Baldock Larry: Financial Review Debate 
Baldock Larry: Financial Review Debate 
[Volume:607;Page:4182] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I am happy to make a contribution to this debate albeit it is a wide-ranging debate. It is so wide ranging at times that if this were a cricket match Billy Bowden would be flapping his hands widely and calling “wide wide” repeatedly after listening to some of the contributions in the House today. 
This is a bill concerning supply. When it comes to supply one has to say that the Government has enjoyed a very good run with the economy and the supply has been steady such that notwithstanding some major slow-down in the economy in the next few months the Government will end this year with a very substantial Budget surplus. I want to address some comments towards roading in this regard. 
During 2001 and 2002 the Government increased petrol excise tax by 4c a litre. This resulted in an additional $145 million approximately which no one in his or her right mind would argue Transit does not need in order to give New Zealanders better roads. Whether we measure New Zealand’s road toll by deaths per vehicle or deaths per 100000 people we find that New Zealand roads are amongst the least safe in the developed world. However I do commend the Land Transport Safety Authority and the police for the magnificent effort they have made in the past year in reducing our road toll. Nevertheless the social cost of road accidents in New Zealand is estimated to be $3.1 billion a year which is a huge burden for our families and our economy to have to bear. The tragedy of the increase in tax that I referred to earlier—and I say tragic because lives were lost as a result of our roads not being up to international standards—is that only an additional $32 million of the tax raised was allocated to building new roads while $70 million went into the consolidated account. 
We in United Future along with many road users in New Zealand received encouragement from the Prime Minister’s words yesterday morning when she acknowledged that if we wanted First World roads we would have to put our hands in our pockets and pay for them. I commend this Government and in particular the Minister of Transport the Hon Paul Swain. I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his marriage at the weekend. Marriage is alive and well in New Zealand and we encourage it wherever we see it. 
The Minister has a huge task and I am encouraged by his commitment to work on finding a solution to the huge deficit of roading infrastructure that has been allowed to develop over the past years under previous Governments. We must consider alternative methods of funding with far greater flexibility than the current Land Transport Management Bill provides but that will not be enough. We must also still look to increase our revenue allocation to Transit not only to build new roads but for the maintenance of the increasing road network that we all want to see built. 
I take heart from the Prime Minister’s comments. I take it that she means that the Government is prepared to put its hand into the collective pocket of the taxpayers of New Zealand and that at least is a sign of Government commitment at the same time as it is asking New Zealanders and councils across the country to put their hands into their collective pockets and pay for some of the roads that we need with road tolling. United Future is prepared to support the Government to find pragmatic ways to meet the infrastructure needs of New Zealand without our being stuck with an ideology that leaves us without any way forward. 
I would also like to make some comments this evening with regard to legal aid under the Ministry for the Environment’s budgets and allocations for 2001 and 2002. Sixty-five applications were received for legal aid funding. While we support the principle that everyone should have his or her day in court as a part of natural justice we find it difficult to understand why when taxpayers contribute to give members of the community that opportunity and the Environment Court rules against their case taxpayers have to support an appeal so that those members of the community can have another shot at disrupting the application. The applicants have spent their own money. We believe that it is time for those who appeal applications to spend their own money as well. 
With regard to biosecurity in the light of an increasing number of invaders being found in our country as per the  
New Zealand Herald 
 article of yesterday which reports that we have had five biosecurity invaders in the last year while in the 5 years prior to that we had only five I believe that the Government must evaluate its Budget priorities. In 2001 we spent $123 million attempting to cover the protection of the entire nation including screening aircraft and mail only to be forced to allocate nearly $90 million over the next 5 years to attempt to eradicate the painted apple moth. There needs to be a debate regarding whether it is prudent to spend $90 million to screen all sea containers or whether we continue the current practice referred to in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 article. Last year the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry inspected 24 percent of high-risk containers and randomly selected a further 5 to 10 percent for internal inspection whereby an officer puts his or her head round the door of the container and has a look inside. For the first time the ministry did a thorough recheck of containers already door-inspected and the results were predictably worrying. Five live alien spiders and three insects were discovered in the 1517 containers during door inspection; in the recheck the numbers shot up to 124 spiders and 71 insects. It is important if we are to have a secure biosecurity border in this country that we be prepared to allocate funding upfront to provide that protection and do not continue to waste it on chasing after those invaders that have already evaded our security.