Hughes Gareth: General Debate 
Hughes Gareth: General Debate 
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GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. I think it is fitting to follow the transport Minister Steven Joyce because I am talking about his handiwork on the Kapiti coast where he is bulldozing a motorway through the community and just like in that last speech he is making up for a lack of substance with volume. Today at Parliament hundreds of Kapiti coasters gathered to discuss his handiwork in the House. We heard speeches from councillors tangata whenua and locals all opposed to the expensive and uneconomic motorway that the transport Minister is ramming through. 
The Minister is making a monument to the 1950s in concrete and asphalt a monument to old-fashioned thinking a colossus of roads—a scar on the Kapiti coast is what this Minister is doing. For every dollar we spend on all the walking all the cycling all the buses all the trains and all the coastal shipping this transport Minister is borrowing to pour $7 on his roads of national significance. We are not talking about corridors of significance or joined up thinking like that. No we are looking at roads of national significance. I believe in smart transport investments that balance roads with sustainable transport modes like walking cycling buses and trains which will future-proof our transport system so that it is more affordable efficient versatile and better for our economy. The Kapiti Expressway is one of seven roads of national significance. What I think we are actually talking about are motorways of significance to the National Government. 
In a nutshell the Kapiti Expressway is expensive uneconomic and not needed at all. It damages local communities and looking towards the future it is quite simply the wrong way to go. It is expensive. We are talking $500 million at a time when our country is borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars a week. It is uneconomic. Its benefit-cost ratio is just barely above 1. We have also seen the Minister play with the numbers. We have seen an independent estimate the Saha report come in with a much lower benefit-cost ratio. 
I recently tabled an OECD report in this Parliament that showed there is no correlation in New Zealand between motorways and economic growth. We have seen in America that much greater numbers of jobs have been created in public transport or local roads production not on expensive white-elephant motorways like this. Even Don Brash in his 2025 Taskforce had to say of the Wellington motorways that the projects would not provide a net benefit to the economy. It is not a smart way to build prosperity. 
This motorway is not needed. The locals including local member Nathan Guy in his election campaign campaigned in support of the Western Link Road which was a series of road upgrades and bridges that would have been cheaper and would achieve the safety objectives in a matter of years not in more than a decade as this road does. 
This road will see more people stuck on more congested roads. All around the world when a road is built more people use it. It is called induced traffic and it is kind of like dieting by extending the belt buckle. We will see negative impacts on public transport which is growing at a small pace in Wellington yet rocketing ahead in Auckland. 
In our transport sector our greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 70 percent since 1990. We are dismally failing our Kyoto Protocol obligation targets yet this expressway treats the climate as if it was not of significance. On the back of the highest petrol prices ever in our country’s history this motorway is dependent on a fuel of declining significance. Most important for the locals I heard today that this motorway will split their community in two with a 100 kilometre four-lane motorway. It treats the community as if it was not a community of national significance. 
We have seen an absolutely shocking process by the Minister whereby the road was announced 9 months before any business case or economic analysis was released. We have seen a circumvention of the normal independent transport planning process. The locals wanted the Western Link Road yet the Government has come on top of them and dictated this expressway. We have also seen blatant politicking with the facts and $16000 wasted when the Government decided to play politics with the date of the announcement of the route because it was worried it would affect its chances in the Mana by-election. 
The real impacts are on the 43 homes that will be demolished and on the 33 households that will be affected that were not expecting it. Over the decades people had planned for an upgrading of State Highway 1—those needed improvements—but instead the Government has come on with a grandiose white elephant expensive uneconomic motorway. 
Why are we doing it? It is simply to benefit the trucking industry. This Government has a goal of increasing trucking freight by 75 percent by 2050 so this road of significance is a road of trucking significance based on a fuel of declining significance as if the community was not of significance. It has to be stopped.