Transport Committee Looks Old School

in General by Jon C — December 21, 2011 at 11:06 pm | 1 comment

The lineup of the new parliamentary transport committee, which will consider transport legislation, looks very disappointing. It’s old school. Don’t expect fresh thinking.

Because it’s the transport and industrial relations committee, there are trade union and business people on it - so not everyone is in tune with transport issues.

But there are very few advocates for public transport amongst them and very few who seem to have a record of having a handle on anything other than local roading.

Labour’s new transport person Phil Twyford is on it and he’s already proven to be good value.

Greens have Waiheke Island’s Denise Roche who was an Auckland Councillor so would be familiar with some of the issues.

Others include Waikato’s National David Bennett who opposed the Waikato rail service and right winger Jamie-Lee Ross from Pakuranga who was briefly on the Auckland Council transport committee in his time as Councillor and was part of the minority right wing section on the committee that is sceptical about issues like rail.

Parliament's transport committee has few modern thinkers

Simon O’Connor is a new MP, for the heavy blue seat of Tamaki whose vague election statement on transport was “Transport. Put simply, it is about making it easier to get around our great city.”

Nat’s Chris Auchinvole is from the West Coast and doesn’t appear to have ever made any statement on transport as he is focused on mining and local West Coast issues.

The members are: