Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Madam Chair. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I can't speak for the entire Government but I will attempt to address some of the questions of the previous speaker Paul Goldsmith under this economic development and infrastructure heading of the debate.I think what is clear when we look at the reviews under this heading is that we're in the midst of a transition—one that I am very very pleased to finally see Aotearoa New Zealand embracing the 21st century rather than the 20th century or possibly even the 19th century model of economic development that was being pursued by the previous Government one that equated economic development entirely with extraction and at a non-renewable rate. So the previous Government you could see was very keen on mining fracking drilling deforestation overfishing—fundamentally on the depletion of our natural resources which are our natural capital and should be protected and used wisely. Of course the Green Party has been calling for that for a very very long time.The result of the 20th century model that the last Government was pursuing was increasing pollution which is contributing to destabilising the climate. And of course all of that was resulting in profits for a few—profits for just a few—while the many many New Zealanders ones I interact with on a daily basis were not seeing any of the benefit of this; just dirty rivers fewer fish to go out and catch and increasing carbon emissions for as long as we could see into the future. Of course the previous Government's plan was to pay for dodgy offshore credits which were effectively going to be assisting with economic development in developing countries potentially rather than investing in our own country.This Government isn't going to be pursuing a very narrow ideological approach to economic development. We'll actually be embracing the evidence-based approach that has been used by countries across the world who are far far better developed have better infrastructure are protecting their natural capital are taking action on climate change and as a result of sharing the wealth and the investment have achieved much higher incomes per capita than New Zealand has and are far wealthier more productive countries. I'm very very pleased to see that finally we have a Government that understands that we are going to be better off if we protect our waterways if we have clean air and if we have efficient affordable homes for everyone rather than an increasing rate of homelessness and if we invest in transport infrastructure that actually moves more people and goods.I know there's going to be a bit of a debate later today because of course the announcement of the Government's draft Government policy statement on transport funding will be coming out. I can't comment on the specifics of that but what I can say is that we saw in the financial review of the previous year the legacy of nine years of the National Government pouring 40 percent of the transport budget into just a few kilometres of State highway that moves less than 5 percent of all the vehicle trips in the country.Hon Dr Nick Smith: That's not true. That's just not true.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The Hon Nick Smith is yelling at me from across the Chamber That's not true." In fact it is Nick. Do you want to sit down with me and look at the numbers? I really question whether the honourable member—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'd caution the member that it is the custom to use full names in the House.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well would the Hon Nick Smith like to sit down and look at the numbers with me? I know he's quite capable of saying that the sky is green or black rather than blue but in fact the reality is that the roads of national significance were seven urban highways primarily in urban areas not in the regions which sucked up all of the money. So let's see they were in Auckland Wellington Christchurch Tauranga and Hamilton and they sucked up 40 percent of the transport budget. During that time the National Government reduced the money available for road policing for road safety for local roads for road maintenance. They had a freeze virtually for nine years on all of these things and that's why over the last five years we've seen an increasing rate of death and serious injury on our roads—far greater than the increase in driving. It's because for nine years we had a Government that neglected our roading network all over the country so that it could cut a few ribbons on a few projects."