Wood MichaelHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): Thanks to both Mr Court and Mr Luxon for their questions. I do want to acknowledge Mr Court—I don't think we've ever had an ACT member stand up in the House and say I want more public transport now." So Mr Court I salute you and I agree with you on that front.Look this is a really important point because going to those questions around urban growth the only way that we stop Auckland and our other significant growing metro areas from choking on their own growth is through investment in high-quality rapid public transport that moves large numbers of people around those metro areas quickly and efficiently. We simply cannot do it just by building roads and for the member who's an engineer it's a question of spatial efficiency in areas in which there are significant constraints on the land that we have to use. There's no way you can build another motorway down the middle of the Auckland isthmus—even if that didn't induce demand and make the problem worse but imagine it didn't. We need to move large numbers of people very efficiently very reliably and very frequently and that is the benefit that investment in high-quality rapid transit of the kind that we're talking about in respect of light rail delivers—potentially 300 to 400 people per unit every 10 minutes.If I can give the member a live example of the kind of difference that we're talking about between the spatial efficiency of the private motor vehicle and public transport I had the pleasure last week of pressing the start button on "Dame Whina Cooper" the tunnel-boring machine that's creating the central rail link through the middle of Auckland. Now that project when it is completed will bring the equivalent of 16 lanes of motor vehicle traffic in and out of the central city every single day.Chris Bishop: Great project.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: It is a great project and I'm pleased that we have widespread agreement about that. But that just speaks to the massive efficiency benefits the massive decongestion benefits that we get out of serious investment in public transport. The truth is that over 50 years in Auckland and other metro areas across a range of Governments we haven't put the investment into those modes that we should've and that's why we face the challenges that we face today. So for our Government those ongoing improvements will happen.But I would say to the member that it is happening now. A couple of weeks ago I was very pleased to open up the improvements to State Highway 20B which is creating a dedicated transit corridor for buses to travel between the Puhinui interchange on the southern rail line and Auckland Airport—buses shuttling back and forth there giving people a public transport option every 15 minutes or so. Next month we'll be opening up that Puhinui interchange which will bring together bus and train services in that part of South Auckland with further investment in the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) going into extending it out towards Mr Luxon's electorate out in Botany; we're starting to do the futureproofing for that work. Over the course of the last year we've opened at least one new station on the Northern Busway up at the Hibiscus Coast—that was late last year—to extend the benefits of the Northern Busway up to North Auckland.So there is significant investment going into that public transport across Auckland. The Third Main line a New Zealand upgrade project being delivered at this time—employing 200 people as I said. The key benefit of that is that it will give us the capacity it'll free up that congested Southern Line where currently commuter and freight trains are competing for this space. So that investment is going in now and we're starting to see the benefits flowing through. The good news I've got for Mr Court and everyone in fact is when we put these investments in people do use them: 50 percent of the journeys across the Auckland Harbour Bridge at peak are from people who use the Northern Busway because it's a public transport service that moves people efficiently and we're going to be building more of that under ATAP and in the years ahead.Moving on to Mr Luxon's questions which primarily focused around the second harbour crossing and the state of the Auckland Harbour Bridge: look the confidence that I want to give members—and it's really really important to say this because I think that there was in some of the media and commentary a few months ago some statements made that might've caused people in Auckland concern and alarm—the Auckland Harbour Bridge with appropriate maintenance which we will always provide it with is a very durable asset that has an almost limitless lifespan. So I just want to give people absolute assurance and confidence with that. There are few pieces of transport infrastructure in Auckland or New Zealand that are more strategic than that. I have made sure that I am well informed by Waka Kotahi about its current state about its maintenance plans and I've received that assurance from the agency. So we continue to put real focus on making sure that there's an appropriate maintenance regime in place.What we did hear from Waka Kotahi around the time of the annual review process is that the bridge has reached a point of its lifespan where it is difficult effectively to add additional weight to the structure. So we understand that we work within that; we're able to maintain the asset within those parameters. It does as Mr Luxon gets into raise questions then in terms of what the options are for us in terms of creating a great walking and cycling connection across the Waitematā. This is a real priority for our Government. We have got an investment of over $300 million within the New Zealand Upgrade Programme there. We want to see Aucklanders with the ability to safely walk or cycle across the harbour in the middle of the city. I think it will be massive in terms of the mode shift giving people the opportunities to get on their bike or walk to commute to work. It'll be a fantastic tourist asset as well. What I've just outlined does create challenges in the previous plans that have been put forward in terms of attaching a structure to the bridge. So what we are doing now is working through the options in terms of what that means what the other alternatives are to make sure that we create that connection for Aucklanders. Again that's something that I hope to be able to speak to with a bit more specificity in the coming months.There were a couple of other questions from Mr Luxon in respect of the harbour crossing. We have got our money allocated in ATAP as he pointed out. He asked about the business case process. So the indicative business case was released towards the end of last year. We're working closely with Auckland Council and Auckland Transport around that as well. It is my expectation that—well work is carrying on at the moment—there'll be further development of that in the course of this year. The business case work identifies that in the first instance what we look to do is make interim improvements to the North Shore busway to increase capacity to support more people to get across the bridge quickly and efficiently and that then secondly we look to build up the business case around a second crossing which will be public transport focused. That within ATAP is scheduled as a project for the 2030s and we think that is appropriate timing given the amount of work that needs to go into this and given our understanding about the flows of traffic and the way that we can manage the current asset."