This page last modified 13 September 2002
- 2002, June: A brief guide to road dedication
- 1999, October 12: Mayors on road 'reforms'
- 1999, March: Government lying about road 'reforms'
- 1998, December 12: Road reforms breach rights
- 1998, October: Roadcorp coming soon
- 1998, February: Road 'user-pays' to replace civil and property rights
- 1997, July: Govt's privatisation plans
- 1994, May: Public Roads (overview)
- 1994, May: Roads - A Brief Users' Guide
- 1991, July (reprint): 'Public Roads:
A (fuller) Guide to Rights of Access to the Countryside'
(Published in National Business Review, 8 October 1999)
"The most important set of reforms this country has ever embarked on"
Maurice Williamson, Minister of Transport (1999)"The most profound change to roading since the New Zealand Automobile Association's inception in 1902"
Tony Knight, NZAA President (Directions Magazine, September 1999)
Dear Prime Minister
Your government is proposing to commercialise our roads by transferring the management of our $16 billion locally owned roading system to a new set of profit-driven companies.
As community representatives, we fear the worst for our communities if these proposals (titled 'Better Transport Better Roads') are implemented in their current form.
Only recently, you linked any progress to solving Auckland's transport woes to these proposals. You said "National is committed to seeing that occur."
Auckland does need its unique transport problems solved urgently. In fact, the 28 Community Roads councils fully support the Auckland local authorities' efforts to solve their congestion problems.
But we hold real fears that in the rush to solve Auckland's transport woes with an experimental new roading system, we may be creating more serious problems elsewhere. And the consequences for our communities and road users could be dramatic.
Like your Government, we are committed to improving our roading system. But we are also committed on behalf of our communities, to ensuring a fair and equitable outcome for all New Zealanders from the Government's roading reform process.
That's why we believe that such reforms shouldn't be carried out without thorough public education and fully informed public debate. That's why we believe we would be failing our duty to our communities if we didn't do everything in our power to see that debate occur.
Our own nation-wide public survey conducted earlier this year showed that public awareness of what is being proposed remains alarmingly low. We don't believe that this is an effective way to arrive at a sound, durable policy on an issue that will touch the lives of all New Zealanders.
In fact, our research showed that of those surveyed who had heard of the plans, only 15 per cent actually supported them. And there was overwhelming support (91 per cent) for the managers of our roading network to represent and be fully accountable to local communities.
But most importantly, our nation-wide research indicated that the more New Zealanders know about what is proposed in Better Transport Better Roads, the more they don't like it.
And we do think they deserve to know.
So we are trying to give the issue a higher profile, because in the run up to a general election we believe the public should be able to decide on an informed basis which way they want the management and funding of our largest national public asset to head.
Our roading system can be and needs to be improved. Alternatives to these proposals do exist which do not result in community 'winners' and 'losers'. Solutions exist that would enable us to reduce the roading burden on ratepayers without risking the welfare of communities. Our aim, and also that of all councils represented by Local Government New Zealand, is simply to ensure that we achieve better and safer roads for all New Zealanders.
The level of public debate on this issue must be raised. We welcome your involvement, and 'commitment to finding a roading solution that impacts positively on all New Zealand's communities.
Let's remember that out roads are there to serve us and our communities - not the other way around.
Local communities must continue to have control of the management of our roads.
Yours sincerely,
The Mayors and Chairs of:
MEDIA RELEASE FROM COMMUNITY ROADS GROUP
Press Release 12/10/99
Leaders of 28 local councils throughout the country are behind an advertising campaign encouraging voters to question election candidates for their policies on roading reform.
Starting this week, the advertising urges voters to find out "which side of the road your MP or election candidate is on." The government's roading policy would remove the direct control communities have of their own roads, placing them instead into the hands of commercially driven companies, says Christchurch mayor Garry Moore, whose Council is among the 28.
"The 28 councils involved in this group make no apologies for spending ratepayers' money on advertising when the government's policy on roading proposes a radical, ideologically driven experiment on our $16 billion national network of roads.
"Our roads are one of the most important community assets we have. As the election draws nearer, the silence of many politicians on the roading issue is deafening - particularly so from those in government.
"The Minister of Transport recently said that this is the most important reform New Zealand has faced in 50 years. That's why voters need to be able to make an informed choice about where election candidates stand.
"Voters need to know whether or not their candidates believe our roads should be run by profit-oriented commercial companies - companies that will be outside the direct control of the communities they have been set up to serve.
"At the moment, only one person in three is even aware that roading reform is an issue. That is not democracy. These plans could change the face of New Zealand society forever.
"We don't want our communities waking up one morning to a roading system they knew nothing about - and simply do not want. This is what will happen if voters and election candidates do not exchange policies and opinions on this issue over the next six weeks," said Mr Moore.
Note:
The Community Roads group was formed in late 1998 when a number
of concerned local authorities decided to formulate a joint response
to the Government's proposals to reform the management and funding
of New Zealand's road network. This followed the publication in
November 1998 of 'Better Transport, Better Roads', the Government's
draft policy for roads. Since it was initially formed, a number
of additional local authorities have joined the group, which now
consists of the following:
Ashburton District Council Banks Peninsula District Council Buller District Council Carterton District Council Canterbury Regional Council Christchurch City Council Grey District Council Hurunui District Council Kaikoura District Council Kaipara District Council Mackenzie District Council Napier City Council Porirua City Council Rangitikei District Council Ruapehu District Council Selwyn District Council South Wairarapa District Council Stratford District Council Tasman District Council Upper Hutt City Council Waikato District Council Waimakariri District Council Waimate District Council Waipa District Council Wairoa District Council Waitomo District Council West Coast Regional Council Westland District Council
ENDS
Public Access. No. 10. October 1998.
Transport Minister Maurice Williamson has announcing that Government has gone off the idea of privatising public roads or establishing a host of competing roading companies as recommended by it's Roading Advisory Group. However Government is still intent on corporatising the state highway system and local roads with a 'business-like' structure, apparently dependent on electronic surveillance and direct road user charges rather than the present indirect system of funding through property rates and petrol levies etc.
Earlier this year PANZ obtained publication in daily newspapers of our concerns about roading reforms. We pointed out that public roads are much more than just corridors for transportation. They are in fact the central thread that holds our civilisation together - a point that appears still to be lost on Mr. Williamson and those besotted with market-forces models of life and the universe. As we pointed out, roads are primarily corridors guaranteeing freedom of passage for passers-by and rights of access or 'frontage' for individual property owners. Although it is very useful that many public roads are formed, they do not have to be suitable for motor vehicles to serve their fundamental purpose.
Our rights of use have evolved over several centuries and are protected by the Common Law, as determined incrementally through the Courts. Without roads providing freedom of movement for all citizens there is no way our society can function for even the most basic of social interactions or commerce. We would be prisoners on the particular patch of dirt where we reside, having to negotiate and purchase passage over others' land to go anywhere. Such a state of anarchy would be of course be a utopian expression of market forces ideology, which is probably why such a model has been floated in New Zealand at this stage in our societial melt-down but, significantly, no where else.
What Mr. Williamson either doesn't know or care about, is that any system of user-pays which requires direct payment for road use (ie. tolls), as distinct from paying for road construction and maintenance indirectly through other means, will destroy a key foundation of our society. That is the ability and freedom for any member of society to go about their daily lives from place to place without payment or penalty, and for property ownership that has meaning and value as part of a wider society.
The Minister's only know response to our concerns has been to state that PANZ has not suggested any alternatives to his proposals, implying that there are no alternatives to change. He views the status quo as "a recipe for stagnation or chaos". He attempted to rebut our concerns that the imposition of tolls on public roads was unlawful and contrary to common law by incorrectly citing various tolled motorways like the Tauranga Harbour Bridge as public roads. They are not. As the title 'motorway' implies, they are for motors only. They are special entities sanctioned by statute and are not 'public roads' entailing common law rights of passage for all, by vehicle, foot, cycle, horse or whatever, as the vast majority of our roads are.
Mr Williamson challenged us to provide alternatives to his proposals. The obvious 'alternative' is to continue to sanction by special empowering legislation toll motorways, bridges, tunnels etc., as the need arises. This is what has happened for the last 100 or more years, but by leaving the real public road system alone.
Toll motorways can continue to be constructed to ease local traffic congestion or to shorten travel distances for motorists. There could even be scope for privately funded motorways however these should not be construed as being public roads. There should always be public road frontage or access for individual properties and alternative, if perhaps less convenient, rights of passage for other motorists and non-motorists to go about their business independently of motorways.
In what may be interpreted as heresy coming from a group dedicated to public ownership of our public road system, we believe that continuation of common law rights of passage, without Parliamentary interference and limitation by meddling politicians, is more important than public ownership. Not that we are advocating privatisation. We just point out that in England, from where our common law is derived, the underlying soil of the road system is privately owned - the titles of adjoining land extend out to the centre of the roads. However, that private ownership does not permit the obstruction of public passage. There are effective legal remedies open to the local councils who build and maintain the road, foot and bridle path formations if a landowner does cause obstruction. Likewise those remedies are exercisable by individual members of the public.
Those same common laws apply in New Zealand. We are in fact blessed with the double protection of common law and public ownership, however this appears to offer little protection from the deprivations of our current crop of myopic rulers.
Government has remained silent
as to its intentions for the half of our public road network that
is unformed - the so-called 'paper roads' that provide essential
legal and non-vehicle access to private and public lands everywhere.
This includes half of the Queen's Chain along river, lake and
sea shores. Williamson has already stated that ownership will
"remain with individual property owners", graphically
displaying either wilful deception or profound ignorance as to
their true ownership. With commercially driven roading authorities
in charge, there will be pressing reasons for disposing of such
non-revenue generating liabilities.
The following are two 1000-word articles released by us for use by the news media or publication in other outlets. Use is subject to acknowledgment of the author and PANZ, i.e.
"Bruce Mason, Researcher, Public Access New Zealand"
February 1998
(Bruce has particular interests in the Queen's Chain, public rights of way, and land tenure)
You are free to
use your own headlines.
The first article deals with the effect of the road 'reforms' on civil rights, the second on property rights (both public and private).
Browse the rest of this page for background information about public roads.
[PART 1: effect of roading reforms on civil rights (985 words)]
Aside from the basic commodities of air, water, food, shelter, and the need for personal security, there is one basic human requirement that must be satisfied for any civilised community to function anywhere on this Earth.
That need is the freedom of individuals to move from one place to another. So basic, so obvious really, that we scarcely ever think about it. Freedom of movement, other than in wartime, civil emergency or under authoritarian regimes, has always been taken for granted in civilised societies.
We get up in the morning, travel to work, to school, or go on holiday. We visit friends, go shopping, see a movie, or play sport, and in all cases we expect our freedom of movement to be unhindered. That expectation may soon be curtailed, if Government is allowed to proceed with its so-called "reform" of New Zealand's public roading system.
The Government intends to commercialise the roads to replace our present time-honoured system with an extreme version of user-pays. The excuse for this change, according to Transport Minister, Maurice Williamson, is that road funding is in crisis. However much of the money now collected from road users never goes back towards roads. The proposed changes are driven by ideology, not through shortage of revenue.
Satellite technology is available to track the movement of individual vehicles anywhere in New Zealand. This will enable billing road users on a regular basis for use of individual roads or parts of roads. This is all designed primarily to one end to make a profit for the new corporate owners of the roads. "The advent of new charging technology opens up great possibilities for direct charging", say Government's advisers. They have unintelligently likened the new approach to a telephone service, where of course those who default on payments have the service cut off, but life goes on. However they will need to imprison errant road users who refuse to be monitored by Big Brother or can't pay bills and fines for this brave new road system to work.
Government's advisers believe that all users should be charged for the use of roads, including pedestrians and cyclists. There's one small problem they haven't quite got the technology yet, but the intention is clear. They already have electronically mapped every road in New Zealand and can locate individual vehicles to within three metres. Next will we be compelled to carry mini transponders so we can be individually tracked from above?
As someone in local government commented, the technocrats have a 'mad scientist' approach. They have the technology; they feel compelled to use it everywhere no matter what the consequences. This writer believes that the proposed use of satellite tracking technology is not the prime threat to civil liberties that will result from its use. The primary threat is the mindset of its proponents who are driven by a new order of 'market forces' serving corporate rather than democratic ends.
Two years ago the Business Roundtable proposed the privatisation of public roads. Government, under the front of an appointed 'Roading Advisory Group', is now delivering. The Group's language of 'efficiency', 'competitiveness', etc., is also found in other 'reforms' that have been thrust upon society. The lives of the ill don't appear to matter in the 'reforms' of the public health system, therefore it is a small step for everyone to now take the market medicine.
The most basic of infrastructures, our roading network, is to be subjected to the holy writs of the market. There is no room for doubt, for history, or reality. There is only one solution. Only future buyers of rights of passage along our roads will have personal and economic 'freedom'. The more wealth you have the more you will be able to 'purchase' from the profit-driven roading company 'providers' destined to become the owners of our roads.
There is no mention of rights of use in any of the legislation affecting road administration and management in New Zealand. That is not because such rights don't exist, but because the Common Law has already determined those rights, rights that were often obtained through painful and bloody conflict.
The 'law of highways' both here and in England guarantees the public the right to pass and repass without hindrance at all times. These are personal rights, conveyed on every individual, who is capable of exerting them against authorities and others that unlawfully obstruct them (except on urban motorways which are subject to specific legislation). Anyone unlawfully obstructed can sue the obstructor and/or take direct action to remove obstacles the epitome of individual standing and rights in a democracy. They are incalculably precious. They are rights that have been reaffirmed by our Courts. We have no other protection for them such as a written constitution.
Market-place ideologues view our living history with distain. Common Law, dating from the 16th century, is the central obstacle to the application of direct user pays and corporate ambition. That is why, in the eyes of the 'reformers', such law must be abolished. In future our 'rights' will become 'codified' in statute, meaning determined by politicians and technocrats with profit and corporate agendas. These new 'rights' can then be further amended from time to time by simple legislative amendment.
Local Government New Zealand, the combined voice of the local authorities that manage most of our roads sees "the roading network as an integral part of people's lives and the reforms as threatening both the access and social cohesion that roads provide", however the association perplexedly welcomes user-pays for the country's roads. It seems that pragmatics of costs and 'efficiency' rules government both nationally and locally.
Roading is such a basic resource that its use is compulsory. Its potential for profit is unlimited. Treasury has number-crunched the value of roads at $23 billion. This is the biggest single economic asset in New Zealand. It's ripe for privatisation in the new global market place.
[PART 2: effect of roading reforms on property rights (968 words)]
Government's intended changes to road ownership and management undermine an essential basis of a property-owning democracy legal frontage onto a public road, being part of a national network to all other property. Our entire land settlement and ownership system is dependent on public roads providing linkages between individual allotments. Land-locked, isolated land is almost worthless, incapable of economic use. The reforming 'mad-scientists' may not realise that they are destroying the whole structure of our society, including private property rights that they assume the so-called 'free market' promotes above all else.
There is also risk of mass depopulation of rural New Zealand because these areas could become too expensive to live in and to service. Without cross subsidisation of lightly used roads, as occurs now, they may be disposed of because they are 'uneconomic'. Alternatively, as Government's Roading Advisory Group cynically comments, they could become 'economic' because if road users could be charged appropriately "then very few roads would in fact be uneconomic". That means most roads servicing rural communities will become expensive to use, even allowing for rate reductions if the 'reforms' proceed.
What Government's advisers fail to see or don't care about is that their premiss that 'roads' just mean 'transport', vehicles etc., is fallacious. As a 'transport' mode they have equated roads to railways and other forms of transport that can be operated under current fashionable economic models. To them roads have no social or any other function. The ideology driving the roading 'reform' requires a 'zero-based' approach which denies the existence of present and past. This is regarded by believers as 'innovation'.
However New Zealand's roads
are much more than carriageways for vehicles. They provide the
foundation for our settlement, a settlement that predates motor
vehicles by about 70 years and is entwined with rights of public
passage inherited from England from the Middle Ages. A highway
may be a footpath alone, it may be a combined footpath and bridlepath,
or it may be a way for persons on foot, on horseback or in vehicles.
Usually they are for all forms of passage. Whether a road is formed
or unformed (so-called 'paper roads') has no bearing on the legal
status and public rights. They all serve the same end providing
rights of passage for all who wish to pass and rights of frontage
or access for property owners abutting the roadway.
Approximately half our roads are unformed however Government's advisers dismiss these as "nominal roads", only worthy of disposal through a review process with unspecified purposes. Half the Queen's Chain along our waterways consists of roads.
Transport Minister Williamson has stated that legal ownership of the land underneath road formations will not pass to roading companies, despite his Advisory Group making recommendations that directly contradict him. The Minister also claims that "there will be no effect on the public's existing rights to pass along roads. These rights will remain in place unaltered". Whereas his advisers have expressly recommended to him that existing rights under common law be extinguished.
All that Mr Williamson offers is "some form of access" to property owners (no mention of anyone else). The commercial, corporate model Government promotes will dictate what form that 'access' will take. He further states that 'paper roads' will not go to the companies but erroneously claims that they will "remain" with "individual property owners". In one sentence he thus extinguishes public ownership of these roads, or more accurately expresses his intention as to who the future owners will be.
In the world of ideological illusion official assurances and words have become meaningless. Private now means 'public' and public means 'private'. We are assured that roads will remain in 'public' ownership because the roading companies will be owned by central and local government. How 'public' has any state-owned enterprise (SOE) or Crown health enterprise proved to be when run for business purposes by an appointed board of directors which acts without external accountability? The shareholding Ministers obviously don't see any responsibility falling on them for actions affecting individual SOE 'clients' or their rights. The reality is that the existence of SOEs is constantly used as a shield to avoid Ministerial accountability.
Many people would find it hard to believe that there would be any durability to the Minister's so-called 'public ownership' of roading companies, after the sale of many SOEs over the last decade. The meaningless of the Minister's words is compounded by his advisers describing truly publicly owned roads administered by the Department of Conservation as 'private'. These are also now to be driven by the same profit management as the roading companies.
The Ministerial and corporate spin-doctors are engaged in allaying public concerns and avoiding public debate if at all possible. That could only be an impediment to the tight legislative timetable that his predecessor Jenny Shipley planned. One has to question the propriety of the process when public meetings to discuss the 'reforms' are not publicly advertised. Also when submitters on earlier reports are not sent subsequent reports and not invited to make further comment.
The distain with which Government and its chosen elite of advisers treat the public is indicative of their contempt for democracy and the individual. The forces of corporate self interest are so compelling, that I believe that our leaders, who are behaving more like dictators than elected representatives, will not change their ways voluntarily.
Hopefully the threats to fundamental human rights inherent in the so-called roading 'reforms' will provide the wake-up call that will shake us out of our passivity and sense of helplessness. It will require a reassertion of public will over those intent on enslaving us. That reassertion needs to be massive and forceful, if New Zealand is to remain a fair, humane, and peaceful society that we and those yet to come can be proud of.
END
['Public Access' No 9 July 1997]
The Minister of Transport Jenny Shipley has released a 'Land Transport Pricing Study' discussion document. Shipley, although reputed to have said that a public road network will be retained has also stated that the status quo is unacceptable, meaning that commercialisation/privatisation, in various shades is preferred. Remember that the Business Round Table came out with road privatisation plans last year. Co-incidence? Public roads have been estimated as the most valuable asset in New Zealand-at around $23 billion, so they are a natural target for those with private, commercial agendas.
The document's narrow focus on costs and transport totally discounts the wider legal and civic value of 'roads'. The authors present a view that roads only mean cars/transport. There is nothing about the legal status of roads, that these are publicly-owned strips of land; that there are centuries-old common law rights of passage attached; that our land-owning/occupying civilisation depends on every allotment having legal access onto a road; that our society depends on its citizens having freedom of movement for it to be able to function; that half our roads are currently unused by motor vehicles but nevertheless have essential value for legal and non-motorised access to both private and public lands and waters; that half the Queen's Chain consists of 'roads'.
However despite these major omissions there are small hints that these matters are not oversights. The authors have embarked on a privatisation/user pays course - the technology for monitoring vehicle movements is already available. The focus is on user-pays for vehicles but they do not dismiss extension of the concept to pedestrians and cyclists! It is only the absence, for the present, of suitable monitoring technology that is seen as a barrier. Even the right of legal frontage onto a road is interpreted as a 'privilege' that landowners should pay for. Like everything else in the myopic world of the New Right, it is only individuals with money that have rights and liberties! It has enormous potential for a Big Brother/Corporate State with every move by every citizen monitored and recorded.
A more commercial direct user-pays approach to managing public roads, even under continued Crown and local authority ownership, is likely to result in management for profit rather than people. A likely consequence will be the 'stopping' and disposal of lightly used back-country roads which are generating insufficient returns to pay for upkeep or provide a profit on the investment. Unformed legal roads will become financial liabilities if the road authority is required to produce a return on land value, as distinct from the investment in road building and maintenance. Approximately half the public road 'network' is unformed, but of crucial importance for providing legal rights of access to public lands, water margins, and private land generally.
There are huge civil liberties issues at stake. Like, what becomes of the freedom of movement guaranteed to everyone under the New Zealand Bill of Rights if there are no means left to freely exercise it? Freedom, that most precious of commodities, is apparently only to be available to those who can afford it.
The proposals, either through oversight or stealth, have the potential to be a monumental attack on personal freedoms and public rights of access, unparalled in New Zealand's history.
Contact your MP; and
Write a submission by 15 August 1997, to:
Land Transport Pricing Study
Ministry of Transport
P O Box 5248
Wellesley Street
Auckland.
Fax: (09) 379 0073
Ask-
May 1994. 'Public Access', No. 4 / amended June 2002
The key concept behind the law
of highways is the right of passage. Your rights, and limitations
on your actions, and those of administering district councils,
hinge on this concept.
Whether a public road is formed or unformed (including so-called
'paper roads') has no bearing on their legal status, or on your
rights of use. There is the same right of passage.
New Zealand public roads are strips of land normally 20 metres
wide with ownership vested in district councils. Adjoining land
owners have the same rights of use as members of the general public,
plus a right of 'frontage' (access) to their property along their
legal boundary with the road. They are not 'The Owners' of public
roads, as frequently asserted or implied.
The following advice reflects current New Zealand statutory and
common law. The direct-actions noted below have been repeatedly
'field-tested' without any legal liabilities falling on the practitioners.
May 1994. 'Public Access', No. 4
Formed and unformed roads provide
the primary, and usually only, means of public access through
the countryside and to public lands and waters. New Zealand is
very well-endowed with these publicly-owned access strips. It
is an inheritance from the time of first British settlement, as
surveyors subdivided, and continue to subdivide, land for closer
settlement. Lamentably however, roads are the very neglected and
abused mainstay of our public access network.
Consider where we would be without public roads. Without an interconnecting
system of public rights of way New Zealanders would be denied
the means of freedom of movement, recognised as a civil right
under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That right applies through
the countryside, and to public lands and waters, as much as anywhere
else.
Largely through lack of public awareness as to the nature, and
location of many public roads, and of common law rights of use,
lack of resolve by local authorities to act on the public behalf,
unlawful annexation of roads by adjoining landowners has become
the norm. There is now a generic problem of obstruction of public
use of roads throughout New Zealand. PANZ receives more reports
of obstruction of roads, often with official connivance, than
any other category of public land in New Zealand. A sample of
such cases is outlined below. The push towards privatisation during
the last decade has greatly exacerbated the problem--we believe
that a crises situation is developing to the point that requires
legislative intervention to prevent violent confrontations arising
and possibly deaths.
Before the last election PANZ put to political parties a very
simple solution to the problem, but there has been a singular
lack of commitment to any action.
The problem is not a lack of public rights or a lack of official
powers. The 'roads problem' is a lack of will by most district
councils who administer roads, reinforced by a lack of a legal
duty on them to assert and protect public rights of use. If such
a duty existed, as it does in the UK, we predict that most problems
would disappear overnight. Councils would know that if an obstruction
was reported to them and they failed to act appropriately, they
would be liable to end up in court. The message would be rapidly
transmitted to their counterparts elsewhere. Our solution is a
socially responsible response--it would remove most of the heat
and conflict that is increasingly occurring between recreationists
and adjoining private landowners. It would put the onus for settling
problems where it must surely belong--with the public authorities
charged with road administration.
See 'Public Roads-A Users' Guide'
for a summary of the law of highways in New Zealand. This consists
of a centuries-old inheritance of British common law rights, common
law developed in New Zealand, and New Zealand legislation (i.e.,
statute or Act of Parliament). As a common law country our legal
system, and your rights, are based on common law as modified if
at all by statute. Common law is based on ancient law developed
and tested over time and applied commonly throughout the realm.
The courts have the leading role in developing common law based
on past conventions and court decisions, new situations not covered
either by common law or statute, and from interpreting statutory
law.