Williamson Maurice: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Williamson Maurice: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:629;Page:1355] 
3.  
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What action does he intend to take to correct the funding shortfall and ensure that there are no delays of commencement dates for any major roading projects? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The Government’s roading programme is the largest ever funded in New Zealand and we are working to ensure projects proceed. As Ministers have already said the Government has commissioned work on options to address both funding and costs and options will be considered by Cabinet before the State highway programme is finalised in June. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why did the Minister let Transit put out an interim draft plan in February when that has never been done before at huge cost to the taxpayer only to find an hour later that the Associate Minister of Finance said that it was a load of rubbish and did not count for anything? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The transparent way in which we plan for State highway funding and programmes follows the law. The present funding available to Transit New Zealand is that which is projected in the draft. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Can the Minister confirm the view expressed in the Transit document that congestion between Mana and Plimmerton and on the Ngauranga interchange stretch of State Highway 1 in Wellington is a major problem; if so will he therefore confirm to the House that the agreement between the Government and United Future regarding funding for Transmission Gully if that is the preferred option to arise from the current consultation process—noting that 96 percent of the submissions favour it—will in fact go ahead? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I can confirm that the Transit document identifies the congestion problems as we leave Wellington to the north. I cannot confirm what the outcome will be of the process that is currently running. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I draw your attention to the question asked by Maurice Williamson which was a direct request that the Minister of Transport breach the law of this country. The member may not recall it but he was the Minister of Transport and for a Minister to interfere with the decision-making processes of Transit is in fact a breach of the law. His question should have been ruled out. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for raising that matter but the question was a question; it was not seeking any breach of the law. The member was asking a question for information purposes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That is not the way he phrased it; he said: “Why did the Minister…” etc. That was a direct invitation for a Minister of the Crown the Minister of Transport to break the law of this land—something that no doubt Mr Williamson did countless times to no effect. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member but obviously it was a legitimate question and the Minister could in fact have answered in those terms. He chose to answer in the terms he did. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I ask whether you are going to allow that list member or whatever he is—the new Minister of Foreign Affairs—to say that I broke the law several times. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: We are now trying in this House to do away with as many of those flippant comments as we can. I have dealt with that point of order; I upheld the question as being a legitimate question. I now request that the member asks his supplementary question. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. He did not deal with the second part. He said that I had broken the law many times while I was the Minister and I do not accept that. I do not believe that he has any evidence of that and I wish to have the protection of the Chair of this House to stop the member making such a claim 
Madam SPEAKER 
: If the member is asking the member to withdraw I will ask the member to withdraw because of the offence that was given by that comment. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I withdraw and apologise profusely. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is all that is required at this stage. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I withdraw and apologise profusely. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. What is growing up in this House early in this session is the view that National Party members can do and act as they please and that they can be so sensitive that any slight suggestion that they got it intellectually wrong as shown by their past behaviour is taken as an absolute affront. That is OK for them but if we carry on in this House in the way that they are seeking you to judge various behaviours in this House then we will have a turgid boring House like something out of a Chrysler advertisement which is thoroughly antiseptic and of no value to anyone. The reason why I make that response is that any former Minister of Transport who invites another Minister to intervene surely had a habit of doing so himself. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to please be seated. That was not a valid point of order. There has been a withdrawal and an apology. Certainly one tries to conduct question time and debates in this House in keeping with the Standing Orders and with discretion because this is a debating chamber. I now ask the member to ask his supplementary question. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I ask you to assure the House on the back of the very flippant comment made by the Hon Maurice Williamson “… that list member or whatever he is ..” that all list and constituency members of this House be it the honourable Dr Don Brash or the Deputy Prime Minister or yourself are on equal terms here. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please sit down. I have already dealt with that matter. I did ask the member and any other members not to make those sorts of flippant comments. That matter has been dealt with; it does not need to be revisited. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Does the Minister consider it a satisfactory way to run the transport portfolio and to give surety to the Contractors Federation and others about the long-term plan when Transit published an enormously big glossy document in June 2005 that before it hit the shelves had to have an orange sticker stuck on the bottom stating that the document did not include reference to the extra $500 million just announced when Transit then published an update in August with the same photo— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. With the greatest of respect this idea no doubt dreamt up by the research unit and some spin doctor down in the National Party— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: This is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No no it is a point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please come to his point of order succinctly. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: My point of order is that this is the second tossing of documents we have seen today. It was bad enough the first time with the posturing and posing that there was but now here are those members again someone having been promoted on to the front bench for 5 minutes putting on a display. Frankly it brings Parliament into disrepute and everyone who watches a TV screen will know full well what I mean. I ask you Madam Speaker to make them desist. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member and I bless the members for their sense of irony and humour. Certainly throwing documents around the House is not permitted but putting them on the floor just requires someone to come and pick them up. So I suggest that that behaviour be used with discretion. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Does the Minister think it a suitable way to run the transport portfolio and to give surety to people like the contractors out there when Transit published a big thick glossy document costing tens of thousands of dollars in June last year that before it even made the bookshelf had to have a sticker on it stating that it was not valid because of changes when Transit put out an update in August 2 months later with the same car and the same road on the cover stating that the plan had all changed and here was the new plan when by February it had to put out another massive glossy document and all of these regional documents and when within an hour of putting those out it had the Associate Minister of Finance saying: “Sorry that’s not right either; forget all that.” at a cost I say to the Minister of tens of thousands of dollars; is that satisfactory? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I remind members that this time is for questions and not speeches. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I would say to the tosser of documents that the $685 million budget difference represents only 3.4 percent of the total $22 billion that will go into the National Land Transport Fund over the next 10 years. 
Rt Hon Helen Clark 
: Could the Minister spell out a little more clearly to the Hon Maurice Williamson the nature of the statutory requirement for Transit to consult on its draft plans? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The legislation that this Government passed in the last term provides for a transparent process—so that the wool cannot be pulled over the eyes of New Zealand taxpayers and road users as it was in the 1990s—by giving people a right of participation in funding decisions and the prioritisation of funding. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Can the Minister explain why in the documents released today—whether or not they are valid—Transit put a construction date for most of the major projects in appendix D3 but in the actual regional flyers that came with it the construction dates for nearly every project are somewhere between 8 and 10 years longer than those dates? For example the Kopu bridge construction is scheduled to begin in 2008-09 in this document but it is scheduled for a 2014-15 start in the flyer. How can anyone know what the valid start date for those projects is? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: By relying upon the draft programme as the document of authority. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Can the Minister confirm that considerable extra funds have gone into transport in the last 5 years compared with the 1990s and that that is in stark contrast to a policy of privatising the roads which was put forward by National and Maurice Williamson when he was the Minister—one of the reasons why National was thrown out in 1999? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: There was no need for that last comment. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I can confirm that and I note that the funding for State highway new road construction increased from $248 million in 1999 to some $580 million this year and that even under today’s projections on the basis of current assured levels of funding—which may increase—funding will still increase next year to over $600 million. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Which of the published dates should members of this House now be working to: the dates that appear in the massive document that Transit put out today which shows for example that the start date of the Kopu bridge construction is 2008-09 or should members be working from the regional flyer document that comes with it which states that the Kopu bridge start date is 2014-15; which of those dates is correct? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: As I said it is that in the projected State highway forecast plan which is the lengthy document that the member tossed first. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister tell the House precisely who the Government has commissioned to work on the range of options to close the funding gap which was referred to in his media release and when can we expect detailed announcements? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Some of those work streams will be carried out by Treasury under the Minister of Finance to determine what other funding streams should be brought into the fund. Some of the work relating to cost control will be carried out under my ministry. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I did ask whether the Minister could give us some sort of accurate date as to when we could expect something. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: As I said in answer to the primary question those options will be considered by Cabinet before the State highway programme is finalised in June. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: In light of the Minister’s answer to the previous question I asked which was that we should use the dates in the big thick consolidated Transit book today and not the ones in the little regional flyer why did Transit tell me only an hour ago that the differences between the two dates which are considerable in most cases are that the dates in the big document are what Transit could build now if it had the money but the ones in the regional flyer are what is planned to be built because there is no money to build the original programme—and I thank him very much for his assurance that he will work off the first dates not the second? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No I cannot confirm that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a “privatise all roads” speech delivered in Queenstown which was given by one Maurice Williamson the then Minister of Transport and which had all the levitation of a lead balloon at the time. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Does the Minister regret Labour’s having sold Government Print to Graeme Hart given that the Government is now involved in funding the successor to that business on almost a weekly basis for mindless rubbishy documents that need to be reprinted just about as quickly as Ministers change their minds? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think that is a marginal question but if the Minister wants to address it he may. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No I do not. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table the Jim McLay report made to National advocating that all roading in this country be owned by six private companies. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. It will not be tabled.