Sabin Mike: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18541. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):It is fantastic to follow in the wake of the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It is strong chairmanship that he shows as one would expect with such a strong and high-performing Minister of Transport as Gerry Brownlee of course. What a great team. What a great team the National Party has put together on this side of the House. I just want to pick up on a couple of comments that were made by the new comedic home for evening comedy on the Labour Party Phil Twyford who talks about the comment that it is not just about roads.Phil Twyford: Say that again Mike. I missed it.MIKE SABIN: I forget exactly what I said. We will go back to the Hansard.It is not just about roads; it is actually about transportation on multiple levels. If there is one thing that we can say about the efforts of this Government in terms of transportation what we have actually done is we have unwound decades of under-investment in some of the key areas of our transport infrastructure. Significant money has been put into KiwiRail. A Labour Government that sold off—[Interruption] Sorry what is the member Tracey Martin saying? I cannot quite hear. [Interruption] No Tracey Martin has got that wrong because you will find that Marsden Point is in the Whangarei electorate. But is that an important piece of infrastructure? Absolutely and that is why we are making sure when we have discussions with the councils that are looking at the Ports of Auckland Tauranga and Marsden Point that they understand the needs of the transportation infrastructure there. If the member wants to come up to Whangarei and have a wee discussion on it I am sure the new member in Whangarei would be happy to allude to that.Hon Ruth Dyson: Phil Heatley is still there. Don’t be so horrible.MIKE SABIN: No I am talking post-election of course Ms Dyson.We are a forward-looking party and the reality is that when we look at the Government policy statement—let us take just one little small snippet of the programme of work that has been going on here the Pūhoi to Wellsford road. As David Bennett has mentioned the Greens and Labour have both signalled that road will come out. They say they will get rid of that project. This Government has fast-tracked the consenting process alongside Auckland Council which has also 16 votes to four recognised the importance of that road. It is a trade and economic highway to what is the fastest-growing economy in the country. The Northland economy is the fastest-growing and strongest-growing economy in the country. We know that $800 million of primary industries particularly is trundling down that road on an annual basis. That is a significant contribution to this country’s economic fortunes and this Government is investing in that. In fact this Government is ensuring that that programme is given every opportunity to move forward as quickly as possible.When that was signalled in Northland I can tell members across this House that it was absolutely strongly heralded as a fantastic initiative because of the importance of that road. It is not just about the road in itself. It is about the signals it sends about the economy of Northland and the opportunities that exist for other businesses to be involved in growing that economy and being a part of that economy. The road will take some time to build but already with the interest in activity people are looking north and they are looking north because here is a region that is attached to the nation’s largest economy in Auckland and that is a vital link. If we look across the roads of national significance programme that is exactly what we see. We see the arterial routes—the routes that are so often used by so much of the economy of this country. We are ensuring that the under-investment that has occurred for far too long in this nation is actually being caught up with and we are investing where we are going to free up and ensure that that transportation of our economy is going to move far more effectively.We can talk about public transport all we like but—I do not know; call me old-fashioned—I think buses tend to use roads as well. I have not seen too many “hover-buses”. Perhaps the Green Party might want to introduce some of those into the mix—I am not sure. Whether they are highways motorways freeways or single lane roads anything with wheels on it uses them even cycles which I know the Green Party of course is very very interested in. The point is that what the Government has done is establish a programme of work across many facets of our transportation networks to ensure that where the bottlenecks exist where the challenges in that network exist we are absolutely investing in that and investing ahead of the curve which is taking some investment to catch up on because as I said there has been a consistent under-investment in that. So what we are seeing—