Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well here we are: the first piece of legislation from the Budget and it's putting up taxes—road taxes. People will be welcoming today. They'll be scratching their heads thinking what's in it for them in this Budget and we're immediately talking about paying more at the pump. Kiwis who are struggling with the cost of living rising in this country at the moment will be not very excited to be focusing on these increases in petrol excises—more increases in petrol excises—this year and again next year.Where does the money go? Well it's supposed to go into trying to reduce congestion across our cities and our roads and to provide better roads. That's the idea but of course that's not what this Government is focused on. Most people would assume that the purpose of transport policy and transport investment is to enable Kiwis to get around quickly efficiently and safely. That's what transport policy should be about: to enable Kiwis to get around. But that's not what the focus of this Government is through its Government policy statement on transport. Actually they've removed all references to removing congestion. They're not interested in removing congestion—they've taken that out of the priorities. So this extra money going into the fuel is not going to be focused on reducing congestion.The two priorities of this Government are safety and mode shift. Now of course everybody agrees that we should be focused on safety but you've got to have more ideas than just reducing speed limits when you're dealing with safety. And getting people out of their cars and into public transport? Well OK that's a useful goal to focus on but if that's your sole focus in transport policy well you know when you look at nobody going anywhere in a massive traffic jam on the Southern Motorway in Auckland—hang on a moment; that achieves both of your priorities doesn't it? People are safe because they're not going anywhere and secondly they're highly motivated to get out of their cars because they're not going anywhere as well. This absolute lack of focus on congestion is how the transport policy works.So what have they done? We pay all these extra fuel taxes that we're discussing in this bill and it goes into the big fund to be spent on transport and the Government then decides how to spend it. This Government has through the changes that it's signalled in its Government policy statement resulted in around a dozen major road transport projects being cancelled or delayed into the never-never land. So if you live in Tauranga today you know that instead of getting on with a decent road going north of Tauranga up to Katikati you're not getting anything like that. You might get a single-lane road with a couple of sticks in the middle of the road and everybody in Tauranga in that whole area is frustrated as anything. We talk about Let's Get Wellington Moving—well Let's Get Wellington Moving in about 30 years" is the correct title for it.While they've talked about all the stuff they may do in the never-never what they have said today is that they're not doing the Melling interchange which needs to be done for a long long time. So if you live in the Hutt Valley you know that all this money that you're paying in fuel taxes ain't going to get you anywhere in terms of reducing congestion. Likewise if you're in Christchurch going to Ashburton no help is on the way I'm afraid. If you're on the Southern Motorway in Auckland there's no help on the way. Mill Road—that was supposed to be a second route south—has been put off into the never-never land way way down the line. If you want to go up north through Wellsford sorry—no help on the way. If you want to go—Hon Shane Jones: Oh yes there is: catch the train.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —up through Ōtaki—oh Shane Jones. He's wandering around the countryside in Northland handing out his money trying to talk about regional development but the single thing that everybody in Northland wants is a decent road to Whangarei. We had a process to get there and we were making progress on it and we committed to making progress on it. This Government's not doing it and instead they have this obsession with rail. So it was amazing to look at the Budget today. There is a whole section of this Budget "Transforming the economy"—transforming the economy—and the number one project to transform the economy is to increase the subsidies for rail. Wow that is amazing! What an amazing Government! Increased subsidies for rail is the number one policy to transform the economy.Now look we all love trains—we all love trains. I love going on a train. I caught a train last week into Britomart Place. They're wonderful things and the previous National Government invested enormously in the electrification of the Auckland rail transport network and we agreed to do the central rail loop which will be transformational for people on rail in Auckland. I love going on trains but to suggest that you should spend $1.4 billion on rail and then at the same time stop a whole lot of projects on the roads that would relieve congestion for frustrated motorists around this country is I think an unbalanced approach to transport policy.We had the Minister of Transport standing up there and saying "Oh we're focused on doing all sorts of other things to help relieve congestion such as the light rail project." Well remember the first thing that Jacinda Ardern said when she became leader of the Labour Party was that we were going to have a game-changer. We were going to have light rail from west Auckland to the Auckland CBD and then from the Auckland CBD out to the airport. Well what's happened? We're 18 months on: nothing. Nothing has happened. We were asking Phil Twyford just a couple of days ago "Have any decisions been made?" No. Have they got anywhere near putting a business case together? No. Have they even talked to Watercare and Vector and all those things to understand what's underneath Dominion Road before they're going to rip it up in order to have any idea to come up with anything like a business case? No. They're months away from getting anywhere near even coming up with a business plan and when they do of course it won't stack up.Only a very strange individual would think that the number one priority for transport in Auckland is a slight improvement to the public transport offering down Dominion Road because don't forget right now the people have been slicing off their verandahs down Dominion Road so that double-decker buses can go down Dominion Road. That's very well served by public transport. This Government thinks the number one priority for this sort of money that they're collecting in these taxes is a slight improvement on the public transport down Dominion Road when north south east and western Auckland are grinding to a halt.Hon Maggie Barry: What about the North Shore?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Around the rest of the country—oh North Shore? Well don't even think about the North Shore. No help is on the way for the congestion on the North Shore apart from a heavily subsidised taxi scheme I think somewhere—but that's an Auckland Transport thing.This Government is bereft of ideas. So this money that's collected is increased fuel taxes. So when petrol is going up through the roof at the moment the Government is adding to that through the extra petrol taxes. It goes to NZTA—the New Zealand Transport Agency. Everybody knows that it is in total chaos and dysfunction the NZTA and that's contributing to the fact that no new roads have been built because nobody can find the same person to answer the phone every second time in the NZTA. If you talk to local mayors they can't find anybody to deal with because it's just a complete state of chaos. There are hundreds of people leaving all the time. The entire board has been cleaned out—they brought in a new chair and he was gone within a year.So the agency that's in charge of actually delivering the projects in order to make the lives of New Zealanders easier to get around is in chaos and dysfunction and the Minister needs to take some responsibility for that. Instead all the money that's being collected is going to these fanciful projects that these Ministers are based on. When you think about where they come from the priorities the whole point of a good transport policy is to take a dispassionate view and look out over the next 30 years and ask ourselves "Well what are the biggest priorities and what are the things that we need to do in order to help the country move so that we can actually get around enjoy a good quality of life and do the things that we want to do—pick up the people that we want to pick up take the things that we want to take in a quick fashion collect the kids from netball on the way home from work and have the flexibility to live the lives that we want to live?"So we work out what the priorities are. We did that in Auckland for the first time ever in conjunction with the council and we agreed on a set of priorities of major projects. What happened? This Government came in threw that all out and said "No we're not doing the east-west thing. We don't like it. We don't like all these other projects like a second route south. We're going to delay them for 15 years and we're going to do our pet project—light rail a slow tram—halfway down Dominion Road." The other focus is the basis of the horse-trading in the coalition deal between New Zealand First and Labour and they are absolutely focused on spending on rail. Like I say we all like our trains but we struggle to understand why massively more subsidisation for rail should be the number one focus of transport policy and priority.So for the motorist who's going along to the petrol station and is going to be paying yet more tax for their petrol I'm afraid to say that under this Government help is not on the way. We'll be enjoying the debate over the next few weeks and months over how this Government can defend what is indefensible in its transport policy. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."