Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): On this bill here I think there's no question that there's room for improvement in the way that infrastructure is managed and built in New Zealand as a whole. There's not enough of it aside from Minister Twyford's observation that there's too many roads. There's not enough of it it's been too—Hon Phil Twyford: What nonsense.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: He did; he said that we had overbuilt. He said that we had over-invested in roads.Hon Phil Twyford: That's only half the sentence. You're missing out half the sentence.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Anyway there's not enough of it it's too expensive to build we struggle to pay for it and we've suffered from an on and off on and off cycle in the building of major infrastructure which has meant that it's very expensive and inefficiently built. This commission which we are debating the legislation for is potentially part of the solution and so the extent to which we can get longer-term agreement some measure of independent assessment of projects and some agreeance over long periods so as to develop a more successful pipeline as a result of this bill would be a good thing for this country. And that's why fundamentally we are supportive of it. I would however make these observations: of course the track record of this Government in this area is not very good—the track record is not very good. So the previous National Government for the first time in the history of the country got agreement between Auckland Council and the Government on the major priorities for major transport investment and infrastructure. And what happened? What happened? The new Government came along and said No we don't like any of those."—boof—"Out they go. Mill Road out you go! East-West Link out you go!" And instead in comes the light rail. So what we've seen is an unwillingness from this Government to stick with any kind of plan but a willingness instead to cancel a whole lot of projects that were ready to go and to replace them with a bunch of projects that aren't ready to go and won't be ready to go for a long time. So their experience on that side is the exact opposite of what we've been talking about—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! We're debating Part 1 of this bill—Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Indeed we are—indeed we are.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): —and so if the member would like to turn his attention to it.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Indeed I will. So the point in Part 1 that I'm referring to—Hon Shane Jones: Election period?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Ha!—is indeed the election—is the community expectations of this Infrastructure Commission.The other slight little kink in the string holding together the threads of this argument in this bill is the way that the Minister himself has gone about the development of a strategy for ports in Auckland. So he sets up the commission and then at the same time out to the side has a little bunch coming up with a scheme there—which is again the opposite approach. So what we want to do is we want to support the development of this commission but we call upon the Government to be consistent in the way that it approaches infrastructure and that's why this is so important.And then of course we do have to recognise that the establishment of a commission such as this is not in itself the solution to all the broader problems that we have around infrastructure. So yes to the extent to which we could see a pipeline going out for 20 years of generally agreed major projects that would enable major contractors to come to New Zealand more competition and more investment in what needs to be there in order to build the infrastructure—so that would help. But we also do need to look at the regulatory side of things which adds significant costs and we also need to innovate in the funding. So all those three elements are critical to it all—and if we could get that right and make some progress on that and then actually be consistent around where we go.I suppose the difficulty that we have is that notwithstanding this commission if you do have Governments that are driven by blind ideology when it comes to transport—and a blind hatred of car fascists on that side [Gestures towards the Green Party] and a blind assessment that we've over-invested in roads on that side [Gestures towards the Labour Party]—then it does make it difficult to get consistency over time. So we've stood for a pragmatic and balanced approach to investment in infrastructure and we just wish that this Government would adopt a similar policy. Thank you."