5. Question No. 5—TransportPAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of TransportQuestion No. 5—Transport5. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Transport: What announcements has he made about ensuring New Zealanders' safety on our roads?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Fakaalofa lahi atu Mr Speaker. Last week I announced that the Government is acting swiftly to strengthen the New Zealand Transport Agency's (NZTA) regulatory role to make sure that New Zealanders are as safe as possible on our roads following a review into the New Zealand Transport Agency. We are enacting all of the recommendations of the review including creating a statutory director of land transport who's responsible for carrying out NZTA's regulatory functions; getting the NZTA board to develop a new regulatory strategy; instructing the Ministry of Transport to update the NZTA's regulatory objectives functions and powers; and injecting up to $45 million into the NZTA's regulatory work.Paul Eagle: What were the findings of the review into the Transport Agency?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: The independent review has found that NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous Government NZTA was failing in its duty to properly check the companies that certify vehicles as safe for the road and other services and when problems with these companies were identified there was often no follow-up. This was exacerbated in 2014 when the agency lost staff from its heavy vehicle compliance team and the number of investigations halved. The report found that previous transport Ministers had directed the Transport Agency to focus on"—and I quote—"building roads"—Chris Bishop: That's not what the report says. Stop making that up.Hon Gerry Brownlee: That's not true.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: —"at the expense of keeping people safe." Safety is our Government's top transport priority and we're getting the transport agency back on track—SPEAKER: Order! Who interjected "That is not true."?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I did.Chris Bishop: I did.SPEAKER: The members will both withdraw and apologise.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. Point of order.Chris Bishop: I withdraw and apologiseSPEAKER: I will have Mr Bishop withdraw and apologise first.Chris Bishop: I said it. I withdraw and apologise.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the Minister was quoting from a document then it would be I think appropriate that he tabled it to verify the statement that he's just made.SPEAKER: Was the member quoting from a document? [Interruption] Further supplementary—Paul Eagle.Paul Eagle: What steps has the Transport Agency taken to strengthen its regulatory function?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: NZTA has made good progress in the last year. They have cleared the backlog of 850 regulatory compliance files that had been left open and unattended under the former Government. In April this year a new role general manager of regulatory compliance was created. The Transport Agency is also in the process of recruiting up to 100 new positions across their regulatory services group over the next 18 months. Our Government is fixing the difficult long-term issues and addressing years of neglect of the Transport Agency's safety role."