Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker but the only Minister who's had a worse year as a Minister than Phil Twyford is Julie Anne Genter. So it was a bit strange to hear the Minister of Transport thanking and congratulating the Hon Julie Anne Genter because she's had a shocker. It was interesting to hear him talk about road safety improvements which she's in charge of because one of the things we discovered at select committee last week—and I see my colleague Jamie Strange peering intently at me. He will remember this from the select committee as we had the transport agency before us. It turns out that in the last year—guess how much money from their budget they've spent on road safety?Andrew Falloon: Oh lots! Surely lots!CHRIS BISHOP: Forty-eight percent. So they spent only half. This is a Government that trumpets road safety. They're always banging on about it. It is very important. They've transferred all this money out of the State highway budget into road safety improvements and they've stopped all the four-lane expressways which actually save lives and they're putting it into median barriers and wire ropes and all the rest of it. That's good except the transport agency's spent only 48 percent of the money. So for the Minister to describe Julie Anne Genter as having done a good job of administrating that I think frankly beggars belief. That's before you get into the debacle of the other elements of her portfolio.But look we will be supporting the bill to select committee. It is largely non-controversial—or I would like to think it is non-controversial. It's amending the Land Transport Management Act the Land Transport Act and the Railways Act to strengthen the regulatory leadership of the Transport Agency. We support the establishment of a statutorily independent Director of Land Transport and we support the changes that the Minister has outlined. We want to have a good look at the bill at the select committee and in particular we're very keen on looking at the changes around speed limits essentially the processes around speed limit changes and there is a clause in the bill. It looks like a reasonably uncontroversial clause. It's one of those classic ones where it sort of looks anodyne at first glance but you've just got to make sure the officials aren't—Jamie Strange: Don't be suspicious.CHRIS BISHOP: Well Jamie Strange says I'm suspicious. Well look I've worked in and around Government for a while. You've got to be a bit careful sometimes Mr Strange. You'll learn this young squire. You'll learn as you go forward that sometimes the officials—Hon Tim Macindoe: I think he's older than you are.CHRIS BISHOP: I think he is actually. That's embarrassing. I was his captain on the parliamentary cricket tour and—Kieran McAnulty: Co-captain.CHRIS BISHOP: Co-captain that's right. But Mr McAnulty couldn't keep him in line. It was left to the National MP to keep Jamie Strange in line over in the UK.Hon Tim Macindoe: We have the same problem in Hamilton.CHRIS BISHOP: Doesn't David Bennett sort him out? I heard the Hon David Bennett sorted it out. Anyway we're somewhat away from the bill but I'm just making the point that we're going to want to have a good look at that change. It looks anodyne and we just want to make sure it actually does exactly what it says on the tin.The Minister has rightly talked about the transport agency strengthening and bolstering its regulatory obligations and its regulatory functions. We support that and we support those changes. Obviously we've has the somewhat damning review that was done by MartinJenkins into regulatory stewardship by the transport agency. The Minister I think has quite unfairly tried to sheet that home to the last Government's Ministers and tried to blame Ministers for directing the transport agency to not focus on regulatory stewardship and effective enforcement of its regulatory powers. Nothing could be further from the truth and again quite misleadingly the Minister has basically said the MartinJenkins report actually says that which it doesn't if you read it.So I think that's been regrettable from the Minister because actually there's bipartisan support across the House for the Transport Agency being able to effectively discharge its responsibilities and we will of course support any measures that improve the ability of the transport agency to do that—to allow it to do its regulatory interventions around speed management and around enforcement and centralisation of its regulatory authority which is in the purpose of the bill. So we support the bill to a select committee. There are a few things we're going to want to have a look at. Unlike the Justice Committee the Transport and Infrastructure Committee does not have a lot of business and we're going to get into this. The Justice Committee I think it would be fair to say is overburdened. It is encumbered with a lot of work. It's funny—they've just finished the inquiry into the 2016 local body elections and they're about to start the 2019 inquiry. That's how busy they've been. But the transport committee is not so busy and we will get into it. We will have a good look at it and we look forward to coming back in the new year and examining the bill in more detail. Thank you.