Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Williamson Maurice: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18291] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 Can I say to the House to start with that when I think of all the members in this Parliament I would probably be the one least able to be accused of being a sycophant. So I want to say this to put it on the record right from the outset. I have never been more proud to serve under a leader of the calibre of Don Brash in my entire 18 years in this House. He has a mind that is sharper than any person I have dealt with and a better understanding of issues that concern the general public than any person I have dealt with. I want to make it clear that yes there has been some disagreement between Don Brash and a couple of our members. Yes there has and there is no question about it. The public have seen that but the Labour Government would portray that as some sort of a meltdown. 
Let me ask those members whether they thought the same meltdown was happening in their party when Helen Clark sacked a heap of them. She sacked Marian Hobbs Phillida Bunkle Ruth Dyson and Lianne Dalziel. Did they ever portray that as a meltdown within their party? It goes further. When it was apparent that Margaret Wilson was alienating so many people in the business community with the labour portfolio she was sacked. She was dumped unceremoniously and taken out of it. By the time she had gone into about two or three other portfolios it was clear that the only place Margaret Wilson could be put into was the Speaker’s Chair where she would not cause any disruption other than here in Parliament. Was that seen as being anti-women? Well hang on Helen Clark got rid of—tell me the gender of these people—Marian Hobbs Phillida Bunkle Ruth Dyson Lianne Dalziel and Margaret Wilson. What about those people? Were they females? Oh yes they were. So that is the duplicity of the Labour Party. 
Phil Heatley 
: It’s a line call. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well it may be a line call but that is this Labour Party all over. That party can have as many sackings as it likes. Dover Samuels got the chop. Paul Swain was demoted in the last go around but that was something no one noticed. Paul Swain was moved from Minister of Communications to Associate Minister of Communications and David Cunliffe got the top job. Did anyone notice that? No one noticed it. Was that portrayed as Paul Swain being given the chop? No of course it was not because politics is about moving people into various positions at times and Helen Clark has done more of it. 
In the case of my portfolio transport we have seen three Labour transport Ministers already and guess what? Every time the media run a transport story they start off with: “Transport Minister Harry Duynhoven today said …” but Harry Duynhoven is not the Minister. 
Simon Power 
: Who is? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is a very good question. That is what the public would ask if we did a survey. The Government has changed its transport Minister so regularly that no one could tell us who the Minister of Transport was. Again it is a game of selective morality. For example let us take sexism and size-ism. Judith Tizard in her speech in reply to the Prime Minister’s statement got stuck into National Party members and said they are “little men”. That is what the National Party is made up of—just “little men”. Now if we turned the table and returned the favour I know that Ruth Dyson and Lianne Dalziel would be climbing out of their tree saying that we were sexist size-ist and so on. 
I thought a lot about Judith Tizard’s attack—“little men”. As someone who is nearly 6 foot 4 inches and weighs over 90 kilograms I do not reckon I am a little man. That is what I thought to myself. I do not reckon that I am a little man but then I suddenly realised that it was Judith Tizard who was saying it. Relative to her we are all little men. That is true. In fact there is not a person in this House including Gerry Brownlee who is not a little man relative to Judith Tizard. Gerry Brownlee looks like a graduate out of some sort of Jenny Craig college relative to Judith Tizard. However we see how bad the Labour Government duplicity is. If we had ever stood up and called one of those members “a fat woman” there would be outrage—simple outrage. Yet they can say “you are little men” and get away with it. But I digress. 
I want to talk about one issue and one issue alone given that I have only 5 minutes to talk about it which is to do with road funding. If there has ever been an area where there is spin it is road funding. It is the main issue I get from the Minister of Transport regularly and the media parrot it. The Government says that road funding has never been higher than under this Government and that is true. But it has been true for every year since statistics on road funding were captured. I have them here. I ask members to pick a year and then pick any year behind it and they will see that it has always become bigger. So next year road funding will be bigger than it is this year and the year after that road funding will be bigger than that year. So it is not a great big story when Pete Hodgson says the Government is spending more on roading than ever before. That is true in any year we want to pick. 
Then he comes out with this magic figure of $18.9 billion for roading over the next 10 years. They say that last bit really quickly. They say the first bit slowly—“$18.9 billion for roading over the next 10 years”. If one asks “What was that last bit?” they say “over the next 10 years”.I do not know why they do not make it $189 billion over the next century. It sounds more; it sounds good. But I have analysed that because that was a bit of a kick in the guts for me. I thought: ”Jeez $18.9 billion! How does National counter that?”. So I had a look at what this year’s road funding is. I then escalated it for the average growth that has occurred in road funding over the last decade which is 18.1 percent. I added up the numbers and came to a figure of $19.3 billion. So even if road funding grows over the next 10 years at only the rate it has been growing $18.9 billion is less than it needs to be. Let us take Auckland. The big spin from Judith Tizard the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues is that the Government has done more for roading in Auckland than we could care to name. I have here a graph using information from the Minister’s answers of how much money has been spent on new roading in Auckland. How much money? 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: Heaps! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Dover Samuels has really led me into this. Members will notice that the first tower is blue because that was the last year of the National Government then the next four towers represent the first 4 years of Labour. In every year of the first 4 years that Labour was in office it spent less on Auckland’s roads than National did in its last year in office. I must admit that last year Labour actually exceeded the line. There is the line. Anyone can have the graph; I will table it at the end of the speech. 
I must say that at least last year the Government exceeded National’s spending. But after 5 years of phenomenal growth in traffic and revenue I have another table to show how much money the Government is now taking from the poor old motorist. We would expect that graph to go through the ceiling. Again the spin from Labour is that it has done more in roading. Labour claims credit for a number of the projects that had already started while I was the Minister of Transport. The Albany to Puhoi realignment had finished its first stage when Labour finally got into office but somehow that project was Labour’s. The fact that it was all under way beforehand does not seem to rankle Labour. 
The next thing Labour does not seem ever to want to touch is the fact that at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at the end of 2003 Transit New Zealand said something that should curdle the blood of every member of this House. It said that it takes us longer to consent a major project than it does to build it. In fact it takes us considerably longer to consent. 
Steve Chadwick 
: No! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Steve Chadwick is saying: “No”. Firstly she was not at the select committee and secondly she understands very little at any rate. Let me repeat the words. The then Chief Executive of Transit New Zealand Robin Dunlop said to the committee: “I have to say to the member’s question that from Transit’s perspective it now takes us considerably longer to get the consent approval for a major project than it takes …”. So the National Party proposed a series of sensible amendments to the Resource Management Act to stop that nonsense. The Millau bridge in southern France—a US$700 million project—was consented in 3 months; it took 7 years to get the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 consent. It goes on. 
If the Government really wants to crow about its record in road funding members will see from the graphs that funding has dropped every year. I have here a graph of the percentage of GDP being spent on our roads. Every year while Labour has been in office it has been dropping as a percentage of our GDP. Every year the funding for Auckland has been under what it was when Labour came to power. Let us just stop the spin and start the reality. 
Finally I say to the motorists who are still in peak hour traffic in Auckland trying to get home to their families tonight that if they seriously believe—[ 
Interruption 
] Dover Samuels needs to know that at half-past 8 it is still peak hour in Auckland. I say to motorists that this Government has done nothing to fix their problems but to hold on because help is on the way with a new National Government.