Guy Nathan: General Debate 
Guy Nathan: General Debate 
[Volume:664;Page:11746] 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 What a terrible time it is at the moment for the Labour Party. Its caucus is divided and bleeding; we are seeing that in the public arena at the moment. Just this week Labour reshuffled a few familiar faces and no doubt there will be more of those members standing in the House this afternoon to speak in the general debate. Labour still cannot reconnect with New Zealanders and we are seeing that in Labour leader Phil Goff’s poor poll rating which is static at around 6 percent. Mr Goff started last year with an apology to the Labour caucus for the way Labour lost touch when in Government. Then the “Axe the Tax” bus arrived. It came through my electorate. It stopped in Levin and about six people met the bus there. Now we do not know where Labour stands on the GST increase because Phil Goff is saying that Labour is not sure whether it will repeal GST. But one thing is for sure: we know that tax will be going up if Labour ever gets on to the Treasury benches again. 
We had the race speech from Phil Goff and he still could not reconnect. It divided Labour’s caucus even more and now we hear that Labour is against economic growth and our discussion document to do with mining. Labour is conflicted on this because it does not want to see New Zealanders be more prosperous and wealthier. Labour is conflicted because its members know that the Labour Party was founded on the West Coast and West Coasters are very pro mining. No one is listening to Labour because in essence it has no policy. 
This great Budget was read by the Minister of Finance about 27 days ago and it was particularly well received up and down the country. There is a real focus on infrastructure. We can think about what this Government will do with infrastructure. There will be seven roads of national significance up and down the country and around our major cities where there are points of congestion. In my particular area there is a proposal to have an expressway from Wellington Airport through to Levin costing about $2.2 billion. There is an $11 billion programme for these seven roads of national significance up and down the country. It will lift productivity boost growth and reduce congestion. It will make those roads a lot safer. Lo and behold Labour members are now out distancing themselves from the expressway through my electorate. They are saying that if they are ever lucky enough to get on to these Treasury benches they will try to stop the expressway. I cannot believe that they will try to stop Transmission Gully which is part of the expressway. Labour will be on the hustings in my electorate saying that it is against Transmission Gully. We know that in the 9 years Labour was in Government it did very little. It wanted to leave it up to the regional leaders and the mayors to try to fund the deficit on Transmission Gully. Finally a Government has had the guts to come and say that we are going to build Transmission Gully. We will improve the productivity into our capital city. 
That is not all we are doing. We are reforming the Resource Management Act. We are setting up an Environmental Protection Authority that will speed up consents. People will still be able to have their say but we are trying to reduce red tape. We are investing significantly in rail as well—$1.6 billion—to modernise and extend the network into Auckland with new stations and electrification. We will put $250 million into Wellington passenger rail for new Matangi trains electrification and double tracking right up into Waikanae which is fantastic. There will be an investment of $250 million for the KiwiRail Turnaround Plan to make sure that KiwiRail is sustainable going forward. When one thinks about what the previous Labour Government did with its transport focus which was purely political one sees that it invested close to $1 billion in KiwiRail. Just before the election lo and behold an evaluation came out stating that KiwiRail was worth $400 million. That is a deficit of $600 million under the previous Labour Government for rail. 
This Government is focusing on unclogging the arteries and getting our productive sector moving. The other important thing we are doing with infrastructure is the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband at $1.5 billion. This fantastic 2010 Budget was well received by New Zealanders with the utmost pride.