Belich Camilla; Brown SimeonCAMILLA BELICH (Labour): Well thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to speak on this bill as it goes through its committee stage. I did want to speak to some of the amendments that I have put forward and thank you Minister for looking at them in advance of this contribution. I can just assure the Minister that on this side of the Chamber we have had conversations with each other about this bill and many of the amendments that we seek to table—and we would appreciate the Minister's support in relation to some of these amendments—look at the value of the different projects which will not be undertaken as a result of the passage of this bill and are really looking for the committee and the Minister's support in debating the merits of those projects and seeking perhaps a reversal in the decision to exclude them. So I don't think it's inconsistent to say that my colleague the Hon Damien O'Connor wants to retain safety in relation to road safety issues. While my amendments address other issues either of those amendments would be an improvement on the bill that the Minister has put before the committee and what we're asking the Minister to do is really to consider them. So I do have two amendments and I'll try and speak to both of them but I will try and seek another call if I don't have time to speak to both. The first one is in relation to clause 7 which is in Part 1 which we're currently looking at and I've got two amendments to clause 7. The first one is given the letter N" and is in relation to a particular section which the Minister has already referred to but it goes through the different projects which were to be covered. The one that I want to specifically talk about first is N and that looks at Project 2 which is the central city bus infrastructure—essentially the Land Transport Management Act from which the regional fuel tax funded a number of things within the central city in relation to bus infrastructure and bus improvements.As someone who lives in Auckland and I know the member does as well we'll both be well aware of the importance of buses. Travelling by bus is one of the major public transportation ways that are utilised within our city. Of course we've looked previously and there's been a lot of discussion in the earlier readings around rail but at the moment buses fulfil a very important role in relation to public transport.So just for those who are wondering about the purpose of the amendment that I've put forward—and I'm interested to know whether the Minister would support this—the project which is not going to go ahead is capital expenditure for downtown bus infrastructure including a bus interchange in Lower Albert Street for the North Shore and western buses a bus interchange in the Wynyard Quarter a bus interchange in the Beach Road area bus priority improvements also capital expenditure for bus infrastructure in the city centre also including bus priority improvements for passenger facilities including bus stops and bus shelters on Wellesley St and Grafton Road and a new learning quarter for the Grafton Gully bus interchange. So a significant amount of work in relation to making buses more accessible and more easily utilised by Aucklanders and so my amendment to clause 7 would be to delete the words "1 to 3" and replace them with "1 and 3" so essentially keeping and maintaining project two as listed in the schedule which is due to be repealed. So I think those are really important aspects of public transportation that would have been funded by the regional fuel tax which are now no longer going to be funded. I would like to know from the Minister firstly would he support the amendment that I have put in place? If not what can Aucklanders expect in relation to his plans for public transportation and also for bus infrastructure specifically in the areas which I mentioned which will now no longer be served as a result of this bill?Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Well as I said earlier the Government has outlined which of these projects we're supporting. We've put that forward into the bill as it stands before the committee. There's a range of tabled amendments which seek to—through various ways—reinsert others of those projects and as I've outlined the Government will not be supporting any of those tabled amendments."