Twyford Phil: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18538. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):It is great to be here debating the financial review of the New Zealand Transport Agency because just yesterday we had the Minister of Transport the Hon Gerry Brownlee give one of his famous Morning Report interviews. It was a cracker actually. I am thinking of putting together as a campaign fund-raiser a collected edition CD of Gerry Brownlee’s transport interviews on Morning Report because they are quite remarkable—Hon Ruth Dyson: And the EQC ones.PHIL TWYFORD: That is right—and the Earthquake Commission interviews. He said some amazing things actually. When asked about the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport 2014/15 - 2024/25 he said: “The focus is not on roads.” As an example of deny divert and obfuscate it was one of the classics Mr Brownlee and I want to compliment you on that. The other cracker quotation from Gerry Brownlee was: “Until this Government came along no one was much interested in walking and cycling.” It is great to see Gerry Brownlee taking responsibility—taking personal credit—for the growth in public interest in and support for walking and cycling.I mention the Government policy statement because the very interesting thing about this is that the Government policy statement sets out the Government’s transport priorities for the next decade. The reason it is relevant to this debate is that the Government’s policy statement for the next decade is almost exactly the same as the Government’s priorities that we have had to put up with for nearly the last 6 years. It is all about roads roads roads with this Government. What we see in the Government policy statement is a continuation of its spending more than $1 billion every year on its new mega-motorway projects. If you look at the funding there it has allocated $20 billion to State highways and only a fifth of that—or $4 billion—over the same period to public transport walking and cycling. A full 87 percent of the Budget projections in the Government policy statement has been allocated to roads—39 percent for new State highways which are predominantly the roads of National Party significance—10 percent for public transport and only 1 percent for walking and cycling. Yet Gerry Brownlee goes on Morning Report and says that this is not all about roads. Well this Government is obsessed with building new motorways. It has poured more than a billion dollars every year into these projects at the expense of the regions at the expense of the maintenance of local roads and at the expense of public transport in our large cities.Why does this matter? Why does it matter that the Government has this incredibly unbalanced transport policy? Well one of the reasons it matters is that it is structuring into our transport system into the export supply chain gross inefficiencies. This Minister and this Government believe that every freight task can be done—no matter what it is and no matter where it is going—most efficiently by being hauled on huge trucks on brand new gold-plated and mostly duplicate motorway projects. It refused to build a truly sustainably and efficient freight supply chain in this country by investing in and getting the best out of all the different modes of transport and all the different pieces of the transport system. So what it refused to do and what the next Labour-led Government will do is take an intelligent and clinical look at how the ports how coastal shipping and how rail can work together with the roading system to achieve much better connectivity and get our products to market in the most efficient and sustainable way.But this Government is not interested in that and what was I think particularly revealing was that the Government policy statement on transport cannot under its own terms of reference talk about coastal shipping about rail and about ports. Critical elements of the transport system are separated out from the Government’s main policy-making tool and its main statement of priorities because the transport system basically exists in these silos. The Government likes it that way. Gerry Brownlee likes it that way because he does not want to have to consider those other important parts of the transport system. He is not interested in rail he is not interested in coastal shipping and ports; it is all about roads. Under the system that we have got under the transport system that this Government is perfectly happy with New Zealand Transport Agency is the big road builder. It is the deliverer of our transport policy. That will change under the next Labour Government.