Estimates Debate — Vote Transport

It is a great privilege to take a call to speak about transport.

💬 Phil Twyford: This is the junior Minister. Where’s the real one?

It is a very exciting sector, the transport sector. The Government, within the transport sector, is, of course, providing real leadership. Gerry Brownlee, the Minister of Transport, and I—Mr Twyford—as Associate Minister of Transport, have four goals that we are pursuing vigorously in transport—

💬 Andrew Little: What happened to the 120-point plan?

—better quality regulations, better investment in infrastructure—just four—creating a safer transport system, and opening more international and domestic markets. Mr Brownlee is taking a real lead in pursuing that vigorously.

These are important goals. I want to focus on infrastructural investment very shortly, but can I just say this: despite what some in the Labour Party and the Green Party say, we are committed to a multimodal approach. We do roads, we do rail, we do public transport very well in this country, and we are investing in it. When we are characterised as being just about roads, I say that is absolutely wrong. Of course we invest in roads, and we are proud to do so, because that is where, pragmatically speaking, people are still driving, and the vast majority of freight is still being moved.

To talk about infrastructure, I think it is important to start out and say how vital it is to transforming our economy, to creating jobs, and to lifting productivity. I know that in my own area, for example, the Tauranga Eastern Link is going to reduce a huge amount of time and allow many more journeys from heavy trucks as they take produce and as they take logs to the Port of Tauranga. This is a multimodal approach.

Let me just say that in the period 2009-12 we have spent some $8.7 billion investing in transport infrastructure. That is $4.6 billion in the State highway network. That is $1.9 billion in local roads—that is in addition to what our friends in local government are investing—and $900 million in key urban public transport networks. In direct investment—I know Julie Anne Genter of the Greens will be interested in this—there has been direct investment of $2 billion in metro rail in Auckland and in Wellington so that commuters can get into town on rail. And there has been a $750 million additional investment into KiwiRail—I was going to say KiwiSaver—and its Turnaround Plan.

Let us just focus in on some of what I think are the significant pointers in relation to roads. As I say, there has been big investment. Over a decade, $12 billion has gone in to improve the State highway network. Of course, a big focus is roads—and we are unapologetic about that—in Tauranga, in Auckland, and all over New Zealand. Well-targeted investment in infrastructure is going to help lift productivity over time, resulting in better wages and higher living standards for New Zealanders and their families. It is a substantial investment that we are making. I remember some time ago an economist saying that in a recession, when you are wondering where to spend money, investing in quality transport infrastructure is a very good way to go.

We have heard a lot about rail. Of course, some of the members here in the Opposition have asked questions in the House about the Turnaround Plan. It is not going to be easy. It is not going to be something that is going to happen overnight, as Andrew Little or Rachel Hunter—it was one of the two—once said. But we are committed to KiwiRail becoming sustainable by 2020 so that it can fund itself and so that, actually, the jobs that members like Clare Curran say they care so much about can be sustainable in that industry. Could I just say this: some 4,300 people, I think it is, work for KiwiRail at this present time. I say let us back them.

Tēnā koe. Thank you, Mr Chair. It is a great pleasure to speak on Vote Transport following the Associate Minister of Transport, Simon Bridges. I would really like to address some of the specific points that he made. I think that the great tragedy of this Vote Transport is the incredible missed opportunity. The Government is missing a huge opportunity. At a time when the world is undergoing a fundamental economic restructuring—of course, the Government does not even bother trying to analyse what the reasons for that might be; it uses it to justify whatever policy it would like to implement—we need to be investing in the smartest transport infrastructure that we possibly can, and that is infrastructure that will reduce cost to the household and cost to business.

What we have learnt here in the House over the past few months, through oral questions to some of the Ministers, and what we have seen even on Television One on Saturday night is that this Government did no economic analysis before it decided on its programme of roads of national significance. In fact, in 2008 Sinclair Knight Merz, the consultants that are now working on the investigation of the project, did a report on strategic options for State Highway 1 north of Auckland to Wellsford. What it determined in that study is very, very clear: the costs of a brand new alignment of a new four-lane motorway vastly outweigh the benefits. What is clear to me is that the National Party when in Opposition sat down and did some focus groups, and it asked these focus groups what they would like to see it invest in. National got back the answer “infrastructure”, so it came up with a little package of motorways that are going to look like it is doing something important. The Government is throwing most of our money now at five projects—$14 billion at five projects.

What I heard from Mr Bridges just now is that this is well targeted, and that National is unashamed to be investing in roads. But, unfortunately, it is not even investing in roads. It cannot even be said to be a Government that is investing in roads, because what it is doing is spending 95 percent of all new money on infrastructure on roads, but 75 percent of all new money on infrastructure in Vote Transport is going on five projects—just five. How many vehicle trips travel on these routes that it is focusing on? It is less than 3 percent. So the Government is spending 75 percent of the money on new infrastructure on 3 percent of vehicle trips. How is that logical? How is that going to improve economic productivity? It is not going to affect 97 percent of vehicle trips in the entire country.

At a time when oil prices are rising, the Government should be interested in the opportunity that it has, through our increased understanding of how it is that transport infrastructure contributes to economic development, and that, actually, this is the time to be investing more in rail and to be investing more in buses and trains and walking and cycling. What happens when you invest money in buses and trains? Well, more people take buses and trains, so that is good. But then what also happens is fewer people are on the roads, so the people on the roads find it easier to get where they need to go. So that kills two birds with one stone there.

💬 Phil Twyford: Stop being so logical!

I know! I have all the figures right here. I even have Treasury’s advice on the National Government’s policy statement on transport funding, which is that Treasury would prefer to see economic evidence that the Government policy statement of 2009 has been a success before we continue along these lines. Even Treasury has significant doubts about the Government’s infrastructure programme. But all we will continue to hear, I am sure, from the National Government is an empty mantra. It thinks that if it says it enough times, it will be true, and unfortunately it will not.

What the Government has missed is an opportunity to invest in transport infrastructure that would actually make our roads safer, that would actually reduce transport costs, and that would actually address congestion issues at peak hour in our towns and cities. It is missing that opportunity, which would even save us money at a time when it is worried so much about debt. You would think it would be interested in saving money. Thank you.

I want to make three points. The first is that the National Government’s fetish for building new State highway projects, otherwise known as the roads of national significance, has crowded out and squeezed out every other category of Government funding, including local roads. All over New Zealand, provincial communities are having to face up to the fact that this Government has slashed the funding for local roads.

My second point is that the roads of national significance themselves are poor value for money, overall. This National Government has utterly corrupted the whole process of evaluating the economic value of these infrastructure projects.

My third point is that the National Government’s approach to transport is so completely unbalanced in favour of roads that other important parts of our transport network are suffering. I am talking particularly about public transport—and I want to talk some more about that—and also about KiwiRail. As a vital piece of our national transport infrastructure, KiwiRail has been set up to fail by this National Government.

But let me go back to local roads, because I recently, in the last adjournment, travelled around parts of the South Island, including Invercargill and Southland but also including parts of Otago and Clutha, Queenstown Lakes, and Central Otago. What I found in every place I visited is that the community, the local council, and the local mayor were very upset with the National Government for having cut their funding to local roads. If I may say so, the people of Southland were particularly embittered by the fact that the National Government has cut the funding for local roads in that area. As you will know, Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! You cannot bring the Chair into the debate.

Sorry. As I was saying—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member can traverse the area as he is, but he must not bring me into it.

As I was saying, the member from Southland knows well that that area has the largest network of local roads in the country. It has one of the smallest bases of ratepayers, and it is feeling the financial squeeze because of the policies of this Government. Everywhere I went, the people in those communities said: “You know what? We haven’t seen Bill English for a long time around here. We haven’t seen Jacqui Dean in Alexandra for a long time. She hasn’t shown up since the last election.” And they said: “When you go back to Parliament, say to the National MPs that we’d quite like to see them, we’d quite like them to show up, and we’d like them to explain why rural and provincial New Zealand has been hung out to dry by this Government.” They are told that they have to pay more for their local roads. They do not want to subsidise the roads of national significance, because they know that mostly they are a crock and that they are a waste of taxpayers’ money, which is being badly spent—billions and billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, wasted on projects that will be white elephants around their necks, just like the Think Big projects. It is Think Big all over again. This Government wastes billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and it does not care if rural and provincial New Zealand has to subsidise its follies.

It might be justifiable, it might be defensible, if the roads of national significance made economic sense to this country, but they do not. Most of the roads of national significance would never have been built 5 years ago, because their benefit-cost ratios are so low. Several of these gold-plated motorway projects were made roads of national significance even before the most basic economic assessment—the analysis of their worth—had been done. But, no, the colossus of roads, Steven Joyce, the former Minister of Transport, declared with a great triumphalism that National was going to build these seven great motorway projects come hell or high water. We found out the other day that more than $200 million has been spent by this Government on design and investigation work for motorway projects, many of which will not be built for a very long time. That is absolute profligacy. There is no justification for it.

You know what? Under this Government, transport has become a kind of Bermuda Triangle of Government spending. Vast amounts of cash go missing constantly, nobody can explain it, and the normal rules of public sector financial management, somehow, do not seem to apply. It is amazing. What did we have the other day? We had Gerry Brownlee saying that one of the things you have got to be careful about is relying constantly on cost-benefit analysis. That is very strange. In the next 10 years $12 billion will be spent on the so-called roads of national significance, and the benefit-cost ratios, for some reason, are a bit overrated—you must not rely on them. That is very strange. But when it comes to something like the city rail link in Auckland, oh, well, then the benefit-cost ratios are very important. In fact, the city rail link has to be subject to the Government’s better business guidelines. That makes complete sense. Why not? We want our Government infrastructure spending to be sensible, to be well spent, and to be rigorously tested. But that does not apply to the roads of national significance, and this Government should be ashamed of that.

💬 Hon Annette King: The vote-buying roads.

That is right, the roads of national vote-buying.

The third point I want to make is that transport under this Government is so completely unbalanced, and the city rail link is a really good example of that. Not only was the Mayor of Auckland elected on a platform of building a city rail link, not only did the opinion polls tell us that an overwhelming majority of Aucklanders regard it as the No. 1 transport project, not only has its business case been internationally peer reviewed, not only will it double the capacity of the existing rail network in Auckland, and not only will the Britomart Transport Centre hit capacity by 2020 unless the city rail link is built, but this Government has no plan to deal with Auckland’s traffic congestion. It has no idea and it has no plan. The Minister sits in this House day after day and rubbishes the city rail link, yet he has got nothing constructive to put on the table to address the problem of traffic congestion in our country’s biggest city. All the Minister has got is a proposal that the Ministry of Transport has written up that would see 1,000 diesel buses in the Auckland central business district per hour—1,000 buses an hour. That demonstrates the utter bankruptcy of transport thinking by this Government.

My last point is about KiwiRail. The Government loves to trumpet the Turnaround Plan. It is going to put $750 million into KiwiRail’s capital expenditure. Yet the real story about the Turnaround Plan is that KiwiRail has been forced to put in $4.75 billion from its own balance sheet. This is not some act of charity by the Government. KiwiRail is having to pump its own balance sheet for $4.75 billion. That completely unrealistic Turnaround Plan is forcing KiwiRail to do things like lay off 220 track workers and defer 3 years of track maintenance. The Government is forcing KiwiRail to do crazy things like sell off the Hillside railway workshops, sell off the tourism side of the business—

💬 Todd McClay: That’s enough punishment, Phil.

The member does not like to hear this, because he is ashamed. He is embarrassed by this Government’s transport policy. It is forcing KiwiRail to close regional lines and regional commuter services like the Capital Connection. It is unrealistic. This Government does not like rail, it does not believe in KiwiRail, and it is setting KiwiRail up to fail. Because of the Turnaround Plan and the completely unrealistic financial targets in it, KiwiRail is in a situation where it is chopping off one limb after another, and soon it will be left with only a torso. Nowhere else in the world is a national railway expected to run as a stand-alone corporation and turn a profit. It is a vital piece of our country’s transport infrastructure. This Government does not believe that. It is setting KiwiRail up to fail, instead of investing properly in a multimodal approach. And I am afraid to say that the junior Minister in the chair, the Associate Minister of Transport, would not know a multimodal approach to transport if he fell over it on a dark night.

National’s transport policy is unbalanced. The Government has a fetish for building new State highway projects at the expense of every other activity class in the transport budget. That is leading to the neglect of local roads. The Government has cut the funding for new public transport infrastructure. The Minister would know it if he bothered to pay attention, but he is so obsessed with building his roads of National Party significance that he does not give the time of day to any other major transport project. The Government is wasting billions and billions of dollars of precious taxpayers’ dollars—

This debate is supposed to be about Vote Transport, and all Phil Twyford can talk about are fetishes. But, Mr Speaker, I just want to talk on—

💬 Julie Anne Genter: Mr Speaker?

Pardon?

💬 Julie Anne Genter: I don’t think the Speaker is there.

Yes, whatever.

💬 Phil Twyford: He doesn’t have anything to say.

Oh, I have got plenty to say. I have got plenty to say. All I can say to poor old Phil Twyford is this: just say yes. You know, this is the guy who is having a public meeting in a couple of weeks, and he has already promised two things.

💬 Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I thought that this debate was specifically on Vote Transport, and so far I have not heard the member refer to Vote Transport at all.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The point is well made. This is Vote Transport.

How long have I got, Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Not long now—4 minutes.

Four minutes. I have been talking for a minute. This is what he has promised in Te Atatū: a ferry service from downtown Auckland to Te Atatū—a ferry service from downtown Auckland to Te Atatū. We have not even got any of the infrastructure, and he is promising a half a billion dollar exercise. But that is not the only thing that he has promised the good folks of Te Atatū. He has promised them a busway that is going to cost up to about $600 million. So two promises—two promises—are already over the billion-dollar mark. I wonder how he is going to pay for that. I wonder how he is going to pay for that.

💬 Todd McClay: Is he promising to bring the ferry back to Te Atatū?

No, he is not bringing a ferry back to Te Atatū; he is bringing a ferry service to Te Atatū. It is a billion-dollar promise for the good folk of Te Atatū.

How is he going to pay for all of this? Well, he is going to screw the people. He is going to screw the people of Te Atatū out of their own taxes. That is what he is going to do. How is he going to pay for it? I have got another bit of news for—

💬 Phil Twyford: “Holiday Highway”.

Oh, he does not like it. You see, for every question about the ferry service and the so-called new busway, not once has this guy got up and said how much it is going to cost. Not once has he said: “This is how we are going to pay for it.” He says: “We might stop a couple of roads that National is building.” That is not enough for Mr Twyford’s promises.

💬 Phil Twyford: That’s more than enough.

💬 Julie Anne Genter: Actually, that’s plenty. It would be more than enough—14 times more.

More than enough—a billion dollars is more than enough! This is how he is going to pay for it. He is going to up the petrol tax, because he is a mate of—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Brown town.

Brown town—274. That is how he is going to pay for it. He is going to take it out of the back pockets of good, working-class people, the very people whom he professes to represent. And he has not even got the cojones to go and say yes to the gay marriage bill, for goodness’ sake. He has not even got the cojones to do that. But I digress.

💬 Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am sorry, Mr Chair, but I really do not believe that this speech has referred to Vote Transport at all. He has been talking about something completely different, which is the transport policies that have been proposed by Mr Twyford, but those are not actually in Vote Transport.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Points of order are not an opportunity—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. Points of order are not an opportunity to make a speech. Members raising points of order should do so succinctly. Can I also say that it is tempting to use points of order to interrupt speakers who are actually speaking, and I think the Chair normally has a fair appreciation of what the Standing Orders are and where members are moving. I think that on this occasion the member has been inside the boundary of what the tenor of the debate has been to date. But I will just caution the member: do not get off-track.

No, I will not get off-track; I will stay on roads, Mr Chair. I will stay on roads, because here is a fact that poor little Phil Twyford does not really know: in fact, funding for local roads has actually gone up. All he needs to do is go to—[Interruption] In fact, the funding has gone up by 2 or 3 percent. All he needs to do is sit down like a good local member and have a look at the plan for Te Atatū Road and Edmonton Road, and the widening, and the cycleway. That is what he needs to do.

So instead of the pie in the sky fetish that he thinks he is talking about, he needs to front up to the good folk of Te Atatū and say: “Mr and Mrs Te Atatū, this is how I am going to pay for the new ferry service. Mr and Mrs Te Atatū, this is how I am going to pay for the busway.” But he has not. And do you know why? Because he has not got a clue—because he has not got a clue. Labour thinks that by having a good idea—or an idea; it does not even have to be a good one—it will just appear. It is the same with “Planet Green”. I cannot wait—well, I actually can wait—until they get to the Treasury benches, but this is how they do it. They sit there, smoking the old weed—well, not these fullas—and then they come up with some harebrained idea, and because that harebrained idea sort of sounds OK, then it is just going to appear: the road and the ferry is just going to appear.

I wonder whether he has even asked the good people of Te Atatū about the ferry service.

💬 Hon Member: He is.

He has not. So not only has he not costed it out but he was told by the New Zealand Transport Agency that it had already looked at the busway and it was cost-prohibitive.

💬 Julie Anne Genter: That is untrue.

My advice to the Green member is to jump on one of those roads, and get the other half of the tattoo done. I tell you what: there is no way in hell that the good people of Te Atatū can afford the harebrained schemes of Mr Phil Twyford, who has only been in the electorate 5 minutes. He has not even paid off a quarter of his mortgage.

💬 David Bennett: Has he got a mortgage?

He has got a mortgage all right. This is nothing but pie in the sky dreams from a party that is not going to be anywhere near the Treasury benches for one reason, and one reason only, and that is that they do not do the hard yards and they do not do the costings. Those costs will be put on the good folk of Te Atatū—a billion dollars. We cannot afford it, and here he is promising the earth to the good folk of Te Atatū. Shame on that member.

Just before I start I would like to put on the record that on this side of the Chamber there are a few people who have got a bit of experience in transport. Speaking as someone who has got their heavy traffic licence, I would love to know who else in the Chamber has got their heavy traffic licence. Hands up those on that side of the Chamber who have got their heavy traffic licence. OK, good—pretty good. Hands up anyone who has had anyone in their family who has worked in the railways. That is good.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I seek leave to make a personal explanation about just that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Look—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I have a right to seek leave.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): You have, but the practice of this House is that it is done after a member has finished speaking, not to interrupt.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: She called me a liar.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Well, look, the member should raise a point of order about that if that is the case. I never heard that, and I am not entering into dialogue with the member. If the member wishes to make a personal statement, he should do that when the bell goes.

Maybe he can talk to me about it later. I would like to agree with Simon Bridges on one thing, and that is to let us back the workers. Let us back the workers of KiwiRail—4,300. Let us back the workers of KiwiRail. Let us back their skills, let us back their jobs, let us keep their jobs in New Zealand, let us value their jobs, and let us make sure that those jobs are valued in our country and that those people have a future. We actually do think that it is worthwhile building rolling stock in this country, and not buying dodgy stock from other countries.

There are a few things that New Zealanders are known for, the things that make us as a nation stand out. The first one is Kiwi ingenuity. That is that thing, that No. 8 wire thing, that thing that makes us creative. We are a nation of resourceful people. We are creative inventors. The other is value for money. We like to get the best out of things, and we do not like to spend too much. We like quality and we like things to last. We also like a fair go. All of those values have been undermined by this Government’s decision to put the screws on KiwiRail and to buy cheap. You buy cheap and you get cheap. That is what this Government has done. It is rueing, and will be rueing, the day that it did.

This Government’s KiwiRail Turnaround Plan is coming back to bite it. It is turning round to bite it on the bum. Its decision to procure the rolling stock from outside New Zealand is coming back to bite it. The first one—well, the one that we heard about a week ago—was the 500 wagons that had to have all of their brake pads replaced. What an outrage. All of those wagons could have been produced in this country. Then this week we hear that the prize locomotives—$75 million worth of locomotives that John Key, Steven Joyce, and Gerry Brownlee have all praised to the heavens—are a lemon. In fact, they are a whole lemon tree. They are plagued by serious faults, faults of execution—faults of execution.

The Chinese have built lots of locos but they have never designed them. We were a test market for them to design those locos. As a result, the locos have got serious faults and we are having to pay the price for that. They are costing us around $150 million, and the Minister for State Owned Enterprises today could not answer the question in the House as to whether we have paid for the second lot. So maybe the junior transport Minister could get up here tonight and tell us whether this country has paid for that second lot of locos. I think it is pretty important that we know the answer to that question.

There are some serious questions around this. How long does this warranty last? What is the estimated cost of repairing those locos? What is the loss of revenue to KiwiRail from freight movements while they are under constant repair? And what is the impact on KiwiRail’s freight business? That business is so important to the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan, and it is integral to this Government’s turn-round plan.

I just want to read you a little story about what is happening. The Hillside railway workshops are currently up for sale. Currently, KiwiRail Freight wants the ZH wagons modified—

I seek leave to make a personal explanation with regards to the comments made earlier about my New Zealand Railways whakapapa.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not.

Back in the 1920s my grandfather was a locomotive driver here in Wellington for some 25 years. He had three sons. His oldest son, Mita Robert Hoturoa Hēnare, was actually general manager of the New Zealand Railways Department, the first Māori to be head of a New Zealand Government department outside the Department of Māori Affairs. He was also the first Māori to graduate as an engineer from Auckland University. His son—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: You clearly missed your calling.

Actually, you are not supposed to interrupt.

His other son, my father, was Paul William Hēnare, who was a plumber on the New Zealand Railways. His other brother, my uncle Māui David Hēnare, was an electrician on the New Zealand Railways. All three sons of Mita Te Tai Hēnare also have sons on the railways, including my two brothers, one an electrician, and one now in Perth, who is driving trains.

One has to be a little concerned about what happens in the Labour Party during the dinner break. Firstly we have got Phil Twyford talking about fetishes, then we have got Clare Curran sitting directly behind him talking about people getting bitten on the bum, and then we have talk about lemon trees as well and what goes on underneath a lemon tree. I am a bit concerned about what happens in the Labour Party during the dinner break.

What we know from the speeches that we heard from the Opposition benches is that they are completely missing the point about the economic benefits that transport has for New Zealand. We know that the Labour Party members oppose just about everything we do on the economy. We know they oppose just about every job creation policy we have. And now we also have further proof that everything we want to do that will bring an economic benefit to New Zealand through the transport system, they also oppose.

Let us have some real figures around roads. We know the Opposition dislikes roads. Those members hate roads. They think they are evil. They think every dollar spent on roads is terrible, when actually the opposite is true. Let us have some numbers. Six percent of roads in New Zealand carry 35 percent of traffic. They carry 19 percent of freight. These high-use roads need further investment. They did not get the further investment required, for the last 9 years, but we are putting our money where our mouths are. We are spending an extra $12 billion over the next 10 years—$12 billion on transport and roading infrastructure that would never have been spent if it was up to the Labour Party, if it was still in Government. That $12 billion is going towards those high-use roads. Ninety-two percent of freight in this country moves on roads. Freight in this country helps to build the economy in this country, and 92 percent of freight would be under-invested in if Labour was in office.

We have got the priorities right with transport. We have got the priorities right with transport because we know New Zealanders have endorsed our plans. They endorsed our plans during the election. They like what we are doing. The provincial areas in this country have been heavily supported through the roads of national significance and the other National Government roading projects.

One of the most offensive comments that Opposition parties make on transport is to call the Pūhoi to Wellsford road a “Holiday Highway”. The people living in the far north and the people living in Rodney know the economic benefits that road will bring. They know that they need to grow as a local economy up there. They know that moving freight from one part of that local economy to another is important for their future growth. And they know that provincial New Zealand needs investment in roads—the investment we are putting in. The Minister in the chair, from Tauranga, knows this. Todd McClay from Rotorua knows this. Provincial New Zealand knows that we need further investment in this area.

The Labour Party probably woke up after election day last year wondering why it had such a poor result in provincial New Zealand. It had such a poor result in provincial New Zealand because it offends provincial New Zealand by speaking against the important roading infrastructure that we are making progress on around the country.

Let us take the central business district rail loop, because the panacea, the great transport hope in New Zealand, is the central business district rail loop. The central business district rail loop has a benefit-cost ratio of 0.3. Those members like to go on about the roads of national significance. At least the roads of national significance programme has a positive benefit-cost ratio, but the great hope for transport in New Zealand, the central business district rail loop, has a 0.3 benefit-cost ratio.

Let us talk about the number of cars that the central business district rail loop would take off the road: 1,400 cars. That is all the central business district rail loop would do. For $3 billion we would see 1,400 cars taken off the road, out of the 29,000 car movements every day that we have in Auckland.

I am an Auckland MP. I know that Aucklanders are very, very sceptical about the central business district rail loop. They like the fact that we are putting money into the Waterview Connection instead. They like the fact that we have put money into the Victoria Park Tunnel. They like the fact that we are putting money into the Pūhoi-Wellsford project, and other roads of national significance. Money going on the central business district rail loop, without the numbers stacking up, would be a waste. For members opposite to tell us that a project that has a 0.3 benefit-cost ratio is more important—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Jami-Lee Ross.

I will be very short, Mr Chairman. I will just say that for members opposite to make comments saying that the central business district rail loop is more important that the roads of national significance is wrong, it is poor policy, and it has been rejected by New Zealanders.

I want to make a contribution to this debate in respect of the comments that have been made about KiwiRail. There has been some talk about people whakapapa-ing back to their railway destiny in terms of the future of KiwiRail. I started my interest in politics as a consequence of an experience with the railways. Rather than talking about dads or somebody else, I was working on a rail bridge project in North Canterbury. Let me give you the experience each day: each day we were building the bridge, and there were five of us contractors there to build the bridge. Every day a bus full of railway workers—26 of them—came to supervise and ensure that we did not get in the way of the trains. It was a total disgrace. In fact, what actually happened was that I was so appalled that this was going on in my country that I borrowed my brother’s VHS recorder—he had one of those newfangled recorders—and sent it to Mr Quigley, who was then the Minister of Railways. He invited me to become part of Young Nationals, and the rest is history.

The reason this is relevant to this debate about rail is that what has been the death of rail is the interference of politicians in running a good business. I am appalled that members in this day and age somehow believe that it is politicians who should be making the decisions about the sorts of locomotives that KiwiRail should be buying. If that is the sort of backwards culture that we are going to go into, we are going to drag this country back to the sort of Greek rail system that has dragged that country into bankruptcy.

You see, the Government plan that has been set down around the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan is actually about—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: Why did you fire John Judge?

—Mr O’Connor—running rail as a proper business. That means not having decisions about the types of locomotives and the number of staff who are employed—all of those decisions—being made by politicians with agendas a long way from making a successful business.

I plead with members opposite and with this Committee to learn the lessons of history around railway. The deal that the previous Government did to pay over $600 million for rail in 2008 was totally driven by politics, it was a dog of a deal for the taxpayer, and it cost this country a fortune. I urge this Parliament, if it really wants to have a quality transport system, and if it really wants to have a railway system that can serve this country well, to let us appoint a qualified, robust board of directors. Let them run that enterprise in a proper way, rather than the sort of politics that members opposite want to drag railways back into and that will destroy that important part of our transport infrastructure.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Economic Development agreed to.

Vote Employment