Joyce Steven: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Joyce Steven: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:661;Page:9497] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 It is a tremendous yarn that the member opposite has been running. It is an interesting one because there are a range of things in transport that she could talk about. There are some very big issues. Road safety is an important issue. The Government is making major investments in roading which we know members of the Opposition sometimes do not like. There is also the big job in turning round KiwiRail for which way way too much money was paid by the previous Government. There are other issues that we have to clean up including the shortfalls the previous Government left in the driver-licensing and driver-testing accounts which we are now trying to settle and solve. But of course none of those things are all that important to members of the Opposition. They are focusing on one particular issue. I think it would be wise to have a look at that issue because it points to something about Labour. I think it is a physical reminder of Labour’s lack of fiscal concern for anything. 
What we decided last week to do which we are now doing is to test whether the providers of transport services to SuperGold Card recipients are being paid the right amount for the services they provide. That is the purpose of the review. The people who run the ferry out to Waiheke Island are paid around $2 million a year to carry those with SuperGold Cards free of charge. Nobody is arguing about whether they should be going out there. As we have said all the way through we have accepted the policy but the question we have to ask in testing everything from a fiscal point of view is whether that is value for money in terms of what is being paid to the operator. It is not about the people who are using the cards; it is about what is being paid to the operator. 
I think that Labour members are telling us that we should never test those things; that once we have voted money for something we should never look at it again. Of course we have stacks of examples of that. We have examples in my own portfolios of transport and communications where they have said write the cheque and whatever we do later do not look. In fact we should never test whether the money is being spent well because we do not really care. Money just comes from the taxpayers—just bring some more money in and it will be fine. Fortunately we now have a fiscally responsible Government that does care and that is prepared to test the assumptions and to maintain the services but to constantly test whether we are getting value for money from the people who are providing the services. That is what this Government does and this issue is another example of that. That was what this thing was about last week. It showed once again the Government’s concern for the money that belongs to taxpayers of this country. 
I would have thought that Labour members would be very interested to find out what is happening with KiwiRail. After all the Labour Government spent about a billion bucks on it but Labour members do not seem to have any concern about where that money went. They have not raised it tonight. They have no concern about where the money for KiwiRail has gone or whether the business is in good shape. They could have taken calls and popped up to say that it is a big issue that this was $1 billion that they threw away in the dying months of their administration. I thought they might have a little bit of an interest as to whether that money is going well but there was no interest whatsoever. 
There was also no interest in the rest of the rather large transport portfolio in terms of expenditure as to what is going on with it. That is fine. That is their approach and I am sure they will criticise everything we as a Government do to check whether expenditure is at the appropriate level for the service that is being provided. We are happy for them to do that because I can tell members that taxpayers and in fact Grey Power want us to do that. Grey Power endorsed our approach on Friday— 
Hon Annette King 
: Ha! 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: They did. They endorsed our approach and said that they supported the Minister in his attempts to ensure value for money from the passenger transport operators so that the scheme could be kept sustainable and continued into the future. That is what they said on Friday. So the Grey Power people are in favour and every other taxpayer is in favour and all members opposite can say is that they like to write the cheques and that once the cheque is gone they do not care any more. Well I do not think that will be an approach for this Government as long as it occupies these benches. Thank you.