Henare Tau: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Henare Tau: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4206. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 This debate is supposed to be about Vote Transport and all Phil Twyford can talk about are fetishes. But Mr Speaker I just want to talk on— 
Julie Anne Genter 
: Mr Speaker? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Pardon? 
Julie Anne Genter 
: I don’t think the Speaker is there. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes whatever. 
Phil Twyford 
: He doesn’t have anything to say. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh I have got plenty to say. I have got plenty to say. All I can say to poor old Phil Twyford is this: just say yes. You know this is the guy who is having a public meeting in a couple of weeks and he has already promised two things. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I thought that this debate was specifically on Vote Transport and so far I have not heard the member refer to Vote Transport at all. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The point is well made. This is Vote Transport. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: How long have I got Mr Chair? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Not long now—4 minutes. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Four minutes. I have been talking for a minute. This is what he has promised in Te Atatu: a ferry service from downtown Auckland to Te Atatu—a ferry service from downtown Auckland to Te Atatu. We have not even got any of the infrastructure and he is promising a half a billion dollar exercise. But that is not the only thing that he has promised the good folks of Te Atatu. He has promised them a busway that is going to cost up to about $600 million. So two promises—two promises—are already over the billion-dollar mark. I wonder how he is going to pay for that. I wonder how he is going to pay for that. 
Todd McClay 
: Is he promising to bring the ferry back to Te Atatu? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No he is not bringing a ferry back to Te Atatu; he is bringing a ferry service to Te Atatu. It is a billion-dollar promise for the good folk of Te Atatu. 
How is he going to pay for all of this? Well he is going to screw the people. He is going to screw the people of Te Atatu out of their own taxes. That is what he is going to do. How is he going to pay for it? I have got another bit of news for— 
Phil Twyford 
: “Holiday Highway”. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh he does not like it. You see for every question about the ferry service and the so-called new busway not once has this guy got up and said how much it is going to cost. Not once has he said: “This is how we are going to pay for it.” He says: “We might stop a couple of roads that National is building.” That is not enough for Mr Twyford’s promises. 
Phil Twyford 
: That’s more than enough. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: Actually that’s plenty. It would be more than enough—14 times more. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: More than enough—a billion dollars is more than enough! This is how he is going to pay for it. He is going to up the petrol tax because he is a mate of— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Brown town. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Brown town—274. That is how he is going to pay for it. He is going to take it out of the back pockets of good working-class people the very people whom he professes to represent. And he has not even got the cojones to go and say yes to the gay marriage bill for goodness’ sake. He has not even got the cojones to do that. But I digress. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry Mr Chair but I really do not believe that this speech has referred to Vote Transport at all. He has been talking about something completely different which is the transport policies that have been proposed by Mr Twyford but those are not actually in Vote Transport. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! Points of order are not an opportunity—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I am on my feet. Points of order are not an opportunity to make a speech. Members raising points of order should do so succinctly. Can I also say that it is tempting to use points of order to interrupt speakers who are actually speaking and I think the Chair normally has a fair appreciation of what the Standing Orders are and where members are moving. I think that on this occasion the member has been inside the boundary of what the tenor of the debate has been to date. But I will just caution the member: do not get off-track. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No I will not get off-track; I will stay on roads Mr Chair. I will stay on roads because here is a fact that poor little Phil Twyford does not really know: in fact funding for local roads has actually gone up. All he needs to do is go to—[ 
Interruption 
] In fact the funding has gone up by 2 or 3 percent. All he needs to do is sit down like a good local member and have a look at the plan for Te Atatu Road and Edmonton Road and the widening and the cycleway. That is what he needs to do. 
So instead of the pie in the sky fetish that he thinks he is talking about he needs to front up to the good folk of Te Atatu and say: “Mr and Mrs Te Atatu this is how I am going to pay for the new ferry service. Mr and Mrs Te Atatu this is how I am going to pay for the busway.” But he has not. And do you know why? Because he has not got a clue—because he has not got a clue. Labour thinks that by having a good idea—or an idea; it does not even have to be a good one—it will just appear. It is the same with “Planet Green”. I cannot wait—well I actually can wait—until they get to the Treasury benches but this is how they do it. They sit there smoking the old weed—well not these fullas—and then they come up with some harebrained idea and because that harebrained idea sort of sounds OK then it is just going to appear: the road and the ferry is just going to appear. 
I wonder whether he has even asked the good people of Te Atatu about the ferry service. 
Hon Member 
: He is. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: He has not. So not only has he not costed it out but he was told by the New Zealand Transport Agency that it had already looked at the busway and it was cost-prohibitive. 
Julie Anne Genter 
: That is untrue. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: My advice to the Green member is to jump on one of those roads and get the other half of the tattoo done. I tell you what: there is no way in hell that the good people of Te Atatu can afford the harebrained schemes of Mr Phil Twyford who has only been in the electorate 5 minutes. He has not even paid off a quarter of his mortgage. 
David Bennett 
: Has he got a mortgage? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: He has got a mortgage all right. This is nothing but pie in the sky dreams from a party that is not going to be anywhere near the Treasury benches for one reason and one reason only and that is that they do not do the hard yards and they do not do the costings. Those costs will be put on the good folk of Te Atatu—a billion dollars. We cannot afford it and here he is promising the earth to the good folk of Te Atatu. Shame on that member.