Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:619;Page:15149] 
3.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Is she confident that New Zealand’s key infrastructure will be able to serve the needs of New Zealanders in the future? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. Obviously both population and economic growth have placed pressure on New Zealand’s infrastructure which is why this Government has been increasing investment in infrastructure. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: As an answer of 17 August to my colleague Peter Brown’s written question revealed that the Labour Government had increased taxes by almost 40 percent since 1989 why do we as New Zealanders now face road tolls expansions and other infrastructural investments and borrowings when billions of dollars of New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund are parked offshore propping up somebody else’s economy? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is invested independently of the Government and it is invested to give a good return because future generations of superannuitants rely on those returns. All that I can point to is evidence of increased investment. For example last week the Minister of Transport referred to an 18 percent increase in transport funding for this year and also set out that the extra spending planned for land transport by 2013-14 would mean that spending was at exactly twice the level this Government inherited in 1999. 
Keith Locke 
: What priority will the Government be giving to improving Auckland’s rail infrastructure and in particular what financial assistance will the Government be giving to electrifying the western line in Auckland and providing a rail link to Auckland airport? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The Government through the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance has been working with Auckland on the rail issues for some time. I have not come to the House with a detailed brief but I know that the work is extensive and includes the double tracking of the western line which commenced some time ago. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why does she boast of an 18 percent increase in transport funding when she knows full well that of every $2 collected for road construction maintenance and repair less than $1 is now going for that purpose nationwide and the rest is going into “loony tunes” policies that she ascribes to? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What I am aware of is that all the extra funding from the fuel tax increase that took effect in 2002 and from the one that is due to take effect next year will go into transport funding. That would be the first time that has occurred. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Will the discussions the Government now has under way with Wellington regional authorities regarding a Wellington regional transport plan be accelerated or altered in any way in the light of the recent deaths of four motorists on State Highway 1 north of the city and will those plans include ways in which either the existing stretch of road can be made safer or an alternative can be developed? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I would not want to prejudge what would come out of those discussions but I am delighted that Wellington local and regional government leaders have come together to work with the Government on the issues because it was our experience that it was not until Auckland got its act together that we started to get a united voice there on what had to be done. I hope we will see the same from Wellington.