Genter Julie Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9348. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to theMinister of Finance: Does he have a plan to fund the Auckland City rail link in the upcoming Budget given that public backing for the rail project is more than twice as strong as the Government’s proposed new motorway north from Puhoi?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I am advised that the Pūhoi to Wellsford road has considerable backing particularly in Northland and the North Auckland region. I am further advised that the road has a cost-benefit ratio that is higher than the rail loop both with and without consideration of wider economic benefits. Discussions with the Auckland Council on transport options are continuing. Of course the Government must be satisfied that any investment represents value for taxpayers’ money and as for financing plans the member will just have to wait for the Budget on 16 May.Julie Anne Genter: I seek leave to table the business cases for the Auckland City rail link and for Pūhoi to Wellsford which show that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Are they publicly available or easily available to members? [Interruption] They are.Julie Anne Genter: If his goal is to achieve value for money for the taxpayer why is he prioritising $2 billion on duplicating a motorway that carries fewer than 20000 vehicles per day instead of unlocking Auckland’s rail network with the city rail link which will take tens of thousands of cars off the road at peak time?Hon BILL ENGLISH: These decisions are all made in the context of the documents the Government publishes about its plan for roading over the next 4 or 5 years so the member is free to go and look at how that is explained and put together. In respect of these particular projects the Pūhoi to Wellsford project has a reasonable cost-benefit ratio. One would also take into consideration an issue commonly raised by Opposition parties and that is the economic deprivation of the far north. It has a strong view that better infrastructure will in the long run help economic development and therefore provide jobs for people in the far north. In respect of the rail loop there is ongoing discussion with the Auckland Council which has put its case consistently over a number of years. On the face of it the benefit-cost ratio for that project is lower than for the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway.Julie Anne Genter: Would it not be smarter to invest in targeted safety upgrades to the road north of Pūhoi now and a bypass around Warkworth which would achieve 90 percent of the safety and economic benefits much sooner than a new duplicate motorway leaving $1.5 billion to invest in a project that will make a real difference to hundreds of thousands of Aucklanders and how they get around their city every day?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I accept that the member is an advocate for the central business district rail loop but even if there is a decision made that it is a worthwhile project there would then be a discussion about who should pay for it because as the member has pointed out it is something that primarily benefits the Auckland commuters. I would also point out to the member that it is not a trade-off between the Pūhoi highway and the central business district rail loop. The Government has a broad-ranging investment programme in transport which has included very significant investment in the Auckland and the Wellington rail networks. In fact it is very significant picking up from where the previous Government started off. There has been very considerable progress made with those investments and the Government will also weigh up any decision around the rail loop with all the other transport projects all around the country many of which have better benefit-cost ratios than this one.Julie Anne Genter: Does he deny that the roads of national significance have not been tested by Treasury’s better business case guidelines and therefore his Government is prioritising 85 percent of new infrastructure spending on projects that have not been thoroughly assessed and that were chosen before this party came into Government?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Some of the weight given to the roads of national significance was set out in the manifesto presented by the National Party Opposition back in 2008 and of course at that time it did not have access to all the analytical capacity—or in fact to any of the analytical capacity—of the Public Service. But those projects have all been thoroughly scrutinised for value for money and any new projects that the Government invests in whether it is roads hospitals schools or rail go through a very thorough process to test them for value for money.Julie Anne Genter: Can I confirm that the Minister has just said that he is prioritising projects that have not been through Treasury’s better business case guidelines for infrastructure development instead of prioritising projects that would actually make a real difference to congestion in Auckland the single biggest project of which is the city rail link?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well I think that the point here is that the reason there is a healthy debate about the city rail link is that when you put it through the kinds of robust guidelines that have been developed it shows relatively low benefits for the investment. That is not to say that it cannot happen but I do not think we should try to fudge the figures around the general benefits of the central business district rail link and if the member has reasons why it should go ahead other than its economic value to New Zealand then I am sure that those are going to be part of the debate. But the fact is that under rigorous assessment it is not the kind of project that stands out ahead of all the others as a valuable investment.Julie Anne Genter: Given that road users and freight will benefit most from the city rail link according to all the numerous studies that have been done on this project because it is the best option to reduce congestion why will his Government not make it a priority instead of its election promises to the provinces?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Actually we spend a fair bit of time in the provinces defending the fact that a lot of the investment is in the big cities particularly the Tauranga-Hamilton-Auckland triangle. All those matters of course will be taken into account as this debate continues to evolve. I know that in the mind of the Auckland Council this is a project that it believes is vital to the development of its city. The rigorous economic assessment of it does not rank it highly but the discussions are continuing.Julie Anne Genter: Given that Auckland is expected to grow by more than the entire population of Wellington by 2031 why is his Government not prioritising smartinfrastructure like this city rail link which will unlock the capacity of our existing rail asset and take tens of thousands of cars off the road at peak time giving Aucklanders real choices and freeing up the roads for freight and commercial traffic?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well our Government is aware of what the likely growth pressures in Auckland are which is why there has been very extensive investment. The one under way now—the Waterview tunnel—is I am advised the largest roading project in the southern hemisphere at the moment and that is all about unlocking the potential of the completed motorway network because regardless of whether the central business district rail tunnel goes ahead the overwhelming majority of commuter trips in Auckland will continue to be in either cars or buses and they will continue to need motorways. So these are not mutually exclusive ways of approaching investment in Auckland’s infrastructure. The Government has done metro rail it is proceeding to complete the motorway network and it is in an ongoing discussion with the council about the central business district rail network.Julie Anne Genter: For the benefit of the Minister I seek leave to table information from traffic engineering guidelines that shows that the capacity of a motorway lane is 2000 people per hour—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is the information freely available to members?Julie Anne Genter: It does not seem to be available to the National Government—Mr SPEAKER: If it is freely available to members it will not be tabled.Julie Anne Genter: I also seek leave to table a letter I have here that is not available on the internet but it is a letter to the Secretary of State for Transport in the United Kingdom from 25 transport professors and it does question the economic benefits of—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table this letter a UK letter signed by 25 professors etc. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.