KEY POINTS:
If it's good enough for the Government to accept that the public-private partnership concept has been a disaster as far as the railways is concerned, then why not concede the point with urban passenger transport as well?
It's an open secret that Finance Minister Michael Cullen and his
Treasury ideologues have finally accepted that the only way to stop the national rail network rapidly rusting to a halt is to bring the train operation run by Toll Holdings back into public ownership as part of a co-ordinated, planned transport system.
But when it comes to reviving Auckland's anarchic public transport system, these same Wellington masterminds cling determinedly to the public-private chimera.
No wonder the Government's senior Auckland local government ally, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee, blew his safety valve in frustration at this week's transport committee meeting.
Under discussion was the Public Transport Management Bill, which local authorities up and down the country had hoped would give them the tools to push passenger transport into the 21st century. It falls well short of this.
When the Wellington boffins consulted on the issue this year, local politicians and officials from throughout the nation sought increased powers of control over commercial bus operators, and expressed a strong preference for letting each region decide how it wanted its public transport system to work.
The call went short of a return to public ownership, more's the pity, but there was strong support - particularly from Auckland - for having the power to adopt a fully contracted system. That's where the community decides for itself what sort of public transport service it wants - routes, regularity, fare price, the lot - then hires bus and train and ferry operators to provide it.
This contrasts with the chaotic existing system which allows bus operators to wander in and out of the system at their pleasure, gorging themselves on the popular, peak-hour routes, then demanding ever-increasing subsidies from the public purse - though refusing to open their books to prove any need - for the "non-commercial" routes.
Rivalry between operators has stymied, for example, any integrated ticket system in Auckland - a service which is normal in most civilised communities. As for ending competition between parallel subsidised train and bus services under the existing system, that's a dream.
In the past 15 years, this flawed system, imposed on Auckland by governments, has resulted in the worst bus patronage growth in Australasia - down 34 per cent relative to population.
To try to repair this woeful state of affairs, the present Government established the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to fast-track a passenger transport revolution in the region.
But when ARTA asks for a vital tool needed to carry out the job, the Government backs away, choosing instead to bow to the anguished screeches of bus company owners such as Infratil.
The result is a bob-each-way solution which annoys private operators and local government.
The bill authorises a Regional Public Transport Plan which, admittedly, will give ARTA stronger controls over private operators than it has now. The plan can specify frequency and times and capacity of routes, and require operators to accept integrated ticketing.
ARTA can also require patronage and financial information - but only for planning and monitoring purposes.
Incredibly, this information can't be used when private operators come requesting more subsidies.
If the bill is passed, private operators will still be able to frustrate the plan, by setting up competing services not specified in the plan. It will also introduce a huge and time-delaying new layer of bureaucracy. Approving the new plans - Mr Lee says we already have four - will take interminable months of consultation followed, no doubt, by spoiling legal challenges by grumpy private operators.
Once it is approved, there's another 18-month grace period for the old system to wither away.
Enforcing the plan will also be a nightmare as it stands. With a contracted service, if the contractor doesn't keep to his contract, he can be fired.
Under the planned system, transgressions could end up in the district court - an expensive and long-winded prospect.
Ratepayers will pay $700 million subsidising Auckland bus and ferry services over the next decade, and taxpayers will match that with a similar amount.
You'd think a Labour Government would accept that locals might know how best to spend that money.
