Joyce Steven: General Debate 
Joyce Steven: General Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:3867] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I am very proud to be part of a Government that yesterday introduced two bills addressing illegal street racing and to have had a personal role in bringing one of those the Land Transport (Enforcement Powers) Amendment Bill to the House. I think it is a sign of a very busy Government. If we look at all the things that the Government has announced over the last couple of weeks we see that after only 5 months in office the Government is moving fast to deal with some of the issues facing New Zealand in important areas like economic growth and productivity law and order and better provision of public services. 
Tomorrow of course we have a Budget and I would like to introduce a brief comment about economic reality because I think we will all come up fast against it tomorrow. It will be a tough Budget. It would be tough for any country. It will be a Budget in which we need to talk about economic growth growth of productivity controlling expenditure and also about looking after the revenue side. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Hear hear! Yes! 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The interesting thing about that is—and I note the expressions of agreement from the Hon David Cunliffe opposite—that I have not heard anything from Labour members on any of those matters. In fact I read a very interesting article in the  
Independent 
 last week in which the Hon David Cunliffe gave us a history lesson on economics and followed it by saying that Labour’s solution would have been simply not to do any of its pledges and to have a mini-Budget in December 2008. Well here we are in May 2009 only 6 months later and we have not heard a word from them about what they would do. 
We have had a lot of criticism about the National Government’s expenditure changes. In fact I think Labour has opposed just about every single one of the National Government’s expenditure changes. We have had lots of criticism about that. We have also had lots of criticism of National’s initiatives around productivity and growth and no solutions at all from the Opposition. Labour members will get their chance tomorrow after the Budget to tell us exactly in the words of the Leader of the Opposition and the finance spokesperson exactly what they are going to do if they are ever given the opportunity again. 
The difficulty is that those members do not want the New Zealand Government to take any of the tough decisions and it is exemplified in one of the areas I am particularly familiar with: transport. On the one hand those members are telling the Government it should build the big Waterview Connection tunnels for $2.77 billion and on the other hand they are saying we should not change the Government policy statement on transport at all both at the same time. They say they do not have a means of funding it but they do not want to change the funding to be able to afford anything from within it. Those members have no solutions whatsoever. 
Those members will have to answer to New Zealand—ideally I think before the Mt Albert by-election; that would be the honest thing to do—whether they are saying that they would add $2.77 billion to whatever the Government debt figure turns out to be in the Budget tomorrow to build the deep tunnels of the Waterview Connection or whether they finally agree that the Government has it right with its policy. I think that is a fair question for New Zealanders to ask because it is not a trifling sum of money in anybody’s language; $2.77 billion is a lot of money. I think the public of Mt Albert are owed an answer before the by-election next month; they are owed it very soon. At least this Government has been honest with the public and the people of Mt Albert. We have stepped up and said “This is what we’re prepared to fund”. I look forward to seeing what the Labour Party’s solution is. This is one of the bigger discretionary amounts that could have been in the Budget tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what their views are of that particular announcement. 
The National Government is very focused on jobs in tomorrow’s Budget. Some of the things we have already announced include State highway improvements of a billion dollars improving maternity services by $103 million upgrading Middlemore Hospital by another $208 million $50 million on the cycleway project $40 million for the social services Community Response Fund and of course we are maintaining all the training as well. In the face of the world’s toughest recession we are focused on jobs. The members on the other side can bleat all they like that they want us to be focused on jobs but the fact is that we are. Those members need to answer the tough questions about expenditure and what things they would control including the big-ticket items like the Waterview Connection. Thank you.