Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): ACT supports the conclusions of this inquiry into congesting pricing and we urge the Government to follow through with their tabled response. If you look at what the Government has said in response they've said that legislation to enable congestion charging needs to be introduced into the House in 2022 and passed in this term of Government. So the ACT Party says Get on with it. We'll support it."The reason they need to do it is because the current revenue model which relies on road-user charges and petrol taxes is simply broken. The money collected from truckies and private motorists is never enough to pay for road maintenance let alone for the growth that we're expecting in our cities and regions. Around half the money collected from road users is syphoned off for politicians' pet projects like a bike bridge that will never be built and an Auckland light rail that no one in Auckland asked for. No one in Auckland asked for Auckland light rail.Now the recent cut in fuel excise duties and road-user charges has led to a half-billion-dollar hole in this Government's transport budget. That means that without finding other sources of funding the hole is just going to get deeper the potholes won't get filled and we're going to end up stuck in traffic for another decade. Apparently that's not a priority for this Government because we haven't heard about the legislation coming to the House that they said should be introduced in 2022. That story is repeated across the country. Congestion costs the New Zealand economy hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Freight which used to take six hours to get from the Port of Lyttelton to Queenstown might take seven. Tradies who used to do three jobs in a day can now do only two in big cities like Auckland because they're stuck in traffic. Across 5 million New Zealanders these costs really add up.Similarly our failure to deliver transportation and other infrastructure is holding back housing growth. Councils routinely cite the inability to deliver water infrastructure. Transport infrastructure is a reason to decline resource consents. Even the New Zealand Transport Agency has been in on the act recently rejecting two big developments in Drury and the Sleepyhead compound in the Waikato. This Government—this Government—the Minister of Transport and their support party the Greens are doing everything they can to stop New Zealanders using roads and driving cars.Hon Julie Anne Genter: You're so full of it.SIMON COURT: Even when this Government tries to deliver public transport projects—for the record the member Julie Anne Genter has said I'm full of it but I'll tell you who is full of it: this Government. Even when they're trying to deliver public transport the Minister Michael Wood told me at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that the bus stop on the side of the motorway at Te Atatū is quality public transport—a bus stop and a speed hump on the side of the Northwestern Motorway is quality public transport! That's what this Government is delivering to Aucklanders.Aucklanders and Kiwis deserve better and road pricing is the key to delivering better transport networks. ACT proposes that user pricing be delivered to as much infrastructure as possible. In return fuel taxes and the existing system of road charges will be abolished. The fairest way to fund infrastructure is by charging those who use it. User charges and revenues also provide a valuable signal and an incentive to Governments and the private sector to build more transport infrastructure. In the midst of a cost of living crisis the Labour Government is unlikely to prioritise building capacity in our road network or fixing potholes. They don't like roads and they don't like cars and our commute whether we're stuck in traffic for 45 minutes or an hour a day is of no concern to them but they're simply deferring the problem; they're kicking the road-pricing problem down the road until a more responsible and more practical Government that involves ACT at its core is running this country.That is why ACT supports a move to road pricing on the basis that it's cost neutral that we get better public transport options as well and a corresponding increase in road capacity in those parts of our major cities and regions where we're stuck in traffic and we deserve safer faster journeys. Thank you Madam Speaker."