As Julie Anne Genter pointed out in her contribution, there was considerable progress on transport in Auckland before the establishment of the super-city. The electrification of the Western Line, the building of Britomart, and a number of other projects showed that Auckland, when it needed to, was capable of lining up the ducks and making the investments to modernise the city's transport system.

However, the creation of Auckland Transport in 2009 was a double-edged sword, I think. For the first time, there was a transport entity in Auckland with the scale, the professionalism, and the specialist staff, which meant that it could actually sit around the table with central government as equals. That was really important. I think one of the really great achievements that Auckland Transport made was the modernisation and integration of the public transport network, which was long overdue. It modernised the public transport system, and it reduced a lot of inefficiency and duplication. I don't think we would have seen that in the old days when you had multiple overlapping local government entities.

The sad thing is that, under the model that Rodney Hide and the National Government set up, Auckland Transport developed a culture of arrogance. It was unaccountable to the people of Auckland as its ratepayers and as citizens of that city, and also completely unaccountable to the elected representatives at Auckland Council, its parent body. It's fair to say that, for a large section of the population, central government is very unpopular. Well, councils, by and large, are much less popular even than central government, and Auckland Transport, I would say, is even less popular than most councils, including Auckland Council. It's not an exaggeration to say that a lot of people in the communities that I represent hate Auckland Transport—hate it—because it is so arrogant, so unaccountable, and so high-handed. A huge level of antipathy has built up over the years.

It is a credit to Mayor Wayne Brown, who responded to that as good politicians should, and he's the person who has championed what this bill does, which is restore some democratic accountability and oversight for Aucklanders through their elected reps at Auckland Council. The key provisions in this will bring the planning, funding, governance, and policy functions of Auckland Transport back into Auckland Council under the purview of the elected councillors, and that's a good thing.

I will finish with this: Auckland is so important to the economy of this country, and its transport is so critically important to the success of the city and its economy. For it to be a success, it needs a strong transport agency but also a genuine partnership with central government. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

CAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): Isn't it very interesting for the Labour Party to say how much Auckland Transport were hated, how arrogant they became, how heavy-handed they became. They had six years and, I would argue, an absolute majority to work with their best friend Phil Goff, as Mayor of Auckland, and deliver this legislation that the National Party, the ACT Party, and New Zealand First are doing today.

We are reforming Auckland Transport. We are giving power back to the people. Those members had their chance and they squandered it. We're fixing up the mess. I commend the bill.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question is, That the Local Government (Auckland Council) (Transport Governance) Amendment Bill be considered by the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Bill referred to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

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