Utikere Tangi; Brown SimeonTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Thank you Madam Chair. Just going back to the Minister's responses around the roads of National Party significance and the $30 to $46 billion cost it really is embarrassing that only three of them relate to the South Island. I know the Minister's very generous in terms of his time this evening but he's just not giving in the spirit to the mainlanders.I do want to move on to two other areas. The first is road safety and speed. I wonder if the Minister can hear my question—either Minister. There was acceptance in the hearing by Waka Kotahi that the strategy and approach that had decreased the level of road deaths to date which was currently the lowest it had been in the last five years despite the traffic volumes on the network increasing by 6 percent during that time—and was wanting to know how that strategy or approach aligns with the Government's approach to speed reduction initiatives. On the DSI stat—or the death and serious injury statistics—how have they informed the Minister's decision-making approach to speed reductions in that particular space? And then also whether he accepts or not that road safety is a primary consideration in this space and what advice he's either sought or advice he has received about the impact of increasing speed limits on road crash numbers on fatalities and really looking at what that priority level looks like.The final point I want to ask the Minister a question about is around drivers' licences and whether he agrees as was placed in front of the committee that there are in fact inequities when it comes to Māori members of the community but also actually around Pacific and new migrants and if so what specific actions he is taking to address those transport inequities for them that's actually referenced in the select committee report and how the specific barriers around licensing for either new drivers or relicensed drivers might actually be overcome as a result of some of the work that he has planned.Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): I just want to thank members for their questions. I note my colleague the Hon Matt Doocey asked about the Belfast to Pegasus motorway and Woodend bypass. I think when it was initially proposed it was something around $100 million I think—the project—$120 million. Of course that was some time ago. The reality is the fact that that was not delivered under the last Government but was cancelled will mean those costs have gone up and that ultimately means we are delivering less as a Government. The last Government makes it more challenging to deliver other projects now due to that increased cost so we are left with the significant challenges that we have in terms of the pipeline of projects that are needed. In terms of member Andy Foster and his question around the issue in Marlborough I acknowledge the challenges there. Ultimately what we're focused toward here is making sure we get the agency back to core business building and maintaining the roads. And ultimately there's been significant engagement between the agency and the council in Marlborough to ensure that the appropriate response is made in terms of addressing many of those challenges. But acknowledge that with these severe weather events they do create some difficult challenges for local communities.In relation to the question from member Tangi Utikere around safety—and of course safety is one of the strategic priorities within the draft Government policy statement (GPS) on transport and if he was to turn to page 18 of the draft GPS he would see the significant increase that has occurred in the last 10 years of deaths and crashes involving alcohol or drugs. That has gone from around 100 deaths per year involving alcohol or drugs to near 200 deaths involving alcohol and drugs. And so of course a priority is to ensure that we can fix the legislation regarding drug testing and progress is being made on that in drafting that legislation. The second is in relation to increasing the number of breath tests on our roads—a critically important thing and I'm noting that last year I think there was close to the target of breath tests achieved but for the previous number of years that had not been achieved. That is a really important measure of actually trying to improve road safety and critically important.Also just ensuring that we're building the roading infrastructure that New Zealanders need. And of course we've seen the evidence of for example the Kāpiti Expressway where there's been a significant reduction in deaths and serious injuries in the Kāpiti area following the construction of the Kāpiti Expressway. And so it's critically important we build the major infrastructure that New Zealanders need so people can get where they need to go quickly and safely.