Twyford Phil: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4399. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the member Chris Tremain the member whose hair is his finest political asset. But the member I am afraid is going to be in trouble in 2014. He is in trouble because he is supporting the amalgamation of Napier and Hastings. He has no regard for the wishes of his constituents. He does not care what the local people think. He favours amalgamation and he is going to be in trouble in 2014. The member Chris Tremain has I think come out in favour of retaining the Gisborne to Napier rail link. I think he might have come out publicly in favour. Would the member like to nod if he is in favour of retaining the Gisborne to Napier rail link? Because this is an issue that is very much at the top of the minds of the people in his constituency. Like all over New Zealand they are losing jobs under National. They are losing public services. Their economy is suffering because this Government has no economic plan for the regions. They are suffering because they are having to pay more rates because National has cut the funding for local roads in their electorate. 
I want to talk briefly about how the roads of national significance have taken away money from almost every provincial region in New Zealand. They have squeezed every provincial council and every local council. They now face the choice of either subsidising the roads of national significance or shelling out from their own pockets to fund local roads whose funding has been cut or they have to let the local road network fall into disrepair. This Government has committed $12 billion to the roads of national significance and now for the second 3-year period it is flatlining the funding for local roads which means in the face of inflation and rising costs for things like bitumen that local roads budgets are facing real cuts. 
Ask the ratepayers and ask the councillors and the mayors in any rural and provincial councils. In the last few weeks I have been to Southland Clutha Gore Central Otago Queenstown Waitaki Timaru Ashburton Invercargill and Dunedin and I am here to tell you that every single mayor in those council areas is angry with the National Government for what it has done in cutting the funding of local roads. In many of those councils the budget for local roads amounts to half the operating budget of those councils. In places like Ashburton which has got 2600 kilometres of local roads to maintain it has only 12000 ratepayers. That is an enormous burden that this Government has placed on those communities in New Zealand’s provincial heartland by forcing them to either subsidise the roads of national significance or let their local roads fall into disrepair. I want to quote Mayor Angus McKay of the Ashburton District Council who said recently: “We are frustrated that the Government appears to have chosen to focus their expenditure on city motorways”—the roads of national significance—“at the expense of the rural areas that generate a significant proportion of income for the country.” 
When I was in Timaru last week they told me about the two roads in and out of the Clandeboye Fonterra plant. That plant at Clandeboye accounts for 5 percent of this country’s export earnings. That is a massive amount of our export wealth as a country yet the 12000 ratepayers of Timaru have to fund and maintain that road and all the heavy traffic on it out of their rates. They have been put in a position where they are literally begging this Government to declare the roads in and out of Clandeboye as a road of national significance. That is what you have to do in this country under this Government to get any sort of serious attention and get the resources needed to keep those roads in good nick—you have to make them a road of national significance. 
Drummond dairy farmer Geoff Lindsay a few weeks ago at the Southland District Council long-term plan hearing had this suggestion. He suggested that the Southland District Council dig up the road outside the finance Minister’s sometime residence in Dipton as a way of conveying the plight that the people of Southland feel— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: His holiday home. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: His holiday home—thank you Mr Cosgrove. They are so angry in Southland about the neglect of their local road network that they want to dig up the road outside the finance Minister’s holiday home in Dipton. That says something about the mood in provincial New Zealand. They are losing jobs they are losing public services and they are having their local roads funding cut. Why does National treat provincial New Zealand with such utter contempt?