11. Public Transport Auckland—Light Rail and Auckland Transport Alignment ProjectPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of TransportPublic Transport Auckland—Light Rail and Auckland Transport Alignment Project11. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of Transport: Does he support light rail from the Auckland city centre along Dominion Road to reduce congestion and improve urban amenity along the route?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): I support transport solutions that are delivered at the right time provide the best value for money and are based on evidence. The recent Auckland—Hon Annette King: What about the bridges? Are they on time?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —well just wait—Transport Alignment Project that the Government and Auckland jointly undertook shows that some form of rapid transit whether it is bus or light rail will be required on the Auckland isthmus between 2028 and 2038. Officials are currently looking into the best options. So it is important that officials do this work before politicians leap in because as we have seen with Labour and internationally recently light-rail projects are highly susceptible to multibillion-dollar cost blowouts.Phil Twyford: Has an actual business case been done on the Prime Minister's suggestion that fast buses be used instead of light rail or is this just another example of the Government's stream of consciousness approach to dealing with chronic congestion in Auckland which is costing the city billions of dollars in lost productivity?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No that is the point here: no business case has been done on anything and that is why it was so stupid to make a $700 million promise that overnight became $1400 million and may well be $2 billion before they are finished. [Interruption] Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need the assistance from members to my far right. [Interruption] Order! David Bennett. Order! Mr Bennett might think it is a joke; I am quite serious. Members have a right to ask a question and if the members are delayed from asking that question and not given the opportunity to hold the Government to account that is a serious matter. If I need to ask somebody from that quarter to be leaving the House to get some control I will not hesitate to do so.Phil Twyford: Does he agree with the Auckland central access plan that investing in more buses would cost $9.5 billion and generate safety concerns while light rail would cost less than half that and improve safety and travel time reliability; or does he support Parmjeet Parmar's plan to fix congestion by building more bus stops?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Those figures sound highly inflated. I think the point of all of this is for us to have officials and experts actually go away and analyse the options before we make promises that go from hundreds of million to billions without any sense of what the true costs and the benefits of it all are.Phil Twyford: Will he confirm that in the negotiations on the Auckland Transport Alignment Project the council wanted light rail in the first decade but he and Bill English insisted on pushing it back so it would not happen until after 2028?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: What I confirm is that unlike the way the Labour Party may have acted when it was in office there was no political interference. This was a process that was about officials and experts working through this rationally and on the basis of evidence and they came out with 2028 to 2038. On this side of the House we work through the evidence before we make promises.Marama Fox: Will the Minister look into a study to rejoin the Wairoa to Gisborne rail link providing vital infrastructure to the region?Mr SPEAKER: It is a fair way from the original question but I will give the Minister a chance.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Oh—let us see what happens.Phil Twyford: Why does his Government keep playing politics with Auckland transport when according to the Ministry of Transport delays in the average morning commute have gone up by 25 percent since 2012?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Here is what I call playing politics: making a $700 million promise that overnight becomes $1400 million without any evidence without any benefit-cost ratio—basically on the back of the envelope stuff. That is what I call playing pork-barrel politics.Phil Twyford: Can he confirm that National is taking its typical five-step approach to Auckland transport: one trash the project; two let several years go by; three blame others for the problem; four let more years go by; five belatedly admit that Labour's policy was right all along.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: What I can confirm is that the Government and Auckland have the best relationship in regard to transport that they have had in a very long time. That is because we have joined together we have done the analysis and we are investing billions of dollars. We have an indicative plan to spend a further $24 billion over the next decade in an integrated way—roading public transport of a variety of forms. We are a strong Government in infrastructure that is making a real difference when it comes to transportation in Auckland.