All Aboard Aotearoa Inc v Auckland Transport & Ors – Summary for media

All Aboard’s Case

1.       All Aboard Aotearoa Inc is seeking judicial review of decisions relating to the Auckland Regional Land Transport Plan 2021 (RLTP). 

2.       The RLTP is the investment plan for Auckland’s transport network for the 10 years from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2031. It was approved by Auckland Transport (AT) in June 2021. It provides for investment of $37 billion across the 10 years.

3.       All Aboard says that the adoption of the RLTP was unlawful because it does not make any material reduction to Auckland’s transport emissions.  As the RLTP itself records, it will increase land transport emissions in Auckland by 6% by 2031 compared to 2016 levels (or reduce them by 1% if proposed central government interventions are taken into account, such as biofuels improvements and clean car standards).

4.       The Land Transport Management Act 2003 provides that, before adopting the RLTP, the directors of AT, sitting as the Regional Transport Committee for Auckland, were required to be satisfied that:

a.       the RLTP was consistent with the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport 2021 (GPS); and

b.       the RLTP contributed to the purpose of the Land Transport Management Act 2003, that being to contribute to a safe, effective and efficient land transport system in the public interest.

5.       The GPS included “climate change” as a strategic priority which required delivery of the following primary outcome:

Investment decisions will support the rapid transition to a low carbon transport system, and contribute to a resilient transport sector that reduces harmful emissions, giving effect to the emissions reduction target the Climate Change Commission recommended to Cabinet until emissions budgets are released in 2021.

6.       All Aboard says that the RLTP is manifestly inconsistent with GPS 2021, including the mandatory directions for investment decisions to support the rapid transition to a low carbon transport system, to reduce harmful emissions, and to give effect to Climate Change Commission’s proposed emissions reduction targets.  Given its failure to reduce emissions, All Aboard says the RLTP is also plainly not in the public interest and therefore does not meet the requirement to contribute to the purpose of the Land Transport Management Act 2003.

 7.       All Aboard says that the decision-makers had no proper or reasonable basis to be satisfied that RLTP 2021 was consistent with GPS 2021, nor any of the Government’s and Auckland Council’s climate commitments, nor that it contributed to the purpose of the LTMA.  The decisions at issue were therefore unlawful.  All Aboard seeks for the decisions to be set aside.

8.       The decisions to adopt the RLTP are also at odds with Auckland Council’s own targets under Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland’s Climate Plan, being to reduce Auckland’s greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below 2016 levels by 2030, and to reduce Auckland’s gross emissions from the transport sector to 64% below 2016 levels by 2030.  The RLTP itself acknowledges that: “Given the scale of Auckland’s contribution to New Zealand’s transport emissions, failure to make substantial emissions reductions in Auckland will severely limit New Zealand’s ability to meet [its] climate change targets.”

9.       All Aboard says that the process by which the RLTP was developed was fundamentally flawed.  It was a business-as-usual plan that was designed to maintain AT’s pre-existing investment programme, and that failed to make the interventions that were available and necessary to reduce transport emissions.  Auckland Council had already identified these interventions and committed to making them in Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri. They include changing the way Aucklanders travel, making public transport more appealing than using personal vehicles, increasing the use of bicycles and micro-mobility devices and improving walking infrastructure.

10.   All Aboard has filed affidavits from nine witnesses, including climate experts, transport policy experts, a former Chief Sustainability Officer at Auckland Council, and a former senior transport planner at AT.

About All Aboard

11.   All Aboard is a coalition of six non-governmental organisations, Bike Auckland Inc, Generation Zero Inc, Lawyers for Climate Action NZ Inc, Movement (charitable trust), Women in Urbanism Aotearoa Inc and Greenpeace Aotearoa Inc.

12.   The central aim of All Aboard is to achieve the urgent decarbonisation of transport in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, in order to contribute to the global effort to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.

13. All Aboard brings its application for judicial review in the public interest and having regard to the urgency and severity of the climate crisis. It has no private interest in the matters at issue.