Henare Tau: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 03 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:12956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Forty-four smoke-free days ago—I am up to 44 now—I raced along the north-western motorway and thankfully— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Raced? Are you a boy racer Tau? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No actually it was in the back of an ambulance. I thought to myself on the way to Auckland City Hospital that thankfully we had a great motorway network to get me from my house to the emergency ward in quick time. 
In some ways I am grateful that I live in Auckland because we have the infrastructure there. We are going ahead at a great speed thanks to the Hon Steven Joyce. Unfortunately in the rural areas we still have a long way to go. The identification of roads of national significance by the Minister Mr Joyce say one thing to me and it is that if we are in trouble if we are in need of New Zealand’s health system then we can get to where we need to go—namely a hospital. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Which hospital did you go to? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I went to Auckland City Hospital. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Not Waitakere? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No not Waitakere Hospital. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Oh what happened? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I can tell Ms Sepuloni that the reason is that we do not have a 24-hour emergency department at Waitakere—not yet. At the end of the year we will. Again that is thanks to a great Minister of Health and an excellent local member Paula Bennett. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: But didn’t members on that side oppose that hospital in the first place? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No no we did not. We did not oppose it. In fact many of us congratulated the Hon Annette King when she went ahead and built that hospital. Now years later we will finally get a 24-hour emergency operation. I am thankful that we have been able to step into the breach and offer those in west Auckland a 24-hour— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: It would be great if that side can achieve one thing. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is interesting that the member pipes up. She talked about Henderson Valley. I am surprised that she even knows where Waitakere is because she is not from there. She was going to run for election down country but I think that seat has been taken by a “little” person—Andrew Little. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: I wonder whether that member will be selected to run for Te Atatu. Will he be selected for Te Atatu or is someone else going to come along? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Now we are talking about Te Atatu. Let us talk about Te Atatu. Let us pull the pin right now and have a by-election. Let us see who is ready and willing even with my new hardware—even with my new hardware. 
Gareth Hughes from the Green Party did a disservice to New Zealand tonight. He talked about the Rugby World Cup and how our rivers are unswimmable. Well he should ask the kids out in Te Atatu whether they like to swim in the creek. Yes they do. They are always there on a Saturday and Sunday. One can still catch parore one can still catch—if one is lucky—snapper and one can still catch kahawai. He went on about light bulbs in hotels for goodness’ sake! He talked dirty about our country. He said that we had a railway line that did not go anywhere. 
For goodness’ sake this is not Hong Kong. This is not Hong Kong. What does Gareth Hughes expect? Does he expect a fast railway from the airport to the bottom of town or an underground system as good as Hong Kong’s? I think not. There is not enough of us in this country to pay for it. That is a fact. With what our Minister of Transport has done within his budget we have been able to move along with our infrastructure at a great speed of knots. 
Talking about infrastructure I say how good it is to travel along the second Mangere Bridge. What used to take at least an hour from Te Atatu peninsula to the airport can now take 35 to 40 minutes and that is in peak-hour traffic. I congratulate the Minister on bringing this legislation to the House and I say what a privilege it was to serve on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that saw this legislation through. Thank you very much.