Horan Brendan: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHoran Brendan: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 06 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10868. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): The Minister of Education mentioned three things. There are three Ds about this Budget and those are distraction desperation and despair. National campaigned on a promise of a brighter future but this Budget has cast New Zealand under a long black cloud.In the health sector there is a serious problem of the Government’s own making which the Minister of Health has wilfully and dangerously refused to accept. He is ignoring the problems caused by the new diabetes testing meters—the CareSens brand. Minister Tony Ryall and Pharmac are deliberately taking away from people the Accu-Chek and other meters which diabetics know are reliable and trust. In question time heaverts from and avoids acknowledging the concerns our diabetics—both type 1 and type 2 diabetics—have issued and they must be listened to. I have news for the Minister Mr Ryall: diabetics have been to doctors nurses and pharmacists and doctors nurses and pharmacists have had it up to here with the complaints not only about the meters but also about faulty testing strips. I have been contacted by large numbers of people who are reporting problems with the CareSens meters.Scott Simpson: How many?BRENDAN HORAN: The meters will not work in temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius. How useless is that for New Zealand? They are much like the interjections from that member over there. They give unreliable results. In my hand here I have an example. This photo was taken by Helen Lockley of New Plymouth. She has given me express permission to use this. Her young son has diabetes and an accurate meter is essential for her and him to be able to manage his sugar levels. This is scary. Here we have the Accu-Chek meter reading 4.0 and the CareSens meter reading 5.9.Hon Michael Woodhouse: How do you know which one’s right?BRENDAN HORAN: This is scary because these meters are not consistently different. Like that member’s interjections they are inconsistently different and I would say that this is actually a very serious—serious—problem that I am talking about. It is really not one that you should be interjecting on—sorry Mr Assistant Speaker; I mean that member over there. Here we have the comparison of the two meters: the white Accu-Chek meter on the left and the black CareSens meter on the right. They were careful to take the readings from the same drop of blood at the same time. As I said the difference is life-threatening to a diabetic. One meter reads high; the other meter reads low—well not low but correct—and that person would then be seeking some insulin. We would not tolerate such discrepancies at the supermarket or the service station would we? And we should not tolerate such discrepancies in people’s essential medical services. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left and my right are interjecting on each other. Neither has the floor. If you want to interject on the speaker that is fine by me.BRENDAN HORAN: Tony Ryall adopts a see no evil hear no evil approach. He will not acknowledge that there are problems for many type 1 and insulin-dependent diabetics. As if diabetics did not have enough problems here is one that our very own Government is creating. There is something wrong Mr Ryall—listen acknowledge and fix it. It is pretty simple really. I am very worried that someone will have to die before that Minister will listen. Please Minister Tony Ryall listen to these Kiwi men women and children because they are suffering and they are scared.Vote Transport—Tauranga residents should not be carrying the burden of a road built to move large transporters heading to the Port of Tauranga. Residents of Tauranga were justified and correct when they called on their council to make the residential street safe and secure from heavy vehicular movements. The council built Route K as a toll facility. It had little other choice. The traffic modelling at the time supported the road’s construction. It has been only most recently however that the transporters have begun to appreciate Route K’s financial value to them for ease of access and the cost-efficiencies that it provides to the Port of Tauranga. There is little doubt that the Port of Tauranga is strategically perhaps the most critical port in the country. It is efficient and can turn ships round and move product faster than its competitors which struggle to match its efficiencies. As a transport link the Port of Tauranga will become increasingly important and can only add further demand for capacity on roads already struggling across the city.The northern arterial route or link planned for over a decade away must be brought forward. Route K is costing local ratepayers over $10000 a day in interest alone andthere is no doubt that this road is a critical transport link and was needed for the Port of Tauranga. The road was always planned to be adopted as a critical part of the State highway network. It was built to those standards and not as a residential road. It is time that the road is adopted into the State highway network where it belongs rather than be a noose over the ratepayers of Tauranga. However the issue is no longer in the hands of the local council but is now being managed by senior New Zealand Transport Agency administrators. So be prepared Tauranga for an announcement—to come I imagine close to the election—that the road will join the State highway network and in the meantime ratepayers will for the sake of a political ploy continue to face huge interest at a cost of over $10000 a day that they should never ever have had to pay.This Budget is impractical. The Prime Minister promised the people of Welcome Bay that he would have a tunnel built under the Hairini interchange and thus reduce travel congestion into the city. This sadly will not be the expected outcome for the locals as a critical congestion point is the single-lane Hairini Bridge at the end of the proposed tunnel development. What the Prime Minister has not told the people of Welcome Bay is that the real reason for the tunnel is not about ease of access to the city for the residents but more about getting the heavy transporters on their way through the interchange quicker and to the port efficiently. People of Tauranga all that is planned is the tunnel. Nothing else on the city side of the tunnel will happen. Welcome Bay congestion will remain until the bridge and the road leading into the city are widened. Traffic modelling again is being ignored simply to justify the Prime Minister’s long-overdue promise.Funding for regional safety programmes has been reduced by up to 30 percent and sustainable transport programmes developed under the prior Government dropped from funding altogether unless they can demonstrate safety factors. This has placed at risk many of the extremely successful programmes developed across our region. Alcohol speed and pedestrian safety remain critical injury concerns throughout the Bay of Plenty. These are behavioural issues that can be managed only through robust district education campaigns and to do that requires funding. An additional and critical issue facing city traffic is the intention of the Ministry of Education to pull out of student transportation to school and to transfer student transport across to the public bus network. This is significant for local bus operators and the city as it scrambles to provide safe cycling and walking facilities to cope but there is real concern from the transport engineers about how well the roads will cope with the increasing capacity.Then we turn to the kiwifruit industry. It is a significant part of the economy of the Bay of Plenty—great people great businesses great employment great export earner—and it is critical that the Government support and where necessary fund the recovery of the kiwifruit industry. It is one of the most important productive and significant income earners the country has ever seen. That little tasty green goodness is responsible for over 20 percent of the GDP of the Bay of Plenty. Service providers contractors and entire communities rely on the success of the industry. Formalisation of the national pest management strategy is the first step but the Government must not take its eyes off the ball. The industry will continue to need support. I will note that the industry plays an important role in exporting. Zespri last year earned over $1.6 billion and is one of the few Kiwi brands that resonate around the world encapsulating what we aspire to on the world stage: quality innovation and food safety and security. The Government must prioritise its focus on taking the best that kiwifruit has to offer and applying those principles more broadly across the primary sector so that more industries can escape the commodity trap. As a nation we must address scale address distance to market address investment into research and development and encourage innovation and the Government must begin to show leadership in this area.