King MattMATT KING (National—Northland): It's a pleasure to speak on the Vote Transport Estimates debate and we had the pleasure of Minister Twyford's presence during our select committee. He spoke about transport options and about supporting economic growth safety and resilience and then he proceeded to tell us that he was canning the most safe resilient and biggest economic driver of growth in Northland—the road of national significance. Now the spin doctors have obviously told him to use the word gold-plated"—he loves using the words "gold-plated dual carriageways". That's what he likes to use.He should talk about "gold-plated trams". That's last century's technology. Trams are what you see in those black and white movies the sped-up ones—those are where you see the trams not in today's world.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Ha ha! There we go.MATT KING: Absolutely correct.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Say it with a straight face sunshine. Go on.MATT KING: OK. So what he's doing is he's robbing Peter of thousands of millions of dollars to give Paul tens of millions of dollars. So you've taken billions of dollars out of the roading budget and you're giving back tens of millions.I asked Minister Twyford about this very question. State Highway 1 in Northland—OK we used to be known as a bit of a backwater a few years ago. In the last five years we've grown out of this world! That road is not fit for purpose that State Highway 1.Jamie Strange: How many bridges you got?MATT KING: Ha ha! They're not fit for purpose—not fit for purpose right? There were 50 points in the Tai Tokerau Northland Economic Action Plan—50 drivers of growth. The number one priority identified in that action plan was the northern motorway OK? It has widespread support from all of the community all the mayors—pretty much everyone. It's the number one priority for all the councils in Northland. Mayor Sheryl Mai Mayor John Carter Mayor Jason Smith and Bill Shepherd the Northland Regional Council chair all travelled to Wellington and met with Minister Twyford for an hour and a half pleading with him to spare the Northland motorway and build it. And you know what? They wasted their time. It fell on deaf ears. He basically said "No way."I see from the Government's new Government policy statement priorities: City Rail Link; Auckland Transport Alignment priorities; light rail Auckland; Auckland Transport Alignment Project funding; and rail. Those are the five; the sixth one—tail-end Charlie—finally is "road safety and State Highway 1 initiatives". So it's all about rail and it's all about Auckland.Minister Twyford uses the term "review re-evaluate"; I think he should just come up and be honest and say he means "cancel slash and burn". This Government is pulling down a National Party initiative which was the roads of national significance—they're ripping them down. The rest of the developed world is building dual carriageways—that's what the rest of the world is doing. Instead we're promised some extra passing lanes—and I'm referring to Northland here. Minister Twyford in answer to a direct question from me said we're going to be getting extra passing lanes maybe some barriers maybe some rumble strips and a couple of intersections. So the motorway that we were going to build from Whangarei to Northport—the busiest road in Northland—and they're replacing it with a roundabout. That's all we're getting.This Government is nearly one year in and all we've got to show in Northland are these reflectorised little posts running down the busiest part of the road just out south of Whangarei. And you know what's happened? It's been a total failure. They're covered in road muck. The reflectorised strips are smashed all over the road. It's a band-aid. Our State Highway—a makeover won't cut it. We have to have a dual carriageway engineered camber and gradient suitable for trucks.So Northland is getting stiffed by this Government and it's going to take a little bit more than Shane Jones' slush fund to fix that. I didn't want to mention his name because it's been mentioned so many times but it's going to take a little bit more than Mr Shane Jones' slush fund. Northlanders are unhappy like the West Coasters and like the people from Taranaki—poorly thought-out policy driven by idealism not realism.There's a $500000 feasibility study for rail in Northland; I've offered to do it for a fraction of that price. I'll knock out the report in half a day and then I'll take Northland taxpayers out to lunch. Thank you."