Brown SimeonHon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): Thank you Madam Chair. Can I just say thank you to the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee Andy Foster for your remarks and for the opportunity to be able to speak in this debate. I'll just make a few short opening remarks and then I'm looking forward to the engagement and the questions from members of the committee.New Zealand's economy relies on a transport system which helps to facilitate the efficient movement of people and freight. That's why our Government's priorities are to boost economic growth and productivity increase maintenance and resilience improve safety and achieve value for money.The reality is that we've come to Government at a time—and I think the annual reviews show this—where our transport infrastructure is in a poor state. It's crucial we recognise the magnitude of the challenges that we have ahead of us and what we need to do to fix them. Kiwis are faced with worsening congestion. Our State highways have been peppered with 62000 potholes in the last year and the last Government was focused on trying to tell people to get out of their cars and trying to tell them to drive really really slowly rather than actually trying to stay focused on the basics. In the last six years they didn't start and complete one single major infrastructure project pavement rehabilitation on our State highways declined 27 percent—Hon Scott Simpson: How much?Hon SIMEON BROWN: 27 percent leading to a surge in potholes and their focus was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on things like Auckland light rail where $228 million had been spent on simply doing nothing but writing more and more business cases and glossy documents. Ultimately they cancelled the roads of national significance programme. They then had to reheat that with the New Zealand Upgrade Programme which has been faced with delays cancellations cost escalations and ultimately an Auditor-General's report which was incredibly damning of how that has been run by the previous Government.So we've come to Government and we've been given very clear evidence that there's a $200 billion hole between the last Government's aspirations and what was actually funded and now we have to make sure we get transport back on track. That's why we've released our draft Government policy statement (GPS) on transport which is focused on the core priorities of building and maintaining our transport network. It outlines our priorities around reinstating the roads of national significance so we can get people where they need to go quickly and safely unlock economic growth and productivity in our economy improve maintenance on our roads and make sure that we are improving safety as well as getting better value for money out of our transport system.So this Government has a very clear plan when it comes to our transport sector and what needs to be done to address those challenges. We will invest more in road maintenance but we will also ensure we're getting better value for money out of every single dollar that is being spent. We will ensure that we're investing in public transport we're investing in the roads of national significance we're going to continue to invest in rail but ultimately every single thing that we invest in we will be asking the New Zealand Transport Agency KiwiRail all of the transport road controlling authorities to make sure that there is value for money coming from every single dollar that New Zealanders pay into the system. Whether they're ratepayers or taxpayers they expect value for money out of their transport system and I think the reality is that over the last six years there has been a lot of talk a lot of documents being written but actually other than the $490000 speed bumps there hasn't been a lot of delivery. That's what New Zealanders want this Government to be focused on. That's what the draft GPS does.