SpeechHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I'm pleased to stand up and make some opening comments in this debate. I thank both members so far for their contributions. I acknowledge the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee Shanan Halbert and the committee members. I think it has been a hard-working select committee over the course of this parliamentary term and I thank them for their work on this annual review. It is a select committee which has also I think done some really good work in respect of trying to get its head around and provide a good forum for public debate and the development of policy ideas in respect of complex issues such as the inquiries that it has held into congestion charging and more recently into inter-regional rail. They are both pieces of work which the Government—well the first one we have picked up and we are working on; and for the second one we look forward to receipt of the select committee's report on that matter soon. The chair of the select committee rightly identified that the 2021-22 year which is the subject of this report was one of considerable transition for the transport sector. It was effectively the year in which we started to move out of that COVID emergency period which had such profound impacts across every part of our society including the transport sector and started to get back towards more normal levels of activity. So it was a real year of transition. It was a year for example in which the Government continued on with our Maintaining International Air Connectivity scheme a critical scheme which ensured that New Zealand exporters were able to get their products to market through international aviation at a time at which the international aviation market had pretty much collapsed. It was one of the ways that we kept many of our high-value exports continuing to move forward. And I want to thank Ministry of Transport officials for their work on that scheme and their engagement with much of our business sector during that difficult COVID period dealing with those international connectivity issues dealing with issues like the Auckland boundary that had to be navigated. Most people I speak to in the freight sector while they say Look it was a really tough time." found that their engagement with Government officials during this period was incredibly productive and constructive in terms of resolving issues.This was also a year in which work progressed against a number of the Government's significant priorities. So we made further progress on mass rapid transit in our major cities. Simeon Brown: What? How much light rail's been built?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: We made further progress in respect of providing New Zealanders with better transport options. While the member to my left—Simeon Brown—continues to criticise and belittle any and all investment in providing better transport choices for New Zealand our Government during this period of 2021 to 2022 actually believes that it's important to give New Zealanders those choices if we're serious about creating better places to live and a reduction in our carbon emissions. The member also has a lot to say about road maintenance which he suggests was taken to zero under this Government. If indeed road maintenance spending was taken to zero under this Government I query of the member what it was under the previous National Government when it was 50 percent less after they froze it for eight consecutive years. The member speaks a lot about potholes. Some indeed suggest that there is an unhealthy obsession with this particular topic. The reason that we deal with so many potholes in our system is firstly because we are dealing with a backlog of maintenance because the party that that member represents froze road maintenance funding for eight years. With any asset that is not maintained properly such as one's house or any other asset if you under-invest in the maintenance in past years it will catch up on you. So we are getting on the job of fixing up National's mess there by increasing road maintenance funding by 50 percent and that is why there has been so much activity in that area. This is also a year in which the Government got on with its $8.6 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme with critical investment in transport infrastructure all around New Zealand including in the Hon Judith Collins' electorate of Papakura where there is excellent progress going into the widening of State Highway 1 between Papakura and Drury into the electrification of the main line between Papakura and Pukekohe and also into the third main line between Wiri and Westfield. Right across the spectrum—I recognise that the members opposite would like to pave every bit of spare space in the country with additional motorway tarmac but that is not our Government's policy. The members want to build as they did with the East-West Link an expensive unnecessary high-carbon duplicate motorway next to an existing motorway system. Our Government is intending to ensure that we invest in better transport options for the residents of that part of the city but we want to actually make sure that we focus on the right things: better safety improvements in that area; ensuring that we have better options for residents. But what we won't be doing is doing what the previous National Government did and investing in evermore big motorway projects that just increase congestion and increase our carbon emissions. This is a time-limited debate so unfortunately it will be challenging to address all of the inaccuracies from Mr Brown's speech but the one that I do particularly want to touch on is his comment around bus drivers because over the course of the past year we have been doing significant work to deal with this particular challenge.Simeon Brown: You shut the border; it stopped them coming in.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: That's right. Mr Brown notes that the border was closed during the period of COVID-19 and we do note that the National Party changed their position on that issue about six different times as to whether the border should have been open or closed. We actually do stand by our position as a Government that it was a pretty good thing to save many New Zealanders' lives by protecting this country from COVID-19 at the height of the global pandemic. Now that did create labour challenges for groups like bus drivers but actually the underlying cause of the bus driver shortage is the crummy pay and conditions that so many bus drivers had to endure because of the Peyton model that was put in place by that previous National Government. That is something that in this 2021-22 year our Government has got busy addressing by bringing $60 million of investment into Budget 2022 to actually lift our bus driver pay and conditions to sustainable level. And because of that we are actually beginning to see the bus driver shortage abating. As of the end of 2022 approximately 800 shortage across the country which has now reduced down to about 500 and I'm confident in the coming months we'll see that reduced down further and service levels improve. Ultimately the race-to-the-bottom model for bus services that the National Party put in place has cost us. We're getting on with the job of improving those pay and conditions and also overhauling the framework by bringing in the new sustainable public transport framework—Hon Judith Collins: Buses run on roads.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —that will stop the race to the bottom. Mrs Collins buses do run on roads; I'm pleased you mentioned that. That's why we're investing in important projects like the Eastern Busway which in the member's electorate of Pakuranga we dug the first shovel on last month to make sure that we actually make sure that bus commuters have the options to actually use efficient highly prioritised bus services. This is a Government which is getting on with the job of maintaining our network better of investing in more transport choices for New Zealanders and making the network safer. All of those are anathema to a party on that side who's just obsessed with big motorways. But we're going to keep doing what we know needs to be done to deliver a more resilient and more carbon friendly network."