Tolley Anne: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: General Debate[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19148. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (National - East Coast):A few months ago I stood very gingerly in the middle of the road from Gisborne to Wairoa at a place called Shaws Cut on State Highway 2 which is just north of Nūhaka and cut the ribbon on the last of about six or seven new passing opportunities that this Government has funded—$4 million of passing opportunities on that road. One of the New Zealand Transport Agency staff approached me and said: “Minister I just want to thank you very much.” He said “The plans for these passing opportunities have been developed they have been costed they have been ready to go and they were stuck on the shelf all of us knowing that they were going to make that road safer they were going to make that road more efficient for motorists”—Jacqui Dean: Saving lives.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —saving lives—“but of course they never reached the threshold and they were put on the shelf until that day when there was some extra money and you and your Government and your Minister of Transport got us that extra money. I just want to say thank you. And by the way” he said “there are another couple left on the shelf.”So imagine my delight on Sunday at our National Party conference when the Prime Minister got up and announced extra spending—$212 million of extra spending on regional roading—and that two of my passing opportunities were there in the first five. I was delighted. This is an example of new money from the Future Investment Fund creating assets out in our regions. I know that the Opposition hates it because we are out there in the regions and we understand what works.Secondly I was delighted when I heard that a bridge that is well known in my part of the world is featured in the next six projects. It is called the Motu Bridge. It is a one-way bridge on State Highway 2. When the Hon Gerry Brownlee was in Gisborne just a few weeks ago he said to me: “God everyone talked to me about the two-laning of the Motu Bridge and how it had to happen and how they wanted the money to do it.” So there it was announced by the Prime Minister on Sunday—a two-laning of the Motu Bridge. I can tell you there were champagne corks popping all over Gisborne at that announcement. But hello I read in the paper that the Labour list MP is not welcoming this Motu Bridge investment.Chris Auchinvole: Who’s this?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is someone called Moana and—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member’s full name please.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is someone called Moana Mackey and she is claiming that that money $3 million should have been put into the uneconomical rail line instead of the Motu Bridge. Well actually what she forgets is that it is going to cost $3 million to $4 million every year to keep that subsidy to keep that rail line going. Instead we have $3 million-odd going into the two-laning of the Motu Bridge. She went on to say that she could not remember the last time she actually had to stop for another motorist and she wondered why the Government had not come up with a decent plan to create real wealth and grow jobs in the region.Well funnily enough not long after she was in the paper saying that I saw an email from a local grower. He said he had noted that she had never had a problem. Well he makes the point that Dr Ganesh Nana who has been in our area quite a lot and works for Business and Economic Research had said that getting produce from provincial New Zealand to market efficiently is the best form of economic development spending you can have. And for once I agree with him. This grower went on to say: “Apart from the obvious the difference between the Toyota Prius that Moana Mackey apparently drives and a 50-tonne truck is the time and energy it uses getting up to speed or up to an efficient velocity. To have to stop or slow to a standstill at any point literally costs money getting back to speed—worse if you’re about to embark on a 7-kilometre uphill steep gradient. This means you have to travel the whole hill two or three gears lower which is heaps less efficient because you couldn’t maintain momentum at the bottom.” This grower is an example of the misunderstanding from that side of the House about what creates jobs and efficiencies in produce in our regions. So Moana is driving—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!Hon ANNE TOLLEY:So Moana Mackey is driving in her little Prius and does not have a problem on the bridge but the guys who are getting their produce to market in order to create wealth know the problem.