Swain Paul: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Swain Paul: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16622] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Firstly I congratulate and thank that member for a very helpful and useful contribution. The United Future party has—[ 
Interruption 
] Someone is making animal noises and I presume it is someone from the National Party. Oh no it sounds like it may be someone from New Zealand First. I want to congratulate the United Future party members. I think they have had a constructive debate on and engagement in this policy. Their very helpful suggestions as we worked through this policy when I was the Minister of Transport ensured that more funding was siphoned off into transport and I think that was helpful. I want to thank them for the support they have given the Government on the transport policy on its way through. 
I also want to thank Green Party members for their support. They made an important contribution as well in indicating that transport is not just about roads—roading is an important component and it is the component that requires the most funding—but in fact transport is about road rail sea and air transport. That is what a transport strategy is about. I always ask people who go on constantly about roads and who say that public transport does not matter what the Wellington roading system would be like without the rail network in Wellington. It would be impossible to navigate one’s way through the traffic at a peak-hour of the morning. 
So I welcome the helpful and constructive contributions to the debate from both United Future and the Greens as opposed to the whingeing and whining that we constantly hear for example from the National Party. What do National members want? They want to build more roads and they want to cut taxes. They want to build more roads but they do not want to put any more money into it. It is the old Tory policy of somehow trying to make money out of nothing. 
Darren Hughes 
: Voodoo economics. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is voodoo economics. It borders very closely on Social Credit economics and that is why no one really takes them seriously on transport policy. No one took them seriously—everybody laughed at them—for 6 years when they went around the country with a strategy called Better Transport Better Roads whereby they were going to privatise the roads as I recall. The local authorities did not warrant hardly a mention in it and that is why the local authorities are very very pleased with the efforts that have been made now. 
I congratulate my colleague Mark Gosche a former Minister of Transport who got all of this going. He was the person who broke the deadlock. He got rid of the gridlock and began the programme of work. I was very happy as Minister of Transport to work with particularly local authorities to move forward a special package for Auckland. We are now working on one for Wellington. All of the money that results from this funding will go into transport and we will see the next stage of development in New Zealand. I congratulate the very hard-working and conscientious Minister of Customs on pushing this bill through the House and I thank the parties that are supporting it. What I would like to hear is just one little wee tiny bit of policy from the National Party. I am sure I will be waiting a long time.