Brownlee Gerry: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: General Debate[Sitting date: 26 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11283. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport):I think it is no surprise that Phil Twyford comes into the House this afternoon and mounts a sterling case for the jobof stationmaster at Britomart after the next election. Anybody who saw the front page of theNew Zealand Herald this morning will know that five members sitting on that side of the House are gone at the next election. The question has to be asked about why the Opposition is so bad. Why is it not getting traction with the New Zealand public? David Shearer comes out this morning and says that Opposition members have spent the last 5 weeks talking about the things that New Zealanders want to talk about. That would be the opposition to the casino the Government Communications Security Bureau matters the Peter Dunne issues the increased taxes on the properties that New Zealanders might own and then the Opposition’s manufacturing inquiry which basically concluded that if you took out all of the growing parts of the manufacturing sector the rest of it was failing. It is that sort of misconnection with the people of New Zealand that is leading to the result that we saw in theNew Zealand Heraldpoll this morning. No one gets too excited about that on this side of the House. Our pledge is to continue with the job of governing and getting on with making sure that the growth engine of the New Zealand economy is fuelled by our policies.The Labour Party members may well want to gloat that somehow our decision to put a time line and some conditions around our support for the rail link in Auckland is a win for them. The reality is that we have always maintained that we would be looking at a wholly integrated transport network for New Zealand’s largest and fastest-growing city. New Zealand is littered with examples of how there has been a failure to futureproof and so we think that 2020 for that loop and the construction of the extension of Britomart would be the right thing to do. That will come with some conditions which will be announced by the Prime Minister on Friday.But also we have the extensive roll-out of broadband across New Zealand. We are seeing all sorts of innovations in our economy taking advantage of that and anticipating the advantage that will come from that. We are also seeing across the legislative programme the Business Growth Agenda simplifying the activity of doing business in New Zealand meaning that there is a greater opportunity for job creation and for higher wages and salaries for New Zealanders. We have seen the Hon Chris Finlayson engaged in one of the most rapid settlements of Treaty issues ever undertaken by any Minister and that is good for a large section of our population and we fully support it. We are also very committed to the rebuild in Christchurch.Those are the things that New Zealanders do talk about. They are the things that they look to a Government to be doing. They are the things that they look at and expect the Government to be providing. We have another big announcement tomorrow around Christchurch where we are talking about the conclusion of the cost-sharing agreement between the Christchurch City Council and the Government. That will mark a significant point for stepping up the rebuild of that city. I look forward to joining the Prime Minister when those announcements are made at about midday tomorrow.On Friday the Prime Minister will address a number of issues that are in the Auckland Plan and will outline the Government’s response to those things. Transport is part of that and the rail loop is just a small part of that. There are going to be some very interesting announcements made in that speech which will be well received by Aucklanders that demonstrate this Government’s commitment to New Zealand’s biggest city a day after we have made a big commitment to New Zealand’s second-biggest city.Throughout the country there are transport programmes that will oil the wheels of economic growth. Then if you look at social services the work that is going on in the education sector the extraordinary work of Tony Ryall in the health sector and so many other areas where the Government is simply getting on with the job it is not hard to understand why New Zealanders are not connecting with a party that is focusedentirely on the office boy issues of the beltway the Government Communications Security Bureau Mr Dunne the so-called inquiry into manufacturing and opposition to everything that is about growth. My final comment for Mr Twyford is that I thought he of all people would by now have realised that every loop has a U-turn in it.