King Annette: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
King Annette: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:648;Page:17498] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I rise to respond to that challenge from the junior member for Hamilton East David Bennett. Before I answer his questions I say I would not like to short-change Maurice Williamson because to do that would be most unfair to him. Before the dinner break I set out three major errors he made at the estimates hearing. However there is a fourth one so rather than short-change him I will tell members about it. At the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee hearing Maurice Williamson said: “There is a ferry service to Rakino and based on the numbers currently using it and the cost of running it on diesel currently that would be nearly $2000 a passenger trip subsidy.” That is what Mr Williamson said at the select committee. I inform him that the subsidy is $49. I point that out because National’s spokesperson on transport does not know one end of a vehicle from the other. He knows only about roads roads and roads. Even though he knows about roads National built very few of them when it was in Government. 
I now move on to Mr Bennett’s points. He said I should go out to the regions and see what is happening. I say to Mr Bennett that I have been to many of the regions. In fact as members of this House would know I come from a very small place in New Zealand and if anyone knows small-town New Zealand it is me. I love visiting the regions. One of the regions I love to visit is Marlborough and one of the places I was most proud to visit there was the Awatere Bridge. I will tell members a little about the Awatere Bridge. [ 
Interruption 
] I will tell Mr Finlayson about the Awatere Bridge because I know he will be very interested in it. My colleague the Hon Paul Swain was the Minister of Transport. He went to Marlborough and met the people there. They said it was a disgrace that they had asked the National Government for 9 long years to replace their bridge which was built in 1908. Did National listen to the people of the provinces? Did it listen to the people of the regions? No it did not and it was not until my colleague the Hon Paul Swain approved and funded the Awatere Bridge that the people of Marlborough got it. I was pleased to be the Minister of Transport who went down and cut the ribbon when it was opened. 
I challenge Mr Bennett to tell me about one ribbon that I have cut for a project that was the work of the previous National Government. I challenge him to tell me about one ribbon cut by Paul Swain for a project that was the work of the National Government. I challenge him to tell me about the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 because the member talked about that project. That project was brought forward by this Government by 10 years on the understanding that the road would be built as it is and would be a toll road. That was the understanding. It is being built and it will be opened by the end of this year. 
Then the member mentioned the Waikato. I absolutely agree with him about the Waikato. That region got no attention from the National Government. National took the vote for granted in the Waikato and it thought that because the grass was green around the city it would always have the votes. Well the member knows that some of the biggest funding increases that have gone into the regions went into Waikato and the Bay of Plenty. A lot of lobbying and hard work was put in by Martin Gallagher and the member Mr Bennett has given no credit at all to the fact that this Government has put a huge amount of money into transport. 
How much money have we put into transport? Since 1999 the amount of funding that has gone into roading—let us just take roading for example— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: How much? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It is more than double the $850 million put in by the National Government in 1999—that is just for roading. It has gone up to over $1.9 billion in 2008-09. That includes both capital and maintenance expenditure on State highways and central government funding for local roads. Transport investment as a percentage of GDP has gone up from just under 1 percent in 1999 to 1.6 percent in 2008. I could go on but I do not need to do so because the people of New Zealand know that the real commitment in transport has come from a Labour Government.