Bennett David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Bennett David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
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DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee): 
 It is a great pleasure to rise to talk about the estimates debate in respect of Vote Transport. When we look at Vote Transport I think we need to give great praise to the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce. He has delivered the leadership that has been lacking in the transport sector for a long time. Within the short period of 9 months he has achieved more than the previous Government achieved in 9 years. He has been a revolutionary Minister who has performed a great role. 
The major investment in transport in this Budget is into the roads of national significance. This investment will provide an economic spur to this economy and it will deliver jobs and the infrastructure for us to grow and have the strong economy we need to deliver the social services that we all wish to see. Let us look at some of the roads of national significance. Firstly there is the Waikato Expressway on State Highway 1. For 9 long years Labour tried to build that road but the only part of the Waikato Expressway it finished was the part we started. Labour had 9 years and it could not put the Waikato Expressway up there. The good people of the Waikato have had deliverance from the Minister and we thank him for that. The good people of Tauranga also got deliverance last week. They got the Tauranga Eastern Corridor which will revolutionise the Tauranga coastline. We will see further development further out past Papamoa as we open up the link between Whakatane and Tauranga which is so lacking. 
But today we also need to focus on something that I think many New Zealanders will want to see our Government focus on in transport—that is making our transport systems safer. Today we saw the release of the Safer Journeys discussion document which I encourage all members to read. It goes through many of the issues that we will face in making transport safer in the next few years. It performs the role of providing a strategy for safer transport use which we have not had in this country. There has not been that direction and we have been putting out the issues so that people can discuss them. These issues are important to New Zealanders because far too many people are losing their lives on our roads. 
The road safety priorities are in three categories. There is the high concern category the medium concern category and the areas for continuing focus and emerging issues. We can look at some of the high concern issues. The first one is the need for a reduction in alcohol-impaired and drug-impaired driving. This brings in a lot of the debate around alcohol consumption levels when we compare them with other countries especially Australia. We can see the initiatives that the National Government passed recently around drug-impaired driving something that Labour did not pass in its 9 years in Government. 
Another area is the safety of young drivers. There are far too many accidents involving young drivers and their rates of injury and death are too high. We can look at having safer roads and roadsides which is part of the programme of constructing roads. That will give us safer roads to drive on. Safer speeds has an important role in the high concern category. The document also looks at the safety of motorcyclists. Those are the high concern issues that the National Government has identified and it has put out this discussion document so that people can give us feedback and we can then address these issues. That is called listening to the people. That is called engaging with the public. It is giving them a chance to have a defined opportunity to make some constructive criticisms and to promote some ideas. That is what we need in Government. We need to engage with the people to find the best solutions. 
The issues of medium concern include improving the safety of the light vehicle fleet safer walking and cycling improving the safety of heavy vehicles reducing the impact of fatigue on driving and addressing distraction while driving. We are opening up consultation on those issues in order for people to give us feedback on what they think we should be doing in those areas.