Bennett David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Bennett David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3796] 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 Following on from that very good point my colleague made about the roads of national significance I think it is important that we just take some time out in this debate to reflect on the change we have seen in this portfolio with the new Minister. I think we are very fortunate to have a Minister with great financial expertise as he detailed in his last speech to the Committee in regard to this financial review. The Minister also has good business nous which has been sorely lacking among the Labour members who have tried to take on this portfolio in previous years. The reality is that we see that in those roads of national significance. It is not an unusual concept. It is not something that the previous Labour Government could not have thought up or followed. It is actually something that is done in Australia where the major infrastructural developments are taken away and put in a different pot. That pot has a much simpler system which enables those roads to be built a lot more quickly. 
This has been going on worldwide for many years but consecutive Ministers of Transport under the previous Labour Government failed to do it. Those Ministers thought that their job was just to look after the portfolio and to make sure it did not get too much publicity. They were keen to go into budget rounds to try to pump up what they were doing and to make it look better than it actually was. They had no constructive plan for what was important for New Zealand’s infrastructure going forward. They made no concerted effort at finding out what we actually could do to make our infrastructure programme more viable and effective. I congratulate this Minister of Transport on doing that on taking out the roads of national significance and putting them in a different pot so that we can build those roads and deliver the major infrastructural projects that the Government needs to deliver for this country and that the public expects of this Government. 
That is the vital thing that I think previous Labour Governments failed to do. Those Governments failed to look at transport and this portfolio in a wide sphere. They just looked at babysitting the portfolio and the result is that we have had to make some more fundamental reforms in the sense of the projects of national significance. 
This financial review relates to Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand the two organisations that were put together by the previous Government. Whether that combination will be as effective as was planned is yet to be seen. However it does give us the ability to go forward with the programme we are undertaking. That programme is a result of years of a lack of value for money in transport. There were continual projects and reports on how the transport sector was not performing in the sense that the Government was not getting value for its money and its investment. Through those review processes the previous Government basically tried to hide the problem and said that it would reinvent the wheel. 
Hon David Parker 
: Rubbish! 
DAVID BENNETT 
: David Parker just has to look at the reports that were commissioned while he was the Minister of Transport because those reports say that he was not doing a good job not getting value for money. If he looks at those reports he will see that they say why the Government should reform the transport sector when he says that it was all going fine. The Government made the reform of merging the transport authorities because the existing arrangement was not performing. There was report after report that said the Labour Government had not performed and that is why we have the situation that we have of a combined financial review— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Oh rubbish! 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Labour members can say “rubbish” but those are the facts of the matter. That is the reality of what happened and it is what we are dealing with now in Government. 
The current Minister of Transport also needs to be applauded for the way he has looked at the sector from a very commercial point of view. The initiatives in public transport especially in the rail sector indicate a real understanding of what it actually means to run a business and to be in control of all elements of a business and not to farm out parts of the business expecting somebody else to deliver the resources and requirements that we expect from our operations. That is a fundamental change that has gone through in the last few months and it will deliver results in the transport sector. Labour members have been talking about public transport and have been trying to push that angle all through this debate. The reality is that they cannot have it both ways. They want to have public transport anywhere and everywhere but at the same time they want to build the biggest road in New Zealand. 
Report noted.