Hughes Darren: General Debate 
Hughes Darren: General Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:2934] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Labour has found a lot of reasons over the years to disagree with the views of the Hon Bill English but the one thing we do agree with Bill English on is the views he shared with the country about Judith Collins. We think Bill English was absolutely right when he said she believes too much of the stuff she puts out about herself. The main thing that every new MP must hope for is that his or her colleagues will say nicer things about them than that member’s colleagues say about her all around Parliament. The test of success in any caucus is not to be treated like Judith Collins is by her colleagues. The most interesting thing during that speech was that all the National MPs in the Chamber were too busy talking to each other to listen to a word that she had to say. I thought that that in itself actually showed how seriously she is being taken by them. 
I will talk today about the Mt Albert by-election. Judith Collins had the audacity to mention the Labour candidate David Shearer a very fine man who will succeed the Rt Hon Helen Clark in providing a great level of service to the people of Mt Albert. But the National members were not very keen to talk about one name which I will mention today: poor old Mr Ravi Musuku. Mr Ravi Musuku is the man who year after year has padded around the streets of Mt Albert to push the National Party banner around that electorate. Then the first time he had the chance to actually stand in the seat when the National members themselves say they think they have a chance of winning it they cut the legs from under him. So let us not hear from National members of their concern about how people are treated in any other political party because National Musuku-ed him. National has made the name Musuku a term in the political lexicon now: when someone gets shoved out of the way they have been Musuku-ed. I am sure that the Indian community in Auckland will be very interested to know that when a real chance comes up for the National Party it leaps right away to its preferred political people—people like Melissa Lee who will do whatever the leadership wants. I feel sorry for Ravi Musuku and for all the words that have been said about the Mt Albert by-election. 
Labour has a candidate for Mt Albert who is not an MP right now. The people of Mt Albert have the chance to choose somebody who will join Parliament to push his or her cause not one of the other candidates who are already sitting in here and drawing a salary but who are now seeking to represent them. 
What are some of the issues that confront that fine electorate? The Hon Annette King has already mentioned transport. We believe that the Waterview Connection and public transport are two of the critical issues that confront that electorate as we go forward into the by-election. The member Gerry Brownlee—who would not actually know what he said—was calling out when Annette King was speaking or barking out in that energetic way that he does “What happened under Labour?”. Under Labour the western ring route was actually started and under Labour it was almost completed. The one step that remained was the Waterview Connection and we did all the work on that. We put everything into connection with that so it could go ahead as a project. The Waterview Connection was all ready to go and National came in and jettisoned that project. 
First of all in January National decided it was going to get rid of the Waterview Connection project by saying a review had come up from the Ministry of Transport and Treasury and it needed more time to do some work on the issues that had come up in the review. Then of course the Mt Albert by-election came along and poor old Steven Joyce who throws figures all around the paddock said it would cost $2.77 billion for the twin tunnels for the Waterview Connection which therefore meant that the project would be unaffordable. We know that those figures do not stand up to any form of scrutiny at all. In fact we know that the National Government is so keen to jettison the Waterview tunnels for the people of Mt Albert and Mt Roskill that it is finding any project to add in to the cost of it in order to get to the figure of $2.77 billion. I would not be surprised if National has added in the cost of buying back Air New Zealand in 2002 to the cost of the Waterview tunnels—anything goes. We find out that the extension to State Highway 16 has been counted as part of the Waterview Connection. That has to be done anyway. There is no great magic about State Highway 16 but it is included anyway. 
But the real thing that National is doing is adding in the financing costs of over half a billion dollars. Well at least that is what Steven Joyce started off by saying. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: You should. You don’t have the money you had. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: There is the man who wants to build a tunnel under the Waitemata Harbour from the middle of Auckland to the North Shore. Wayne Mapp should keep his trap shut when it comes to transport projects. He did not give even one speech about that project and it would cost $5 billion so let us not hear from him. We might as well include that tunnel in the Waterview Connection costs given the way that National is going.  
The Waterview Connection is a project that has been consulted on. It is the most consulted on project in New Zealand’s roading history. Hundred and hundreds of people in Mt Albert have said they are in favour of it. When people brought in their consultation submissions we found that 75 percent of people were in favour of twin tunnels going through both communities. Labour will build those tunnels and National should front up and tell us why it will not build them.