Genter Julie Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Genter Julie Anne: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7554. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I have to say that I was not very impressed with the Prime Minister’s statement earlier today. There were no new ideas—certainly no smart green ideas—and it was full of posturing and straw man attacks on the Opposition. I think it is really unfortunate that the National Government is unwilling to engage with constructive criticism. I think that the New Zealand public—even those who did vote for the National Party—would prefer to see the Government engaged with substantive criticism and give some consideration to ideas brought up by other parties and either adopt them or give some rational coherent explanation of why the Government is not going to adopt them rather than just dismissing them out of hand and repeating silly straw man arguments. 
So my example is that Mr Key said today that the Green Party is against all roads. In fact I think I have heard the Minister of Transport say that the Green Party wanted to go back to dirt tracks and that is obviously completely absurd. The Green Party wants to see a smarter use of our existing roads and really all New Zealanders could get behind a smarter use of our transport infrastructure right? But we do not really hear any explanation from the Government. All we hear are attacks and straw man arguments. For me the most mystifying and terrifying statement in the Prime Minister’s speech today was that he was bragging about spending $12 billion on a few uneconomic motorways. Twelve billion dollars of taxpayers’ money is going to be wasted on six highway projects most of which will not even break even in terms of their economic impact according to the Government’s own business case. 
I know that people in the National Party including Mr Key repeat a sort of empty mantra that they are investing in roads but in fact they are not investing in roads. In fact many of our regional roads are falling into disrepair. The regions know this very acutely because the transport budget to pay for maintenance and safety on these roads has been raided to pay for a few motorways of madness. It is mystifying that Mr Key would be bragging about spending $12 billion because while National is cutting spending on core services that would actually assist Kiwi households and businesses it is both putting up the petrol tax and planning to spend billions on a private loan to pay for these motorways. That is right—the National Government is increasing borrowing and raising taxes to pay for extremely wasteful projects that will do nothing to increase economic productivity. I know that sounds mad. It is mad. I cannot believe it. If I could be very charitable perhaps it is very misinformed. I am pretty sure that the Prime Minister does not have time to look into the details of the business cases of the $12 billion projects but it would be nice if he did. 
 So today Mr Key claimed that if the motorways were not built cars would be sitting in congestion. As a transport planner I can tell you that there is not a professional in the world who naively thinks that new motorways will reduce congestion. The fact is that they do the exact opposite. They increase the number of cars on the road in urban areas. One would think that Mr Key might understand the fundamentals of economics—you know concepts like price elasticity of demand. If you make it cheaper and easier to drive at peak hour and to live further out from the city on cheaper land then the response is that more people will drive into the city at peak hour. We cannot infinitely increase the road space in our urban areas. In fact we are already at capacity. The cars have to go somewhere when they get off the motorway. They get on to the roads that are being underfunded by this Government because it is spending so much money on a few big pork-barrel projects. 
Motorways do not reduce congestion and that is why no big city in the developed world is building new motorways. In fact some of the biggest cities like Seoul in South Korea and San Francisco in California are removing their inner-city motorways. This Government is unbelievably looking to spend $100 million on a motorway flyover that will be an eyesore in front of our historic cricket ground the Basin Reserve in central Wellington worsening congestion in Wellington and destroying property values where they are most valuable. I am sorry to say to the National members who are here now and to the Prime Minister that the motorways of madness are not going to reduce congestion and they are certainly not going to increase economic productivity despite the fact that the National Government is blowing the majority of the transport infrastructure budget on them. What would work? What is a smart idea to actually reduce congestion to actually get some productivity benefits out of transport? Because it is possible. 
Take the Auckland City rail link. Obviously this is an extremely important project that the National Government is saying no to. The National Government is saying no to our biggest and fastest-growing city. Last year I asked the Minister of Transport Mr Brownlee what new passenger transport infrastructure projects the National Government had committed to in Auckland. What could he say? The only thing he could say in response was a study the City Centre Future Access Study. So the National Government has not invested in any new infrastructure for buses or trains or walking or cycling in Auckland actually. It does cite $1.6 billion but all of that was committed under the previous Labour Government—$1.1 billion was Project DART and then $500 million for electric trains. Actually that is not even money that the central government is investing in Auckland; it is a loan to pay for electric trains. All of this money was committed back before 2008 and it is catered to increasing demand for public transport. It has resulted in traffic volumes actually not increasing over that period although part of that was also due to oil prices and the economic situation and instead the Government has spent a small amount of money on the City Centre Future Access Study which has conclusively shown that if the Auckland City rail link is not built Auckland traffic will be at a standstill. 
But the National Government’s response is to say that it is not needed that we cannot afford it and that it is not going to spend money on it even though it has $12 billion to spend on a few motorways that will do nothing to reduce congestion. So the choices are really clear here. You have got $12 billion to invest in transport. Why not invest it in smart green projects that will actually reduce congestion and will actually get more people moving in our largest and fastest-growing city rather than taking out a $3 billion loan to pay for a project like Transmission Gully which is a depreciating asset? Aucklanders’ fuel taxes will be paying for Transmission Gully 20 years from now—Aucklanders stuck in congestion because the National Government said no to a smart sensible project like the Auckland City rail link. 
In the last few years we have seen 30 percent more rail patronage in Auckland than anticipated 5 years ago by the transport models. The Northern Busway has been a roaring success. It carries the equivalent of 2½ lanes of traffic during peak hour over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. We have not seen any increase in traffic volumes over the Auckland Harbour Bridge in that time. The Northern Busway requires no operating subsidy. That is the kind of smart green thinking that is good for the economy it is good for people and it is good for the environment. That is the kind of investment that we want to see in the Green Party. It is a better use of our existing roads not duplicating existing ones to the tune of $12 billion. The Green Party would like to work constructively with the National Government and we await it replying coherently to our criticisms. Thank you very much.