Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): During the Minister's speech on this bill we were given some snippets of his life story and a little bit of back information. So given that we've had that kind of expansive approach to speaking I wonder if you'll indulge me for a little bit Mr Speaker. I don't intend to share my life story but I do want to reflect on the extent to which in actual fact what we're doing with this is we're formalising gossip—gossip" in the best sense of the word. Let's talk a little bit about how people have worked out who's going to do which projects where and at what time in this country. New Zealand is a small place; we all know each other. The leaders in business and in government both local and central know each other. They meet at the pub; they have a few beers and a bit of a yarn. In the case of the Hon David Carter I suspect it's in this stance [Leans on bench] talking about what's going on at the pub—this is his habitual stance in the House. Other people—Rt Hon David Carter: Oh we're going to get a wellbeing lecture. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And always very relaxed and comfortable it looks too. In terms of finding out where something is happening or if there's a bit of a project in the wind the knowledge about it has been exchanged through these rather informal networks which is exactly the function of gossip—of exchanging information—and on the whole because we're a small country well things have kind of muddled along and done reasonably well. Things have kind of gotten done. But we can do better and that's what this bill is about. It's about taking that sharing of information the networking the understandings that people have—the knowledge that project A is happening down in Southland and project B is happening up in Northland and that perhaps when project A comes to an end in Southland another one might be starting up the road in Otago. It's taking that informal knowledge and actually making sure it is pulled into a consistent plan. It's formalising it and it's making it into something that we can use for strategic planning purposes rather than just that back-door exchange of information. So that is why I liken this to formalising gossip and I think it's a jolly good thing to do. I suspect Dr Alan Bollard will be a little astounded to learn that he's presiding over a gossip network but that is indeed what is actually happening. If we look at the bill as it has come through the various stages it has come through largely unchanged except for the addition of the local government information-gathering powers so that the Infrastructure Commission can gather information from local government. Of course that's very important because local government is where a lot of the infrastructure work is done in this country. But the real nuts of it is sitting in this main function. It's in clause 9 of the bill that "The main function of the Commission is to co-ordinate develop and promote an approach to infrastructure that encourages infrastructure and services that result from the infrastructure that improve the well-being of New Zealanders." It's about long-term planning and long-term thinking—and do we ever need it. I think the previous speaker Mr Paul Goldsmith referred to the Auckland Transport Alignment Plan or ATAP in which there was quite a bit of work done trying to align the various projects in Auckland. Of course they weren't funded so you can have all the planning you like if you don't fund it but the concept was good that we actually try to align the various bits of work that need to be done and create a long-term plan for them. It serves two purposes. One is that it actually ensures that the planning is consistent over time—that the planning that is done for let's say fibre networks for telecommunications is aligned with the planning that's done for transport networks. That is important because you don't want to be digging up some of the channels that have been built for fibre networks just to put in a new road and so on but you actually need to align the things. So doing that alignment is actually a really important thing to do and getting it just so that all the projects fit together nicely. Of course having a long-term plan for infrastructure is really important in terms of enabling the construction industry to thrive. So if a big project finishes then if the firm that is doing it doesn't have another project lined up well that results in job losses. Or equally if a firm gets going on a particular project but it cannot see projects two and three and four down the line then the incentives are to take on short-term contract workers instead of providing long-term employment for people. So this infrastructure planning serves the wellbeing of New Zealanders in all sorts of different ways and when it's done well it serves us very well indeed. I guess the examples that occur to me come to me from my own electorate New Lynn in Auckland where we manage with all the Auckland traffic problems. Mostly I manage by trying not to drive into the central city because I'd far rather take the bus. But the traffic does get clogged up and it is because we do not have sufficiently good public transport networks in place yet. So that indicates a real need for some long-term planning around our networks but also around who's going to build them and so on. But on the other hand something in New Lynn has worked very very well indeed and that is the New Lynn Transport Hub. It's a major transport network hub where the trains and the buses all come in to the same point so that people can catch a bus down to the train station then the train station to town. It's lined up around supermarkets and the like—around supermarkets and shopping centres. It's lined up around intensified housing. It's all quite carefully planned so that it all fits together. I'd like to pay tribute to my predecessor in my seat the Hon David Cunliffe who with other people was responsible for getting that project kicked off and under way. It's a great project and that's the sort of thing that we will see coming to us through the planning that is done by the Infrastructure Commission. So it will help us to get all the networks that we need to run a modern society in place and to coordinate them altogether. It will help the construction industry to see where its next job is coming from and where it can again engage in its own long-term planning as to how construction firms build their firms and plan for the long-term future. It will also help central government obviously but it will help us in terms of funding and of thinking how do we fund infrastructure. At present we tend to do it a little bit on a project-by-project basis. It's somewhat ad hoc the planning around funding for infrastructure. One of the things that setting up a long-term plan for infrastructure will do for us is to then enable those of us who are in central government to think about how we fund that long-term plan and put long-term strategies in place for the funding around it as well. So these are all the benefits that come to us from this Infrastructure Commission. As the Minister said it's getting under way at present. The board has been appointed a chief executive has been appointed and that person is starting to gather the resources that are needed in order to do the job. So as with anything it does take a while to get going but I am hoping that we will see some pretty good stuff coming out of that Infrastructure Commission in the not too far distant future. I suppose what I want to focus on there is I don't think the Infrastructure Commission needs to be perfect right from the start. It will take a while for it to get up and running but we can expect it to do a pretty good job particularly with the resources that it can draw on from people like Dr Bollard but also the other people who've been appointed to the Infrastructure Commission and the people who will end up working for it. It's not a critical piece of our machinery of Government. This is the sort of thing that can be done without but on the whole we will be better off for having it in place. It's very similar to similar sorts of entities that operate in other countries around the world in the various states of Australia and so on. So having an infrastructure commission or something equivalent to it is not a new or novel idea. It is just a jolly good idea and it is great to see it being supported across the House. Dr Duncan Webb: Jolly good—rah rah! Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It is jolly good—rah rah! On that note I want to finish just by thanking the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee who worked on the bill. It was a collegial process and one of those bills where we did try to nut out some of the problems and sort out what could be done better. It was interesting to listen to the members of the public who submitted to us ranging from infrastructure firms themselves to individuals. They all had interesting points to make and it was genuinely a collaborative process of working through this particular piece of legislation—long may that continue. So with that I commend this bill to the House."