van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a shame that the Green Party has to drop to those sorts of lows to make those sorts of ridiculous claims that a former Government doesn't care about the safety of the public—what a disgusting statement to say. Surely they can do better—it's an embarrassment.Now this bill is tidying up some of the relatively minor aspects making a few changes to the regulatory systems transport space tidying up regulations and removing unnecessary compliance costs. We absolutely support that sort of approach. Anything we can do to reduce compliance costs is always a good thing but actually especially more so now with the additional pressure that our businesses that our public are facing as a result of this COVID-19 virus.We've heard actually the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Simon Bridges has made it very clear that regulations and reducing regulations is a significant focus for us should we have the opportunity to govern after the next election. Indeed getting rid of a hundred regulations in the first six months under a bonfire of regulations and every new regulation being a replacement for two others—these are some of these priorities that we have in terms of trying to make business easier for people to reduce that cost the time the hassle often for people to participate. Of course you've got to balance that with having the right rules and regulations in place but actually at times I think we have—and clearly we have—gone a bit far with some of that stuff.One I wanted to touch on in relation to this proposed bill at its first reading is around the exemption and revocation powers that are being provided to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Maritime New Zealand and how that will actually play out in a practical perspective. I'm looking forward to seeing some submissions in relation to that—in particular to understand better how we might tweak that if need be to ensure that practical application is as streamlined as possible.We've seen and heard from previous members on this side as well and others around the increasing number of board members. Well on the face of it that's relatively benign I suppose; the question will be what additional value do you obtain from having additional board members brought into each of those three organisations—CAA NZTA and Maritime NZ? If they bring in additional skills and expertise that can improve the ability to deliver the right outcomes for those organisations well then that's OK but we do have to be mindful that we're not just adding additional bureaucracy for the sake of it. And indeed we've seen a strong focus throughout this on a number of those tweaks when actually as Mr Brown pointed out earlier we should have seen a much stronger focus from this Government on other areas of transport.A key one in my electorate of the Waikato is extending the Waikato Expressway down to Piarere. It's a very dangerous piece of road and was missed under the last announcement by this Government when they came out saying Well we're going to do all this additional infrastructure and it's $900 million for the Waikato - Bay of Plenty." Well actually only $58 million of that is for the Waikato; the rest is all in the Bay of Plenty. And it's great to see the Tauranga Northern Link there finally being put back on the table after this Government foolishly cancelled it. It was ready to go under the last Government; still it's been delayed two years for no reason. So understandably residents there are disappointed. But in the Waikato we've missed out on a crucial transport link there. The fantastic work that's been done under the previous Government in building that Waikato Expressway was great and transport needs to remain a focus for any Government. So this regulatory systems bill yep makes some good tweaks but actually the greater focus for transport under this Government should be on building those expressway projects in critical areas.Vital safety improvements and economic benefits—those are the two key areas that come out of those projects and the delivery of them. So that's something especially with the uncertainty of COVID-19 hanging over us. There are going to be jobs lost. There already have been some and there will be more. Anything the Government can do to provide additional impetus is welcome and I'd commend them on a number of the facets they came out with in their recent announcement in terms of the wages etc. to support that. But we need to see more investment in infrastructure as well in these crucial projects that are ready to go. Roading is going to provide a huge opportunity and I'd really encourage this Government to pick up some of those projects that the previous Government had done so much work on scheduled had in the pipeline ready to go for a period of time over a number of years and encourage them to crack on get the work done and create some jobs. So in relation to this specific Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill: some good aspects to it some that we're going to need some clarity around—particularly those exemption revocation powers—but overall we're supporting it at this stage and I look forward to having it come through the select committee."