Brownlee Gerry: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Brownlee Gerry: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8426. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I just want to make a few comments in relation to the somewhat narrow comments made by the previous speaker Julie Anne Genter and in particular the rather nasty assertion that the Government is not taking public transport seriously. The reality is that public transport is a very big chunk of the spend and we are going to continue that. The member might like to reflect that although a previous Government spent a lot of time promising projects it did very little to deliver them. It is the current Government that has actually funded them. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: Ha ha! 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The member may find that slightly amusing which is somewhat typical of how you get a particular persuasion in New Zealand’s politics behaving. The reality is that the transport network in New Zealand is a great deal bigger and a great deal more complex than just saying: “Let’s put a tunnel from Britomart up north of Albert Street for about 1.5 kilometres to create a bit of a loop.” There is in fact very little evidence that there would be any effect from a project like that beyond perhaps 1 or 2 years at the end of this decade. So we do have to look at all of these things in quite a broad perspective. 
There is also I am sure quite a strong opinion in Auckland that the roads that have been built there—over the last 10 years I would like to concede—in particular things like the Victoria Park project have made a difference to the way traffic moves through that city. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: It was gridlocked last week. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Well the member says it was gridlocked last week. Let me tell you if a train became derailed in a tunnel it would be a great deal more gridlocked than a car accident on a highway. Those are things that cannot particularly be helped. I guess if we are all on bicycles or horses or some other sort of past transport mode like those then we might not have such a degree of congestion but then we would not have the pace in our economy that people expect today. 
There is a need for roading to be fair and appropriately applied across the country and we do have a programme that sees of those seven roads of national significance two very important South Island roads. One of them which is now open is the Christchurch Southern Motorway link and the other of course is the western ring route which is being put in as well. Further south it is going to be rather like the Auckland rail loop where you have actually got declining patronage on the rail in Auckland—declining patronage on the rail in Auckland—and therefore there is a much weaker case for even considering what might be done in the future. 
Hon Member 
: What about the cost benefits? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: One member just suggested there that we look at some of the cost-benefit ratios. Well this is where our opponents really get upset because some of those cost-benefit ratios are very very good for those various projects that I have just mentioned. The sad thing is that it would not matter how good they looked; ideologically there is going to be opposition to them. The reality is that New Zealanders like their cars. New Zealanders like to be on motorways. New Zealanders like to move around with the freedom that automobiles give them. And New Zealanders pay for those roads through their excise tax and through their road-user charges and they should have a right to expect that there is good planning around them. So I think that this year has been a very good year for New Zealand’s Ministry of Transport and the transport agencies that sit underneath it including all of those agencies that are engaged in safety of various types in making sure that consumers who are using our networks are doing so in a safe manner. 
Finally I want to say that no one should underestimate the huge commitment that this Government has continued with KiwiRail. The $750 million that has gone into that company over the last couple of years to recapitalise it has been extremely important for making sure that we get more freight on the rail therefore taking some pressure off the roads. Of course there is going to need to be an ongoing capital commitment to that company for some time to come. All in all I think our transport network is in good shape but it needs constant improvement constant investment and constant commitment to it. 
Report noted.