Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Transport): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I'm very proud to be part of this coalition Government that is finally listening to the people of Auckland because it has been more than a decade that Auckland hasn't been getting the investment in the public transport infrastructure that it desperately needs. During that time Auckland has experienced very rapid growth so there is an urgent need to catch up on the infrastructure deficit that was exacerbated by the last National Government who cancelled the regional fuel tax which would have funded electrification two years earlier.The last National Government dragged their feet on investment in the City Rail Link and claimed that we weren't going to hit 20 million passenger trips by 2020. Guess when we got 20 million passenger trips on the rail line? Three years earlier than 2020—in 2017. So if that Government had been paying any attention to what was actually happening in Auckland and what was affecting ordinary people in Auckland they would have gotten on to it and invested in electrification of the rail network. They wouldn't have delayed it. They would have invested earlier in the City Rail Link and they wouldn't have denied the need—the urgent need—to invest in other rapid transit lines all over Auckland. I mean it's pretty hilarious listening to the Opposition members' speeches. Brett Hudson the member who spoke previously—I suppose he knows a lot about the economic evaluation of transport projects because he was referring to benefit-cost ratios of light rail. But I can tell him that in fact he's quite mistaken about the economic case. Now maybe he's never been overseas to the literally hundreds of other cities in the world who benefit economically from investment in transport infrastructure like light rail.Brett Hudson: Maybe the member should look at the data that's in the book Keep Wellington Moving.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Hmm well actually Mr Hudson my Master's degree with honours was on the economic evaluation of transport projects and what I can tell you is that the economic evaluation method used by the New Zealand Transport Agency overstates the benefits of road projects and understates considerably the benefits—and you know I can give him reams and reams of papers written by a chief scientist at Transport for London that explain exactly why the economic evaluation understates significantly the benefits of light rail. But people in Wellington know because they've been overseas and they know that if you invest in a rapid transit system and it takes cars off the roads that's the best way to reduce congestion in the city. It's the best way to improve the amenity of the city. It attracts businesses. It attracts development in the city.But you know OK—look obviously the National Party are living a little bit in the past and are a little bit unaware of what's going on. But you know it's amazing how they were willing to tax future New Zealanders all across the country to pay for some of their pet projects that had considerably worse economic cases than what this Government is doing which is listening to the people of the local areas and saying yes we are going to empower you to allow your locally elected officials to determine the transport projects that the community actually wants and to raise that revenue locally rather than putting a hold on the projects that people want to have funded.Brett Hudson: Tax and spend.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Now this is the amazing thing. Somehow this Government is tax and spend and yet the National Government raised petrol tax across the country took it out of the regions spent less money in the regions and spent it on incredibly poor-value short links of motorway that didn't do anything to reduce congestion—of course it didn't because all the data shows that urban highways don't help people get around. At the same time they had the incredibly regressive move of cutting income tax for the highest income earners and putting up GST. Now if the National Party actually cared about the lowest-income New Zealanders they wouldn't have put up GST and cut income tax.But let me just say—because I know that they suddenly in Opposition are very concerned about the lowest-income New Zealanders. Well if we look at how the regional fuel tax is going to affect say a decile 2 household in Auckland based on actual data of how much petrol they consume it's going to be about $2.80 a week for decile 2. That is what the data says—$145 per year—and as a percentage of the income that's 0.5 percent. So a 0.5 percent increase in petrol tax. Of course at the same time we are looking after those low-income households by benefiting them with a Families Package to a much greater extent.Brett Hudson: Then you take it off them with a fuel tax. That's disgraceful.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Now for a decile 9 household—so that would be one of the richer households that Mr Hudson's not concerned about at all—they might be spending about 0.25 percent of their income. So that's the difference—that's the regressive difference: 0.25 percent of their income versus 0.5 percent.So what I would say is that if we want to address the problem of access to opportunities and employment—Brett Hudson: No no no. I think the member underestimates her costs on lower-income earners.Hon Members: What's your Master's in?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Please don't bring the Speaker into the debate even in your comments. Sorry for interrupting.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The best way to do that is to actually invest in both housing and transport infrastructure that enables people to access those opportunities and that is clearly what this Government is doing. So with rapid transit across Auckland safe walking and cycling across Auckland and improvement to bus services reducing fares all of that is going to massively benefit everyone—everyone—in Auckland but particularly the lowest-income households will benefit from this investment. South Auckland—well actually the Māngere light rail is all about South Auckland and it's just one part of what we're doing there. Puhinui to the airport is giving people access to a major employment area. It will go right up into east Auckland. And then of course Te Atatū—well that's where the north-western light rail's going Mr Hudson.So this Government has a very practical evidence-based vision and is going to invest in the infrastructure that I know New Zealanders have wanted for decades and that party the National Party when they were in Government refused to invest in the infrastructure that was desperately needed. But yet they did raise taxes—oh yes oh yes. They raised fuel taxes they spent them on about seven projects which were in Auckland Wellington Christchurch Hamilton and Tauranga. There was a promise of some roads in Northland but it was going to be about 30 years before they actually reached Northland and even then they weren't going to actually make it easier for people to reduce the amount that they spent on transport.So it's hard not to spend your entire speech responding to completely bizarre other worlds that the Opposition seems to live in where on the one hand they're going to cut tax and not raise tax and on the other hand they're going to invest in roads and somehow that's going to help people but the roads weren't actually in the regions you guys were talking about. So look I know that you in your little groupthink get very carried away but let me just assure you that your constituents in Auckland are going to be extremely pleased with this Government for finally showing some leadership and enabling the local councils to raise revenue in a way that is fair and that enables the investment in the infrastructure that we need so that communities can be connected so that kids can walk and cycle safely to school so that everyone has access to frequent affordable reliable modern public transport and that those decisions can actually be made at a local level not entirely dictated by central government as the previous National Government did. Their approach to transport was very much about dictating to local government: raising taxes across the country dictating to local government what the money would be spent on and some eye-wateringly expensive and poor-value-for-money roading projects that did nothing to reduce the road toll that did nothing to reduce congestion and that did nothing to reduce pollution.So I am very proud and pleased to support this bill. I don't doubt that we can come up with even better ways and fairer ways of raising revenue for transport infrastructure in the future but this is actually quite a good fix and is going to be very much supported by people in Auckland.