7. Roading Auckland—East-West LinkJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of TransportRoading Auckland—East-West Link7. JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by his statement that there will come a point of time where you can't just keep adding lanes to the motorway"; and does he think that time has come for Auckland?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Yes; and no.Julie Anne Genter: Given that 50 years of motorway building has not fixed congestion in Auckland why is his Government still proposing to spend another $6.5 billion adding more lanes to Auckland motorways in the next 10 years rather than building the rapid transit network that Aucklanders would like?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I think the member will find it was not me; in fact it was officials from across both central government and local government and people with independent expertise who determined that indicatively these are the sorts of projects that will really get Auckland moving.Julie Anne Genter: So can he confirm whether a detailed business case was completed for the $1.85 billion East-West Link motorway when he announced it would be fast tracked in January last year?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes well that is a project that the Government feels strongly needs to be done and the reason for that is that that is a message we are getting consistently from across the spectrum in Auckland as a project that will really get Auckland moving and in particular freight and industry moving in the biggest busiest industrial area within New Zealand.Julie Anne Genter: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was pretty straight. It asked whether he could confirm whether a detailed business case was completed for this project.Mr SPEAKER: No. It then went on to mention the fact that the project was "fast tracked"—they were the words that the member used—so I could accept that the member has addressed that. I think when I consider the first part of your question "Was there a detailed business case?" the Minister has not addressed that. I will allow the member to repeat the question.Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. To assist the order of the House I think if you look at the Hansard the Minister's first word was "Yes" so he did answer that question. Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need that sort of help from Mr Prosser.Julie Anne Genter: Can the Minister confirm whether a detailed business case was completed for the East-West Link motorway when he announced it would be fast tracked?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes as I think the member knows because she has sent in about 50000 Official Information Act requests on this issue. We have done very detailed investigations on this issue. We have gone through a range of options in great detail and we feel very confident we have come out with the best long-term project here.Julie Anne Genter: Given that a detailed business case has not been completed for the East-West Link is the Government now admitting that it is not using objective expertise to inform which projects are going to be prioritised in the next 10 years in Auckland? Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think the member has missed the tenor of my last answer. As I say the New Zealand Transport Agency has done very detailed investigations in relation to the East-West Link project and we feel very confident that it is the right project—it is a project that Auckland wants. I will also make quite clear that we have many other plans in place to keep Auckland moving.Julie Anne Genter: Does the Minister understand that there is an opportunity cost to spending billions of dollars on additional motorway lanes and that if that money was used on high-capacity busways and railways first it would actually help more Aucklanders get around not only on public transport but on the roads that already exist?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think the member is exactly right. That is why we have set up the Auckland Transport Alignment Project so that in an evidence-based way we are going through and determining the projects that represent the best value for money to deal with congestion. That includes a wide range of projects in public transport but also in arterial roads motorways and the like because they all combined represent the best value to deal with Auckland's transport issues."