O'Connor GregTransportGREG O'CONNOR (Chairperson of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee): Thank you Mr Chair. It gives me great pleasure as the chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee to begin this debate. I want to acknowledge the current and former member of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee across the aisle and of course fellow members on this side of the aisle as well. A very hard-working committee. [Coughs.] They do say you choke if you're not telling the truth but I'm sure there's no truth in that at all. It's just my dinner.So anyway the committee heard from the Minister through the appropriations and I might say that the entities involved in the vote are the Ministry of Transport Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency KiwiRail Holdings Limited City Rail Link Limited the Civil Aviation Authority Maritime New Zealand and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission. In 2021-22 $7.906 billion was sought for vote transport—this is about 3.8 percent less than the estimated actual spending of $8.22 billion under the vote in 2020-21.Permanent appropriations for the National Land Transport Programme make up 50 percent of the vote at $3.97 billion. This includes funding for improvements and maintenance on State highways and local roads infrastructure for public transport services road safety the rail network walking and cycling improvements the coastal shipping. This is administered by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and the agency works with councils and other approved organisations on the projects in the plan.Appropriations totalling about 22 percent of the vote are allocated to rail in 2021-22. This includes ferries and the Crown share investment in the Auckland City Rail Link. It's interesting since these appropriations just how much has actually happened in this space and you'll see announcements recently around rail improvements in the Hutt Valley. A big part of what we heard was around the need to reduce the carbon emissions in transport. The Minister drew our attention to the challenges climate change presents to the transport system which accounts for 47 percent of New Zealand's carbon dioxide emissions and around 20 percent of the country's net emissions. These emissions have risen by 90 percent since 1990.In May the ministry released a report that proposes policies and other actions which could lead to the transport sector with net zero emissions. Again just an example of how things have moved the committee is now hearing the submissions into the Land Transport (Clean Vehicles) Amendment Bill. So again what we heard back in July has certainly come to fruition. Part of that of course is to bring the carbon dioxide emissions of light vehicles entering New Zealand down by almost 40 percent to an average of 105 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2025. The current average is 171 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.We also went on to talk about heavy transport and the challenges that there will be in reducing the emissions from heavy transport. The question I'd like to put to the Minister perhaps is the focus on heavy transport and the work that is going to be done there to reduce emissions in that area. This is a very topical part of the whole New Zealand scene particularly around the climate change and so the committee is looking forward to doing a considerable amount of work. And I'll just leave one more question for the Minister perhaps. The New Zealand Upgrade Programme and the infrastructure package there—some details on that. So with that I'll hand it over to the Minister.