Appropriation (2003/04 Financial Review) Bill

I am delighted to be able to take a second call on the issue of transport and to focus specifically on the issue of roading.

Last night I was disappointed to be up so late, then I suddenly realised that it was only getting on towards 10 o’clock and there would still be a good drive time audience listening to me in Auckland because people would still be on their way home from work. They will just be getting out of the central business district right now at 8.05 p.m., so to the loving and adoring audience that I have in the drive time I will tell some really good facts about things.

The question I asked of the Hon Pete Hodgson who was in the chair last night—to which we did not get any satisfactory answers—was how it could be possible for Transfund, the funding agency, to finish the financial year in question with $230 million surplus unspent, when no one can deny that there is an enormous list of roading projects that are desperately needed. The Minister did not answer, so I answered the question for him.

The answer lay across the Chamber in the form of the Greens. The way in which the Land Transport Management Act and Transfund have to work has been in the total control of the Greens. The worst of the Greens now is a man called Joel Cayford, who is running the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee. He was one down the Alliance list from Keith Locke, and members of this Parliament can make their own judgment as to what a person is like when that person is one down on the list from Keith Locke.

He is now saying that State Highway 20, which is the connection that takes the main artery from the Māngere Bridge through to the Māngere airport—when it is supposed to carry on through Roskill into Avondale and join the north-western motorway—is off the schedule, that it is gone. It is not in the 10-year schedule. I found that fascinating because the Minister had said the week before, on 18 March, in reply to a question for written answer: “I am advised by Transit that State Highway 20 project through Avondale is scheduled to begin in 2010.” I am quite good at numbers and I worked it out. It is 2005 now and 2010 is in 5 years’ time. [Interruption] Dover Samuels is good with numbers. He has agreed with me. He is No. 10 on the list. I thought how can it not be in the 10-year plan. I suddenly looked at the regional land transport committee’s announcement as to why it has been taken out, because it was there originally. Do members know what Mr Joel Cayford said? He said they were advised by Transit that there was not a hope in hell of doing this within the 10 years, getting it started within 10 years, even though the written answers in the House, 5 days before, said it was going to start in 5 years. So we have to start asking what is going on here. I want the drive time audience in Auckland to know that we are talking of waiting at least 10 years before that road—which is desperately needed—is started. I want to hear from any of the Auckland members in this debate if they do not think the road is desperately needed. I tell the members that it is desperately needed. The human body would not function if it had arteries that did not join up. Vehicles come zooming out of the airport, down the big State Highway 20 spur, join on to it, hit the Māngere Bridge, and suddenly there is chaos and the traffic has stopped because there is a set of traffic lights up ahead at Hillsborough Road, because State Highway 20 is all finished. The Minister was unable to answer, but the answer was very clear.

Then the next thing I thought about the Land Transport Management Act, which had so much promise when it came through the House, was that the one thing it promised was private-sector participation. So I asked the Minister about that. OK, it was a great idea. I think it was a neat idea. How many private sector roads have been built, or even started to be built, or for which the contract has even been let—even one Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer operation? Let us see. Were there any? Again, the answer is no. So we have the Minister and his funding agency, with a $230 million surplus unspent, and the answer was really that they could not spend it because the Land Transport Management Act had made it so inflexible. Auckland is grinding to an absolute halt, as are many other parts of the country: the Bay of Plenty, the Waikato. Certainly Centennial Highway into Wellington is killing people at an unrealistic rate. State Highway 2 through Maramarua is now known as “Death Alley”.

I want to know why we are going to have another 5c increase now, but in the last financial year, the year in question—the review we are reviewing—the Government could not spend even $230 million. Let me tell Dover Samuels—because he probably does not know—how much money is normally spent on new roading each year. The answer is about $400 million. Of the $1.4 billion in the National Land Transport Programme, about $400 million is for new roads. The rest is for maintenance and subsidising public transport. There is about $400 million for new roads. Here was $230 million, well over half of what should be spent on new roads each year, unspent. I want to know from the Minister in the chair, David Cunliffe, why that occurred in that financial year.

Report noted.

New Zealand Police