Bridges Simon: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBridges Simon: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport):After years of neglect by the left when Winston Peters was off traipsing around the world and Phil Goff was funding hip-hop tours in Auckland we are back backing the regions. Ron Mark wants to talk about bridges in Northland. They are certainly topical. I really like Bridges. I like them so much I have made two small ones of my own. I probably will not make 10; we will see how it goes.Through the life of this Government we have spent hundreds of millions—actually billions—of dollars more than the left building roads and bridges in regional New Zealand.Ron Mark: Cutting rural road funding.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We know Ron Mark unlike the left that right at this moment because it is convenient to Ron Mark his party “Winston First” is sidling up to—we know that the way it does roads is that only two or three cities in New Zealand get a look-in. Well it is not what this Government has done. We have supplemented the regions of this country and made sure they get the good Government investments they deserve. They do not see those investments as—to use the words we have heard—pork barrel politics. They see them as quality investments that are essential lifelines to their people.We have been backing the regions. We have done that through the National Land Transport Fund. We have put much more into that really across all of the categories. We have made sure there are categories in it that appropriately recognise the role of the regions because we know that under the way that Labour used to do things they did not get a fair go.Ron Mark says we have cut funding. Well let me give Ron Mark a few little statistics here in relation to what was spent in 2005 to 2008 and what is being spent in 2012 to 2015 in some of the regions in this country. Basically almost every single region has gone up most of them significantly. The Bay of Plenty is up 47 percent from $322 million to $475 million in the National Land Transport Fund. Canterbury is up 200 percent to $1 billion. Hawke’s Bay is up 18 percent to $188 million. Marlborough Nelson and Tasman are up 47 percent. Otago is up 36 percent. Southland is up 35 percent. Taranaki is up 41 percent. Waikato is up 50 percent. The West Coast is up 23 percent. We have spent more in the regions because we know they are an important part of this country. We have been backing them.That backing has not just been through the National Land Transport Programme. It has not just been in other conventional ways. We have also recognised and accepted that sometimes projects that the regions really back and that are vital to those areas need us to come in and make an assessment of what is required. That is why we have done that in the Accelerated Regional Roading Package. That is why in that package we have systematically gone through and chosen many projects all over New Zealand. There is the Kawarau Gorge bridge in Otago which I know that the member of Parliament there is really excited about. We keep going with bridges whether they are the Normanby Overbridge realignment in Taranaki where I was privileged to turn the first sod very recently—my first go in a digger—the bridges in Manawatū and Whanganui; or the one that I know that Anne Tolley has been banging on about for probably far too long. This Government—because the last Government would not do anything despite the fact that it had been a regional priority—is going to do something about the Motu Bridge replacement in Gisborne. It is going to see it double-laned and improved because this is the party on this side of the House that backs the regions.I say to the members opposite that it is all very well to do Winston and do the hooey; we do the “do-ey” actually. We are the ones on this side of the House who for the last several years year on year no matter what metric you choose have spent more in the regions than the left when Winston was propping it up—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Refer to members properly.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I have got a little friendly advice for the members opposite. If they want to do well in the regions and they want to back the regions they could start by actually just supporting the conventional things we do. The member opposite knows this. He knows that the Pūhoi to Wellsford approach is a good one. We do not call it a “Holiday Highway” on this side of the House. We back the regions throughout this country and we are going to continue to do so.