Borrows Chester: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBorrows Chester: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19157. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts):I too get to my feet to say that it is good news in the regions. I know that those people on the other side of the House may not be all that happy about it but in South Taranaki we had some real good news on the weekend around the realignment of the Normanby Overbridge. That is a big thing for us. I know that people in South Taranaki are pretty good at political memorials. Not too many years ago when a certain Minister of Education closed a number of schools around Taranaki a big sign appeared on the side of the road that said “Open season on Mallards”. After last week’s announcements about the realignment of the Normanby Bridge it would not surprise me at all if some big round bales were got together and a huge effigy of Gerry Brownlee was built beside the Normanby Overbridge.The Normanby Overbridge has been a death trap in South Taranaki for 20 years. It has claimed 21 lives over 20 years it has been a blight on our landscape and on State Highway 3 and all that has been done over a number of years is to move the speed limit and put a few signs around it. It has never ever been good enough. Just a few years ago land was bought alongside the railway line so that the road could be reconfigured to take away the need to travel over this overbridge. There were three bridges constructed in the 1920s. They were all identical. One of them has been completely realigned but the other two continue to be traps for motorists. We had the land we had the plans but we did not have the dough. A series of incidents around the country had detracted from the Government’s ability to be able to construct this bridge—such as the earthquakes such as Pike River such as the collapse of South Canterbury Finance etc.—and meant that these projects had to be prioritised.I was absolutely ecstatic to find out on the weekend that that bridge is going to be started next year. It is done at a time when as the previous speaker Jonathan Young said there are other road projects happening in Taranaki that have been given the same priority—albeit in South Taranaki we think that road safety is a little bit more important than a bottleneck. It is good to see that it has happened.The word from the other side is that that is an election bribe. Apparently it is an election bribe when you find some money to do away with a death trap. Well if ever I saw an election bribe it was coming up to the 1999 election.Chris Auchinvole: Oh what happened?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: What happened then Mr Auchinvole was that the then would-be Prime Minister the Leader of the Opposition at the time—Chris Auchinvole: Who was that then?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: —Helen Clark—flew by chopper to a little place called Ruatītī with the then would-be Associate Minister of Transport Harry Duynhoven and stood on another bridge. They stood on another bridge and that was a bridge that superseded one that had collapsed. There was a death on that bridge. It is known because a beekeeper fell through that bridge and was killed. We know that the farmer was a man called Berryman. The Leader of the Opposition at that time a couple of months before the election pledged that post-election should Labour be in Government Labour would then negotiate with Mr Berryman around costs—the costs that he had incurred having been charged before the court having had his home burnt down and emergency services being unable to get there and the losses that he had incurred. Labour made big promises prior to the election and yet in 9 years in Government it did nothing. It made one offer that was to be negotiated but it refused to negotiate having stood in the election campaign and said that the Government should be negotiating with Mr and Mrs Berryman to put this right. In 9 years the Labour Government did not. I am pleased to say that one of my first accomplishments as the member for Whanganui was to go to Cabinet and ask it whether it would sort out this issue and it did. So to have the other side of the House talk about election bribes last weekend when that is their history is huge.Another good point to make is this: we know that the flea on the tail of the dog in the next Government if Labour was ever that next Government would be the Greens. What we know about the Greens is that they hate roads. They do not want to build any roads. This Normanby Overbridge would never be built if a Labour Government ever got elected and that is the message for the people of the Whanganui electorate.