Williamson Maurice: Budget Debate 
Williamson Maurice: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21086] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 In a 10-minute speech like this especially when it is cut into two parts by the dinner break it is very hard to cover more than one specific subject. I want to speak to my adoring drive time audience that often listens at this time on a Tuesday night in the hope that the whips have given me this slot. However I say to that adoring drive time audience that it would not matter even if I were speaking at 7 o’clock 8 o’clock or 9 o’clock because they would still be an adoring drive time audience in a place like Auckland— 
Hon David Carter 
: They’re all in their cars. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: They are in their cars still at this time of night and they will be there for hours. If they live on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula it could be for 4 hours. 
I looked towards this Budget for a final acknowledgment of one fact—and I say this to cast the blame on both sides—that historically for around 20 years now under both Labour and National we have grossly underspent on our roading network. Members should not be foolish enough to be like one Labour member who said the other day: “Oh well National has been in power longer than we have for the last 20 years.” That is not true. We have done nine of those years and Labour has done 11. Even under National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) maths nine is still fewer than 11 I think—I will have to check with NCEA. So let us not get into the blame about “your father can beat my father”. The fact is that for 20 years we have grossly underspent on our roading network. 
Let me give this House the figures. Until 1985 New Zealand used to spend around 1.3 percent of its GDP on roading and that is actually the OECD average. Through the 1960s the 1970s and up until 1985—I have the graphs if anyone wants to have a look at them—that spending stayed at a pretty constant 1.3 percent of GDP. In 1985 it took a tumble to under 1 percent. That does not sound like much but it is more than a 30 percent drop in the expenditure on roading in this country. I am happy to say that that occurred during the Labour Government of the 1980s but it stayed there when National was in power during the 1990s and it is still there today. The amount of money spent on roading under this current Government is just under 1 percent of GDP. 
This is not a speech about blame on either side because we have both been there—Labour slightly more than National; this is a plea for members of this House to start focusing. If we keep spending as little as we do on roading this economy will grind to a standstill. 
I looked towards alternative jurisdictions. I will not talk about Australia as a country; I will talk about the three states: Victoria New South Wales and Queensland—all of which are as big as New Zealand. Every one of those three states is not only spending the 1.3 percent of GDP as public expenditure—or more in the case of New South Wales and Victoria—but they have significant private expenditure on the roading network as well. Why? Because they have realised that if they do not upgrade their roading infrastructure their economies will collapse. 
I say to this Government that when this Budget was to be released I was really looking forward to seeing some extra money for roading. I did not give a lot of hope to it because when Don Brash made the commitment 2 months ago that if National becomes the Government at the next election it will move all the petrol tax over a period of time— 
Darren Hughes 
: 6 years. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Darren Hughes says: “6 years.” as if that is some silly little number. Actually 6 years is a very appropriate time to move over an amount like $600 million. If we put $600 million extra into the road account tomorrow—bearing in mind we spend only around $400 million a year on new roading today—we would more than double the funding for new roading and the contractors would not be able to cope. We would see a dramatic ramping up of prices and very little roll-out of tarmac. That is very well accepted across the industry. It was very well accepted when I talked to Labor Ministers in Australia. They said: “Don’t ramp it up at too high a rate or you will just get a soak-up of prices.” But everybody agrees that over a 6-year time frame to ramp it up by $100 million by $200 million then by $300 million and eventually to get to that magical $600 million is a good policy. I am proud that the National Party has announced it. 
I am proud to campaign against any Labour member who does not think we need to spend more on roads. The Automobile Association did a massive survey of the general public and 89 percent of the people surveyed believed that every cent collected in petrol tax should go to roading. That is what the Automobile Association survey showed. When Michael Cullen came out and bagged Don Brash for the announcement and said: “What an outrage; what a disgraceful announcement!” he ruined any hope I had of seeing some extra spending in the Budget. 
But lo and behold when the Budget was being read I flicked through the commentary and I came to a page stating that Michael Cullen had found $100 million for the first year. That is exactly what National had announced in its first year—$100 million extra for roading—and Dr Cullen had bagged the National Party as being fiscally irresponsible. What is the sum in this Labour Government’s first year? It is $100 million. I thought to myself: “Oh no don’t tell me they are going to go the whole lot—go the $200 million the $300 million the $400 million the $500 million and then finally the whole $600 million. That will take away the major platform we can campaign against; it will have gone.” But no the Government is not doing that. 
The sum is just $100 million for each of three years and that is it; that totally is what is in the current Budget. So Michael Cullen has acknowledged the need for more money for roading even though 2 weeks before he said there was no need. He said that Don Brash was foolish and that there was no need for more money for roading. But suddenly he has gone and put in $100 million. That is a good start for year 1 but by year 2 it is falling badly and by year 3 it is right off the mark. 
Let me give the Auckland drive time audience an example of what they would miss out on under the Labour Government if it were to stay in power. A road in the southern part of the Auckland isthmus is called State Highway 20. Anybody who has come out of Mangere Airport and tried to head into the city at say 5 o’clock at night will know what a nightmare that road is because it crosses Mangere Bridge and suddenly hits a little suburban street called Hillsborough Road—and people go nowhere simply nowhere. 
But there has been a plan for two decades to complete State Highway 20 and to link it to Manukau City in the south and to the north-western motorway in the north. It would mean that all the traffic heading up the southern motorway could veer left at Manukau as could the airport traffic and go right on through. That would complete the artery. 
But when the Auckland regional land transport plan was released recently—the 10-year plan I remind members—can the House guess what? The completion of that road is not in the 10-year plan; the completion of State Highway 20 through Mount Roskill and Mount Albert has gone from the 10-year plan. I am telling my drive time audience right now that not only will they face a mess trying to get out of the airport to get home tonight but they will have to face it for at least 10 years—even before we start building. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am really disappointed that my speech was broken up by the dinner break. However the good news is that I was speaking to my adoring drive time audience who in Auckland will still be the drive time audience because only an hour and a half has gone by and most of them will be only halfway home. 
I was explaining how State Highway 20 both the connection through Mount Roskill and Mount Albert that joins the north-western motorway into the Te Atatu area where Tau Henare will be the next member of Parliament and the road that joins back down to Manukau City where another member of Parliament may be under a lot of pressure is not even in the 10-year plan. It is not even in the 10-year plan for construction. 
But I have a better example. I see Dianne Yates in the House and I know that Dianne Yates and Martin Gallagher are always going on in the  
Waikato Times 
 about how the Waikato expressway is really important. Let me give them some numbers. The Waikato expressway’s total cost is $750 million. That is the cost to complete it all the way from Rangiriri—through Huntly Ngaruawahia Hamilton and the Cambridge bypass—and to join up again. What has the Government committed to that for the next decade? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How much? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It has committed $230 million. I know this is NCEA maths at its best but it still works. That is a $520 million shortfall over the next decade. 
What do those members do? They say they go to meetings and put pressure on Michael Cullen. They say they want the Waikato expressway. I want to tell those members and the good voters of Hamilton that they will not see even a quarter of the Waikato expressway built over the next decade on the current funding plan. 
But I ask members to hang on and wait—there is more; help is on the way. The National Party when it becomes the Government having announced that every cent of the petrol tax will be moved over to the road account—[ 
Interruption 
] Mrs Yates should listen to these numbers and then she will really start to understand them. That means that $4.5 billion extra in the next decade will be spent on road funding. OK—it is a nice figure; $4.5 billion. The Waikato’s share of road funding historically has been around 12 percent. Right—let us do the NCEA maths: $4.5 billion multiplied by 12 percent comes to $540 million. Can members guess what the shortfall is? It is $520 million. Again NCEA rules. 
The amount of money the National Party is committing to road funding prorated to the Waikato region is enough to fully complete the Waikato expressway. So I say to all those people sitting in the drive time traffic in Hamilton tonight and probably getting knocked on the window by David Bennett and Tim Macindoe: “Hang on. Help is on the way. The National Government is going to fund your roads even though this Government won’t.”