Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I stand here I think probably more proud to speak on this than any piece of legislation that I have spoken on in my time in this House. I say that because I am a proud Aucklander a citizen of Tāmaki-makau-rau the first city of the South Pacific and one of the most beautiful and dynamic places to live in this country and in the world.This bill is about unlocking the potential of our city. It is about recognising that our city is a place that people want to come to and live that they want to come to and do their business that they want to come to and grow and thrive. We can either treat growth like something that is going to choke us—because that is what it is doing now—or we can treat growth as an opportunity by putting the investment into appropriate infrastructure to make sure that we harness that growth for the benefit of the people and the businesses that make up our beautiful city. That is what this bill is about.I'm going to come to some of the comments from our colleagues on the other side of the House but I want to front up by asking this simple question: where are the solutions? Where are the solutions? Have we heard a single solution to Auckland's chronic congestion from that side of the House? For goodness sake we had the transport spokesperson—I believe it's Jami-Lee Ross these days—standing up and speaking on this bill and I don't think I heard a single point of recognition that Auckland has a problem with traffic congestion let alone a single solution to that problem which is rated by most people in Auckland as our city's single biggest problem.So I say to the National Party: that's fine. You continue with the negativity. You continue with the yelling and the screaming and the carping and the scaremongering. This Government's going to focus on the solutions and that is what this bill is all about.Brett Hudson: You're going to focus on fleecing the taxpayer particularly the poor ones because you hate them the most.MICHAEL WOOD: It's about recognising the problem. It's about putting forward the solutions and then—and this is a new one Mr Hudson because your Government never got to grips with it—it's about actually funding them.Here's a bit of credit—here's a bit of credit I'll give the previous National Government. The previous National Government—I do give them genuine credit for this—sat down with the Auckland Council last year and they said that we do need an agreed plan and it was called the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP). That was a good idea. The only problem with it was they left a $6 billion funding gap right in the middle of it so it was nothing more than a glorified wish-list. What this Government under Minister Phil Twyford has done is come in and said We are actually not just going to come up with a better plan. We are going to do the hard work of funding it." and that is what the regional fuel tax that is enabled by this bill delivers.This bill is about getting Auckland moving. Last year we received a report—and I'm sure most members of this House read a report—which was put together by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research that was supported by many of the key business groups in Auckland that estimated that Auckland loses something like $2 billion in economic activity every single year because of the chronic congestion on our roads. So it's costing real money. But even more than that what I see it costing the residents of the city that I live in and the city that I love is their time. It is their time: their time to enjoy their lives; their time to spend with their families. The amount of sheer frustration that Aucklanders have sitting in their car hour after hour in gridlock is simply untenable and our people—the people of Auckland; the 1.6 million people of that region—deserve so much better.So I want to talk about the vision and we've heard none of that from the other side of the House. The vision that this Government has for transport in Auckland is to finally build a linked-up transport network that lets our people and our freight move around our communities in Auckland freely and efficiently. It's a vision for thriving local community centres that aren't clogged up by traffic every single hour of the day. It's a vision for kids being able to walk and cycle safely to school like they used to be able to but they're afraid to now because the traffic is so bad and there aren't safe options for them. That is what this bill helps us get to and that is what this bill pays for.I want to deal with those questions around the paying for it. There's no doubt—there's no doubt—that's the difficult bit to bite. We've got the vision here; we've got to find a way of paying for it. There was a $9 billion gap that this Government had to plug and this regional fuel tax bill creates $4.3 billion of additional revenue to help us plug that gap over the 10 years. The impact is $5 per week per household and obviously most people would rather not pay that—I would rather not pay that and most of my constituents wouldn't either. But when I sit down and I talk with those residents they know the problems that they have in Auckland and they would rather that we had the courage collectively to face up to those problems and to fix it at this point in time.I want to address some of the alternatives that Mr Carter spoke about in his address. Actually as I come to Mr Carter can I acknowledge the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee across the House who did work on this bill. It was a constructive select committee process notwithstanding the fundamental disagreement on the bill. Most members of the committee did engage constructively on a number of the issues that Mr Carter highlighted in his comments and I do want to acknowledge them as well as the very good submitters and the officials who supported the bill as well.The reality is if we want to shift to congestion charging we had one very excellent submitter—who I'm sure Mr Carter and other members of the committee will recall—who were experts in this field and who in fact would be one of the companies who would financially benefit from the implementation of congestion charging because their job is to implement such systems in international cities around the world. What they told us is that we're probably six years away from being able to fully implement the kind of congestion charging solution that we would really need to fund Auckland's transport. So it's an option that pretty much everyone agrees with around the table but to say that we're going to sit back and wait for another six years as the congestion gets worse—well maybe that's the Opposition's solution; that's not what this Government's going to do.The question of maybe applying road-user charges across the country—really? Well I invite the members opposite who are promoting that as a solution to go back to their constituencies and tell their residents that their solution is to have a road-user charge to fund Auckland's transport infrastructure. This bill is about Auckland taking responsibility for itself and fronting up and funding the solutions that we need.Let's come to the fundamental choice here. The fundamental choice is do something and deliver ATAP or not. That's what it is and I've yet to hear from members of the Opposition whether they're actually brave enough to front up to the residents in their constituencies in Auckland and tell them that if they were the Government the projects would be off. That's the reality. If you can't pay for them—remember as we've been told from that side of the House many many times there's no magic money tree. If we don't fund them the projects don't happen.I have here the list of projects that—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I'd like to hear this debate.MICHAEL WOOD: —the regional fuel tax funds. One of the good things about this bill is that it's very specific. The money that is earned through the regional fuel tax can only apply to the particular projects that are in the proposal and that's really important for people to know.So let's talk through these. Let's talk through the fact that there are major improvements to city centre bus infrastructure. Are we going to hear from the Hon Nikki Kaye that suddenly we're not going to implement that? We've got projects here to improve airport access from Onehunga and Botany. I'm waiting to hear Denise Lee and Mr Ross say that we're not going to go ahead with those projects. We've got projects here funded by the regional fuel tax to enable 15 new electric trains and to enable electrification to Pukekohe My Bayly. Mr Bayly wouldn't you love to have electric trains running to Pukekohe? Well here's the good news sir: help is on the way and the regional fuel tax is going to help fund it. What about the downtown ferry redevelopment? Once again the Hon Nikki Kaye's been pretty quiet about that one. I'm sure she supports it. My colleague immediately to the front of me Marja Lubeck I think erupted with glee earlier on when we heard about the funding from the regional fuel tax for Penlink a project that was promised and promised over nine years of that Government but never actually delivered.Andrew Bayly: Two lanes.MICHAEL WOOD: You can talk about as many lanes as you want Mr Bayly. The bottom line is you delivered zero lanes with Penlink. This Government is actually fronting up with the funding and I look forward to Mr Mark Mitchell going to his constituents in Rodney and telling them that he doesn't support the regional fuel tax and he doesn't support the implementation of Penlink.Here's a really good one: the Mill Road corridor. Let's wait to hear from the Hon Judith Collins about that one.The one I want to end on is actually a very very serious point and that is the issue of road safety because over the last six years we have had an increase in the road toll of 78 percent in Auckland—78 percent more people dying because of a failure to invest in road safety initiatives in our city. Real lives on the line. This plan delivers road safety initiatives that will save lives. I challenge that Opposition to say that they're not going to front up and fund that through the regional fuel tax either.I want to end on this great quote from the New Zealand Herald editorial—they're full of crackers. "The country's growth and productivity cannot continue to be held ransom"—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."