Bishop Chris; Twyford PhilCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you Minister of Transport for that answer. There's a wee nugget that I suspect people may be interested in which is the question of price and pricing and demand management which I think people would cautiously acknowledge is something that needs to happen and we look forward to hearing more about that in due course. I want to ask the Minister about the third and fourth main line in Auckland. I acknowledge the Government's commitment through the New Zealand Upgrade Programme to starting work on the third main and I just ask the Minister whether or not consideration was given to doing the third and fourth at the same time. There's quite a lot of support certainly from my experience in Auckland in particular for futureproofing that line. You won't find many people who disagree that we desperately need the third main now and probably within five to 10 years we'll need the fourth—so whether or not consideration was given to that and whether or not the Government would look at expediting doing the fourth at the same time as they do the third. My understanding from reading the business case from I think two or three years ago is that there are—I think the phrase used was cost synergies"—to doing the fourth at the same time as doing the third and certainly if you did that it'd have the National Party's support.Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Thank you Mr Chairman. I really appreciate the member's question about the fourth main. In my view the building of the third main an additional and third rail line running in both directions along the southern corridor between Quay Park downtown and Wiri in the south—key industrial and logistics district in Auckland's southern suburbs—to my mind is probably the most important transport project right now in Auckland because of the sheer congestion on the network between freight and commuter traffic. That's why when we put together the New Zealand Upgrade Programme that we announced in January building the third main was the sitter to be included in that $6.8 billion programme.The member raises a really good question about the fourth main. We weren't able to contemplate bringing it into the programme at that time but he raises a really good question and it's something that I'm willing for us to give serious consideration to to go away and think about it. Part of the reason for it is that much of Auckland's growth for the next 30 to 50 years is going to happen in the southern suburbs. It's already happening—huge growth pressures. The big problem that we've got is the southern motorway is a bottleneck. It's not realistic to think you know in the next 30 years we can build 28 motorway lanes because where will those cars go when they get into the city? We have to actually achieve mode shift. We've got to build rapid transit including boosting the capacity of the heavy rail network and I think serving the growth that happens in Auckland's southern suburbs through high-frequency electric modern commuter rail out to Pukekohe as we're doing through the electrification right now and then I would like to see it go further into Tuakau Pōkeno and really open up rail-led urban development in that southern corridor. That's the way we can support high quality growth without killing people by jamming up the southern motorway 24 hours a day. So I appreciate the member's suggestion.CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Well following on from that—and thank you to the Minister for that answer and as I say I do urge the Government to do the fourth main at the same time as doing the third. I think the business case I referred to earlier—I think I'm right in saying that the benefit-cost ratio was actually higher if you did both the third and fourth at the same time. In the grand scheme of things it's not actually that much money given the benefits that it would accrue to the transport system in Auckland.Genuine question for the Minister around the expansion of the heavy rail network in Auckland and why the decision has been made over the last three or four years to focus on light rail as I suppose the solution for congestion in Auckland and transit in Auckland and why given that there's been such heavy investment quite rightly into the Auckland rail network through the City Rail Link (CRL)—many billions—I think the budget's now $4.5 billion or so. Why given the heavy investment into the CRL but also the electrification over the last 10 to 12 years which has driven very strong patronage growth on the Auckland rail network currently and in the past few years has the decision been made to move to an alternative mode of public transport in Auckland which is frankly a mode that is not that known to New Zealanders? I mean many New Zealanders will have gone to Melbourne and other countries and seen trams and light rail in other countries but it's not something that we have a great familiarity with in New Zealand both from an engineering point of view and from a public familiarity with.So just a genuine question to the Minister as to why the decision has been made to move away from the expansion of the heavy rail network—I'm thinking for example of lines such as rail to the airport the heavy rail to the airport from Puhinui or down from Onehunga to the airport and particularly in light of the fact that that was the Auckland rail plan for the better part of 40 to 50 years going back to the De Leuw Cather report of the 1970s "Robbie's Rapid Rail". There's probably a reason why that tongue twister didn't quite catch on.Hon Scott Simpson: Try it again—say it again.CHRIS BISHOP: Robbie's Rapid Rail—there I did it. You know going back to those days and indeed all the way through until the Auckland plan of 2012. So just a general question as to why the Government is particularly interested and to relate it back to the Estimates the Estimates do contain money for rapid transit and light rail—so just a question to the Minister about that. Thank you."