Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Well well well well well. Goodness gracious me. Now I do feel sorry for Anna Lorck the member who's just resumed her seat. I really like Anna Lorck but goodness gracious me. Three years. She's fought so long to get into this place and she'll spend her three years here and then she'll be out the other door. Having skited for the entire 10 minutes about the Hawke's Bay when we're meant to be talking about the Investment Statement and told a whole bunch of series of erroneous things about National's former record I do feel sorry for her. I do feel sorry for her because the simple reality is I'll put our record on infrastructure investment the last National Government's record on infrastructure investment up against this useless and incompetent Government's record any day of the week.Anna Lorck: Good grief; here we go.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): All right. Order! Order! Order! The member will not interject once she has got up from her seat.CHRIS BISHOP: Thank you Madam Speaker. I'll put our record up against the Labour Government's record any day of the week because the thing about the last National Government was we built stuff. We got things done and generally we got it done on time and under budget. Now just the other day the Government opened the next section of the Waikato Expressway. Fantastic project. I know David Bennett here has lobbied so long for that project and done such a good job on it. The Waikato Expressway was nothing throughout the 2000s under the Helen Clark Government and it took a National Government to turn up and say We're going to make this a road of national significance and it's going to be a four-lane expressway that you can now even travel at 110 kilometres per hour on; the safest road in the country." Yeah Labour got to open it. But you know what? The bulk of it was built under National. What else did National deliver? Ultra-fast broadband. We all took it for granted during the lockdown. We had ultra-fast broadband rolled out ubiquitous ultra-fast broadband rolled out around the country built by National. On time under budget thanks to Steven Joyce. Transmission Gully opened the other day. The Prime Minister turned up for the opening; again another project by National. But one of the problems with this Government and this is actually highlighted in the Investment Statement is this Government's made two mistakes when it comes to infrastructure. The first is they stopped the pipeline of infrastructure and transport investment—and there's a reference to that in He Puna Hao Pātiki—by essentially slashing the Transport Agency funding or the National Land Transport Fund State highway budget in 2018. We've got Phil Twyford to blame for that. Then they have made a series of dubious decisions and I would argue economically wasteful economically destructive decisions when it comes to infrastructure investment. That's why the Treasury highlights in the Investment Statement that we need better discipline around what we spend money on.Because it's all very well as Anna Lorck did—and actually Barbara Edmonds did to a certain extent—to stand up and say "Oh well infrastructure there's a deficit". Yeah I mean we all agree there's a deficit. There's no doubt about that. But addressing that deficit you know has to be done in a disciplined way. To give you an example reopening the Napier to Wairoa train line which I didn't hear Anna Lorck talk about and the reason she doesn't talk about it is because five trains have been down it. Now we have Shane Jones to blame for that. He spent I think it was from memory $9 million reopening a train line that no one wanted to use. So that's the kind of economically destructive policies I'm talking about. That is ill-discipline fiscally but also ill-discipline in capital spending when it comes to infrastructure investment.Now another project that is ill-disciplined that the Government stopped due to the public outcry before they could spend the money was the cycle bridge over the harbour bridge. I mean we all remember that—$785 million I think it was. A staggering sum of money and unsurprisingly every region around the country went "Hmm $785 million is a lot of money." Dan Rosewarne over there the new MP list MP based in Waimakariri he knows what that money could be spent on. It could go on the Woodend bypass which the local MP for Waimakariri Matt Doocey has spent so much time campaigning for and which this Government will never deliver. Glen Bennett knows all the projects that that money could be spent on in New Plymouth and the Taranaki region. He was sitting there when Michael Wood got up and announced it with Grant Robertson a year or so ago and said "We're going to have a cycle bridge over the harbour bridge in Auckland." and a very niche minority of people in Auckland went "Yes it's very exciting". Every Labour regional MP sat here going "Oh no how am I going to defend this?" Because Glen Bennett's got to go back to New Plymouth and Dan Rosewarne's now got to go back to Waimakariri and Tangi Utikere's got to go back to Palmerston North and defend three quarters of a billion dollars being spent on a cycle bridge and Tangi Utikere knows it. That's what happened. I think I know what happened; it was announced and then there was a massive public backlash and all the Labour regional MPs all of whom are staring at defeat in their seats in 2023 went to Grant Robertson and the Prime Minister and said "We cannot defend this. This is indefensible. You're asking us to go over the top and take one for the team." They said "Three waters is bad enough. The regions are in open revolt. Three waters is bad enough. But you're really asking us to go into no man's land. You're asking us to walk into the fire and take one for the team. And you know what? We're not going to do it". So the Government didn't do that. So the fiscal ill-discipline and ill-disciplined investment into that didn't happen thankfully. But we do have a destruction in the pipeline. The most interesting thing is—I mean I'm National's spokesperson for infrastructure. I go around the country with my good colleague Simon Watts and the destruction of value from that pipeline being destroyed in 2018 by Phil Twyford is real. There's a whole series of projects that got cancelled overnight that were part of the pipeline and of course a lot of those companies then shed their staff they had to change all their plans and the most economically ruinous thing about it and the most frustrating thing about it is the Government back-tracked after about an 18-month time. So we're in this ridiculous position where Phil Twyford comes in and says "We spend too much money on roads and we're not going to spend any more on State highways we're cutting the National Land Transport Fund" all these projects get cancelled like Pētone to Grenada like Melling like the Tauranga Northern Link. You name it you pick what—Cambridge to Piarere that's another one. And then there's a big outcry against it and Grant Robertson turns up in election year 2020 and says "Don't worry I'm going to borrow $10 billion on the New Zealand upgrade fund; I'm going to personally hand-pick the projects" and then all of a sudden they're back on the pipeline. But of course the costs have gone up in the meantime. We've wasted two years. Ōtaki to north Levin: one year it's on one year it's off and you know the next year it's back off again and unsurprisingly the companies who are working on the projects down the road like Pekapeka to Ōtaki they don't know if they're Arthur or Martha. They don't know if they're coming or going. Of course how do you plan for the long term when you've got no certainty of investment? Of course that is the problem and it's all created by Labour—it's all created by Labour. This is not something that they can blame on National because every Government in some respects you know will always get things wrong and the next Government inherits the sins of their predecessors. No one's disputing that. All of this is blamed on Labour because Labour inherited a pipeline of infrastructure and transport investment that if they'd just stuck to it the Minister of Transport would be opening roads around the country. Instead we're just getting started on the Tauranga Northern Link after five years of delay. One of the most dangerous roads in the country. Melling interchange in my former electorate of Hutt South will get started next year five years after it could have started—five or six years after it could have started. It's intensely frustrating. Hon David Bennett: At least it's getting started; it's more than ours.CHRIS BISHOP: Well David Bennett says "At least we get started". I mean Cambridge to Piarere and I think they're doing route protection but again it's never going to start unless National gets back in to Government. So the problem with the Investment Statement as presented is wholly caused by stupid Government policy—dubious decisions made for political reasons like reopening the Napier to Wairoa train line. I haven't even talked about light rail. It's hard for people to get their head around how big that project is. It'll never happen. But at least on paper—it's kind of like 15 25 30 I mean yeah it's only money. It's only taxpayers' money; $30 billion of money of which there's no business case yet but the Government is of course committed to it. So the Investment Statement is an important and interesting document and it reflects the fact that we have a Government currently focused on ill-disciplined investments both fiscally through operating expenditure but also ill-disciplined in the actual projects that we choose to focus on before we even get started on how we actually deliver them which they are totally incompetent at doing."