Blue Jackie: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Blue Jackie: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12954. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak to the third reading of the infrastructure legislation which is a part of the Government’s initiative to improve infrastructure that is vital to our economic future and part of our commitment to deregulation and the removal of red tape. The legislation is omnibus in that it comprises four bills covering three areas: changes to utilities’ access arrangements to transport corridors changes to the New Zealand Railways Corporation Act 1981 and the repeal of the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act 2008 with the retention of an amended restrictive covenants provision relating to social housing. 
The Government is focused on growing the economy and creating jobs with better infrastructure such as roads broadband rail and electricity networks. Jobs and growth are essential if New Zealanders and New Zealand are to get ahead. The development of infrastructure is essential to lifting New Zealand’s productivity and to improving future economic growth. 
This legislation effects National’s commitment to building a stronger economy that will provide growth for all New Zealanders and to providing the social infrastructure that New Zealanders need. The Government is spending $6 billion per year on infrastructure projects. Specifically in the most recent Budget there is a $500 million upgrade of Auckland rail and $250 million put aside for the wider rail network and rolling stock. There is $200 million put aside for the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and there is $10.7 billion over 10 years put aside for State highways. 
State highways account for 50 percent of road use in New Zealand; therefore an advanced State highway system is essential to maintaining effective linkages throughout the country. The money that the Government has committed reflects how important infrastructure is to the Government’s wider economic policy programme and to New Zealand’s longer-term economic prospects. The Government’s $10.7 billion boost to State highway funding has provided a secure funding pipeline that gives contractors the confidence to continue to invest in people and machinery and to complete projects more quickly. High-calibre infrastructure matters because it supports productivity and economic competitiveness. An important spin-off from this commitment is the fact that in the global recession effective investment in productive infrastructure has supported many thousands of jobs around the country. 
This infrastructure legislation removes unnecessary barriers to infrastructure development and improves the consistency of regulatory arrangements. The first two bills improve arrangements for managing access by utility operators to transport corridors—roads railways and motorways. The first bill also establishes a framework for a national code of practice to govern how utility operators and corridor managers will coordinate their activities. The third bill amends the New Zealand Railways Corporation Act 1981 to remove some of the statutory restrictions that negatively affect the running of the New Zealand Railways Corporation’s business. The fourth bill repeals the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Act 2008 while keeping an amended prohibition of restrictive covenants affecting social housing. Local authorities were concerned that that Act was complex costly and overly prescriptive. Although it was intended to provide local authorities with the regulatory tools to address the problems of housing affordability it has been viewed as a potential impairment to increasing the housing stock supply. 
The infrastructure legislation is about removing the barriers to infrastructure development which this Government sees as critical if New Zealand is to move forward economically. I commend this legislation to the House.