Brown Peter: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brown Peter: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:611;Page:8616] 
10.  
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: In the event Toll Holdings does purchase Tranz Rail has the Government got an arrangement with Toll Holdings to purchase the rail track and are there any assurances of major track or operational development? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Finance 
: Yes and yes. 
Peter Brown 
: Is there any truth in the assertion which is circulating in both this country and Australia that should Toll be successful in taking ownership of Tranz Rail we will end up with only two main railway line freight services—namely Auckland to Wellington and the coal line into Lyttelton—and that Toll will switch much of the current rail freight on to road; is there any truth in that? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No because the development finance that is vital for the Toll takeover is subject to an agreement with the Government on a line-by-line project-by-project basis and that money is necessary. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What commitments has the Government made with regard to the track? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Three commitments: to secure the rail as a vital piece of the transport infrastructure; to buy back the rail network given away by the National Government for $1; and to invest $200 million over the next 4 years in maintenance and improvements. 
John Key 
: Can the Minister guarantee to the House that maintenance spending undertaken by Track Co. will in fact be the $200 million he just outlined and will not cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars more? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There is provision for more than $200 million to be spent if it becomes an infrastructural priority for this Government and I say to that member that his privatisation of this asset gave away one of our prize infrastructures. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I would just ask the Minister not to indulge himself. 
Mike Ward 
: What are the priorities for the investment of the $200 million that the Government has committed once Track Co. is established? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Those priorities will be worked through by a joint working-group of the Government Toll and the subsidiary with the proviso that at the end of the process the Government has a veto power. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting those answers will the Minister give this House a categoric assurance that as a result of Toll purchasing Tranz Rail more freight will go from road on to rail—and not vice versa as is being claimed in Australia? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think that is just inevitable. 
Peter Brown 
: I seek leave to table an article in the  
Australian  
newspaper that says the exact reverse of what the Minister has said. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table for Mr Mallard’s benefit a press statement from the Labour Party of 20 July 1993 stating that it agreed with the sale of railways but it did not agree with the timing. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to point out the fact that Richard Prebble was the state services Minister— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No.