Estimates Debate — Vote Transport

Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o te Whare i te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Tēnā koe e te Rangatira, Mr Tisch. Tēnā koe e te Minita o ngā take katoa, ngā take o te Kāwanatanga, a Tīpene Joyce.

[Greetings to you all, members of the House, in Māori Language Week. Greetings to you, the Chair, Mr Tisch, and to you, the Hon Steven Joyce, Minister of all matters relating to the Government.]

He is the Minister of all issues confronting the Government. It is great to be able to speak on Vote Transport this afternoon. I will try to canvass a number of issues in my 5 minutes, if there is an opportunity. The first issue is around roads of national significance. I will mention two and a half of those.

The first is the Kapiti Expressway, just up the road from Wellington and in the area that I am proud to be from. It is a four-lane, 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway that is being built through the communities of Kapiti. It is not a road for the people of Kapiti but a road through the communities of Kapiti. It is not a road that the National Party campaigned on at the last election. At the last election the National Party campaigned on exactly the same policy as the Labour Party campaigned on: to build Transmission Gully, and to build a local Western Link Road to remove a lot of State highway traffic from the State highway and feed that traffic locally through a local road. The Minister shakes his head to indicate that the party did not, but it did. I was a candidate in that constituency, and I know exactly what the National Party said at the last election. It was in favour of a local Western Link Road. It was even in favour of electrification of the railway system through to Palmerston North at the last election, to build up passenger services. That was Labour’s policy, and it was National’s policy as well. Then we wanted to see improvements to State Highway 1 so that there was a free flow of traffic, and freight, of course, through our part of the country.

Kapiti does have transport problems. But they are not 24/7 transport problems, and Mr Joyce, with his close connection to the New Zealand trucking industry, has arrived at a 24/7 solution—that is, a four-lane, 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway through the Kapiti coast. I know that the Minister will not answer all my questions about it, but I have just two for him. First, if a four-lane expressway for Kapiti is such a great idea, why did the National Party not campaign on it at the last election? Right now, today, a local Western Link Road could be being constructed. All the work was done. It was ready to go; tenders were ready to be called for. That road could have been under way, giving immediate relief to the people of Kapiti. So I want to know from the Minister why, if it is such a fantastic idea for traffic to race through Kapiti on a four-lane, 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway, at the cost of $500 million an hour, he did not campaign on that. I see the Associate Minister of Transport is arriving in the Chamber. Maybe he can tell us why that is such a good idea, compared with the one that he campaigned on at the last election. I would be very interested to hear his answer on that, although I would prefer it if he waited a few more months before he answers it, so that we can be in an audience with some more local people.

My second question for the Minister of Transport is this: if the Kapiti Expressway is such an urgent road of national significance, why have we already lost a year on it? Last week the New Zealand Transport Agency came out and said the road would be delayed by a further year. There was going to be urgency around the issue of roads of national significance, and Labour would like to know why that statement is on the website of the Minister’s own agency.

The second road of national significance that I will mention is the famous “Holiday Highway”—the Pūhoi to Wellsford road—which is just a deal for the mates of the National Party, because there was no way that that road had been identified as having strategic importance, up until that point. That proposal did not come from the officials; it was put on the agenda by the Minister. There is no doubt that some safety improvements are needed along that route. We absolutely agree with that, particularly around the Dome Valley and Schedewys Hill. There is need for urgent and immediate safety improvements, which could be done now. We could get the benefits of them straight away, so that more people do not have to die or be injured, and also it could be done for a much lower cost. We want to know from the Minister why he has prioritised that road, at a huge cost: up to $2 billion is stated in his own papers. The Government is putting that amount of money up as a comfort level for the amount that it wants to spend, but the safety improvements on that road could be on much more cheaply. Then we would also be able to do other projects around the Auckland and Waikato areas, using that money.

The Minister could also explain to us why he got the figures so wrong on the Hamilton to Auckland train service, but I suspect that Sue Moroney, the excellent member of Parliament from Hamilton, will be following that up. The Minister has had to memorise the Standing Order required for making corrections to ministerial answers in the House. He knows it very well; he is always coming back after question time to correct his answer.

💬 Grant Robertson: How many?

He has one of the highest records of correcting ministerial answers of any Minister in Cabinet, and that is by somebody who considers himself to be at the centre of absolutely everything in that respect.

Then, finally, on the Waterview Connection issue, the Minister delayed that project for a year and has ended up almost back with Labour’s plan, although he greatly inflated and exaggerated the cost of that. There are many other issues and we have run out of time, but I ask why the Minister did not change the blood-alcohol limit. Why did he run out of the courage to do that?

I will happily answer a couple of the questions the previous speaker, Darren Hughes, raises. I could start perhaps with the Pūhoi to Wellsford motorway, because somehow the previous Labour Government thought it was a very good idea to build a new motorway north from Auckland to Pūhoi, put it alongside the old highway, and make it three lanes of traffic—disappearing into a paddock just outside of Pūhoi. None of the traffic had left the road at that point, but it was a really good idea to build a really long road there, and then stop it where no traffic was leaving the road. It was one of the silliest roading decisions ever made in this country and it was made by the previous Government. I point out something else for the Opposition: that road carries something like 25,000-odd people a day.

💬 Hon Darren Hughes: No it doesn’t.

Yes, it does. Between Pūhoi and Warkworth the number of vehicles is around 19,000, or about 25,000 people a day, according to—[Interruption] The Opposition constantly says we should put that money into rail in Auckland. I think that rail in Auckland is important, but I note, just to get the comparator right, that we currently have around 22,000 passengers on the entire Auckland commuter rail network every day. The Pūhoi to Warkworth section of State Highway 1 has more traffic on it than the entire Auckland commuter rail network has on an average day. That is the reality of the situation. The Opposition says we should not invest in that highway and that we should stop it in a paddock at Pūhoi, despite the high level of usage of that road. That is the ridiculous nature of the Opposition’s approach to transport.

Another example of Labour’s approach is the highway north of Wellington. The previous Labour Government put its fingers in its ears and said that it did not have to worry about whether it had a plan for State Highway 1 north of our capital city. It preferred not to have to think about that because it was a bit hard, and it did not want to talk to people about it. Labour members thought: “We’ll take the one highway designation that is reasonably possible north of Wellington and use it for a link road. We won’t need it for the highway. We won’t worry about the highway. We’ll just have the thundering traffic on the old road with all the access issues, and we won’t even think about the future.” That was the approach of the previous Government.

So when I went up the Kapiti coast and asked the people in the local district where State Highway 1 went in this grand master plan, they said: “We really can’t tell you. Maybe there is a third designation.” Of course, that is what we all had to go through last year, and the reality is that there is not a third designation that is acceptable for the local community. There is a designation there that is acceptable and that should be used for New Zealand’s highway. In fact, it is not just about the Kapiti coast; it is also about Palmerston North, about Levin, about Wanganui, and about the whole lower North Island linking to Wellington. That is what is very important.

The third thing I should draw to Opposition members’ attention is that somehow they thought they would be paying for their roading projects. They keep saying: “We were going to do that; we were going to do that.” But they cut the budget just before they left office, and the Government policy statement on State highways, which was signed off by the previous Minister of Transport, going forward, was around $650 million a year in State highway investment. It is now $1 billion a year. So Labour was going to have to delay Victoria Park. It had no plan for Waterview. It was going to borrow stacks of money for Waterview, outside of the National Land Transport Fund, and increase the Government’s fiscal deficit.

Those were Labour’s plans—it did not have any, and it could not afford to pay for Transmission Gully. But now we have a $10.7 billion pipeline to invest in these roads of national significance, and somehow Opposition members are trying to tell us they would have done some of them. Well, they would not have had the money, because they were frittering money away on everything else in their classic “just throw money at whoever wants it” approach.

National has a much better system running with the Government policy statement for the investment in the highways. I am very proud that we will see real opportunities for economic growth by investing in not just these seven projects but the projects that do not involve roads of national significance. Labour members never found the time to do the Kōpū Bridge. They never had the time to do the Matahōrua Gorge. They never found the time to do the Hawke’s Bay Expressway’s southern extension. All these things have been started and done by this Government, and, of course, Victoria Park is one of the biggest overall.

I think the problem is that the previous speaker has no understanding of the importance of prioritising and getting this infrastructure right and spending in the right places. Thank you.

I seek leave to table a document called Pūhoi to Wellsford: Project Summary Statement—one of the Minister’s roads of personal significance.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is this in the public domain?

💬 Hon Steven Joyce: Yes, it is.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): It is a published document?

It has been published by the New Zealand Transport Agency, but I would not have thought it is readily available.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): It is readily available, so we will not table that.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I congratulate the Minister of Transport on the leadership he is providing in the transport area. The Government is serious about unclogging the arteries of our economy to create jobs and growth, with better roads, broadband, rail, and electricity networks. Jobs and growth are essential if New Zealand and New Zealanders are to get ahead. Development of infrastructure is central to lifting New Zealand’s productivity and improving future economic growth. The Government is very focused on that area. The Government is spending $6 billion on infrastructure projects: specifically, in respect of the transport area, there is a $500-million upgrade of Auckland rail, and a $250-million upgrade for the wider rail network and rolling stock. There is also $10.7 billion over 10 years for State highways. State highways account for 50 percent of road use in New Zealand; therefore, an advanced State highway system is essential to maintain effective linkages throughout the country.

The money that the Government has committed reflects how important infrastructure is to the Government’s wider economic policy programme and New Zealand’s longer-term economic prospects. As an example, work on the Victoria Park tunnel began last November, a year ahead of schedule. Without extra funding, that project might never have got off the ground, and neither would the jobs or economic benefits it is bringing. More recently, the Minister, along with the Prime Minister, opened the Manukau Harbour Crossing 7 months ahead of schedule. The crossing is part of the Auckland western ring route, one of the seven roads of national significance announced in March last year.

The Government’s $1billion boost to State highway funding has provided a secure funding pipeline, which has given contractors the confidence to continue investing in people and machinery and to complete projects more quickly. Earlier this month the New Zealand Transport Agency announced that the southern half of the Newmarket viaduct on State Highway 1 will also open 6 months ahead of schedule.

High-calibre infrastructure matters, because it supports productivity and economic competitiveness. An important spin-off from this commitment is that in the deepest and most coordinated global recession since the 1930s, effective investment in productive infrastructure has supported many thousands of jobs across the country. KiwiRail is a subsidiary of the New Zealand Railways Corporation. It has been a priority for this Government to make KiwiRail productive. During its last year in office, the previous Labour Government spent more than $1 billion on KiwiRail, an investment that plummeted in value. The Government is committed to turning KiwiRail around.

In Budget 2010 the Government invested $250 million to support KiwiRail and its plan to ensure that KiwiRail can stand on its own two feet financially. Improving rail transport will be important in moving people and freight around. The $250 million in Budget 2010 builds on previous commitments to Auckland and Wellington commuter rail, and that includes the half a billion, when appropriated, for KiwiRail to buy electric trains for Auckland. Efficient and effective transport links are important drivers of growth. We are committed to making economically sensible decisions and making our investments in rail deliver for taxpayers and the economy. Investing to support KiwiRail will help improve New Zealand’s economic productivity and put us on the path to faster growth. Our investment reflects the fact that the amount of freight being moved on New Zealand’s transport network will double by 2040, and all transport modes need to become more efficient to meet that demand. Achieving that will be challenging, and it will require the support of all stakeholders, including the Government, KiwiRail, customers, unions, and regional councils.

Auckland is vital to the economy of New Zealand. It has one-third of New Zealand’s population, and it is a major contributor to our economy. Unfortunately, it has suffered for far too long with bottlenecks, delays, and uncompleted roading networks. The Government is creating a new transport council-controlled organisation in Auckland, called Auckland Transport. It will enhance the current nine Auckland transport entities and will be responsible for all local authority transport delivery functions in Auckland, including local roads and public transport. Thank you.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Courts agreed to.

Vote Pacific Island Affairs agreed to.

Vote Employment