Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brownlee Gerry: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:610;Page:7564] 
10. GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
 to the  
Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues 
: Is she satisfied that Aucklanders are getting a good deal from the proposal to expand rail services in the city? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues) 
: 
 Yes. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does she accept that the future and present $100 million a year subsidy and $1500 million price tag for the Auckland rail project can only lead to very substantial future rate rises for Aucklanders; if not how does she think the project will be funded? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: There are good estimates showing that Auckland and New Zealand are paying over $800 million a year for congestion that Auckland has already experienced. I believe that the solution to Auckland’s transport problems is as Sir Dove-Myer Robinson said in 1974 a mix of roading cars buses and railways which the Government and Auckland must meet the cost of. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It would be a wide stretch of the imagination for anyone to suggest that that answer addresses the question. I asked the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues a specific question whether Aucklanders were getting good value and I mentioned a $100 million a year subsidy from ratepayers and a $1.5 billion price tag for capital costs and was told that the rest of New Zealand was paying $800 million to deal with their congestion. I want to know about Auckland and whether she thinks that this proposal is a good deal for the people she is supposed to represent. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I heard the Minister’s answer and I thought she addressed the question. 
Lynne Pillay 
: How is the Government working to ensure that the costs of the expanded rail services in Auckland will be matched by benefits to Auckland and to New Zealand? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: The Minister of Finance is working with a group of central and local government representatives and officials who are looking at ways to ensure that the rail network upgrade is affordable sustainable efficient and user-friendly and helping to ensure better freight and passenger services for all Aucklanders and for New Zealand’s economic benefit. 
Dail Jones 
: Does the Minister accept that the present situation being experienced in Auckland by elderly ratepayers on the North Shore and west Auckland and young ratepayers homeowners and suchlike is totally unfair to them all and that the best thing the Minister can do is to get the Government to cough up $27 million from the National Roads Fund and pay that to the Auckland Regional Council for roading bus and rail purposes? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Unfortunately Auckland and New Zealand are paying for the failure of past National Governments to fund Auckland’s needs properly. For the first time ever Auckland is getting its fair share of Transfund funding in both public transport and roading. That is the only solution. Elderly ratepayers can apply for rates rebates and that is also being reviewed. The regional council is looking at the issue. I do not necessarily agree with the way it has brought in its rates. [ 
Interruption 
] However I say to it that when the rest of the country is paying more in petrol tax for Auckland’s transport solutions it is a pretty poor show when Auckland is not prepared to meet some of the costs as well. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thought the amount of interjection was absolutely excessive. In fact some of it was quite churlish. Occasional interjection is reasonable but not that amount. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Could she explain how it can be a good deal that an 88-year-old widow on the North Shore Mrs Janie Farquharson is forced to pay a combined annual rates bill of $8500 more than $2000 of which goes on expanding rail services that she will never get to use? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: It is up to the Auckland Regional Council to levy its rates. However at some stage every New Zealand property-owner has to make a choice about where he or she lives. Rates are one of the things that affect all of our choices about where we live. However the infrastructure of Auckland and New Zealand cannot be funded on the basis of people on fixed incomes who are often in more expensive properties. I regret the choices that people like the lady Deborah Coddington quoted are forced to make. Unfortunately it is the same for the taxpayer the family and the single parent next door to her. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: In the light of that answer is the Minister telling Aucklanders that all the Government has done to solve their transport problems is to inflict higher rates for a rail system that most of them will never use and to tell them that if they do not like it they should move out? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I am saying to Aucklanders that the Government has increased the subsidy for public transport from about $20 million 3 years ago to over $60 million. We have for the first time put $556 million more into State highway network development in Auckland which is 33.3 percent of total expenditure. We have also increased the total amount going into land transport so that the rest of New Zealand does not suffer while Auckland’s infrastructure needs are being met. It is a problem but I have to say to this House that I have had far more complaints about the state of Auckland’s transport infrastructure than about the rates. I recognise that rates are always painful.