Chris Bishop

He said 1.6 billion. Yeah, of course he's because he's times together the 1.2 million people they claim takes public transport and the average the average that Labor claim um it will save people, which is twelve hundred. You know, so you know, I mean like well the the point is the the numbers are all over the show, and the idea that it would cost sixty-five million dollars per year, I think um is is fanciful. Um but the more important point is this, which is what are they doing? No matter how much it costs, whether it's sixty-five or one point two, what are they gonna cut to pay for it? Because the National Land Transport Fund is already oversubscribed. That's the fuel tax that pays for the road maintenance and new state highways and and all these uh things that uh make the transport system run. What are they gonna cut? The reality is it's just classic same old Labour. What they will do is borrow the money and they will whack it on the national credit card bill, and we will all pay for that ultimately in the end through higher um higher interest rates and higher inflation.

No, no, I didn't, I didn't so I didn't actually say that. That's that's that is not that is not accurate. I was asked the question um if you were if you're gonna do something on public transport, and I said, yeah, well, if we did do something on public transport, we would do it around services and around infrastructure. We wouldn't do it on subsidies because public transport is already heavily subsidized, right? It's it every time you jump on a bus or a train, the t the ratepayer and the um the the central government is kicking in quite a lot of money. So it's already heavily subsidised, and the advice we've had is that you need to do more around service provision, making sure they've actually got the capacity on the networks of the buses and trains actually turn up and you can get on them. I totally get that.

I think that would be the wrong way to view it. We've announced it this week because it's it's part of the budget, and um, you know, we're announcing a whole range of things related to the budget. Um so there are budget implications, but it's not fundamentally about savings. There are some savings on the way through, but actually the increase in income related rent that people will pay, uh, all of that is 90 90% of that is reinvested in increases in the accommodation supplement. So as you said, social housing tenants will pay more, but the accommodation supplement, which goes to far uh far greater number of people, it's about 380,000 recipients of the accommodation supplement, they'll get an extra 10 to 30 dollars a week. And the reason for that is is a pretty simple one, which is that what we have at the moment is a situation where you can have someone living in a private rental next door to someone in a um in a social house, they're in exactly the same financial position. If you're in a social house, you are far better off compared to someone in a in a private rental, even though you're in exactly the same financial position. Now, that doesn't strike me as fair. I think most Kiwis would say that's not right. Um, and so the system will now be fairer uh than what it is at the moment.

Yeah, we are. So the average length of time that someone spends in um social housing, 30% of people spend over 10 years. Um the the average length of time from today for someone in social housing is an additional sixteen point seven years. That's actually up, by the way, from twelve point uh seven um seven years ago. So people spend a long period of time, and for some people that's completely appropriate. So if you think about people with severe disabilities, um, people with you know quite severe social challenges. Actually, they need a house for life. But not everybody does. And what's really interesting is 30% of people, roughly 30% of people in social housing earn enough to actually survive in the private rental market in the lower quartile. So they're actually earning enough money that they could actually be in private sector housing. And of course, if they move into that private uh rental housing, that frees up a space in the social house for someone who is you know disabled or who's got mental health challenges. And there those are the people who are waiting to get into a social house at the moment, but we can't get there because there's not enough flow in and out of the system. So that's what we're trying to do as well.

I think most Kiwis would say yes. I mean, if you think about just how hard it is to do simple stuff to your house, how hard it is to build housing in this country, how long infrastructure takes and how many conditions are placed on infrastructure that does get built, you know, which is all my responsibility. I think most reasonable people would say yes. You know, we spend 1.3 billion bucks a year on consenting costs alone for infrastructure. That's basically, you know, it's the cost of transmission gully on consenting costs. It's just red tape, right? That's not actually building anything. That's just the consents. You know, it's and that's every year. So it's a nightmare for the country, and that's just in one sector alone. And I think that's sort of the flip side of the point David was making yesterday about the you know vast size of government, the number of regulators, but also the number of regulations that apply in the system.

Well, there's a couple of things I'm doing in my space. One is we're doing local government simplification and reform. Um, so we're going to end up with uh fewer councils as a result of the process we're underway on. And we're also going to end up with fewer plans um and fewer rules on the plans through RMA reform, and that's the big one. So RMA reform, you know, the new planning system we are building, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reduce the number of plans, reduce the number of rules, standardise things so you don't have to constantly be creating bespoke rules up and down the country. So building a house in Lower Heart's different to building a house in Upper Heart. You know, all of that eases the regulatory burden, makes it simpler to get on and do things. And it you know, genuinely will be transformational. We're predicting a very large uplift in GDP growth per year as a result of it, and that's what makes New Zealand wealthy. That's that's the game, right? That's ultimately what we're all here for, is to make New Zealand a wealthier, more prosperous country.

Well on my older reef, the the mayor and I I think it would be fair to say have um agreed to disagree. We have a respectful difference of opinion on that. He's very keen on that option, but it's not currently uh on the table. The the all of the advice has indicated over successive uh governments and periods of time that it's basically between a bridge and a tunnel. And and just to finish off your point before I am intending to engage with the Labour Party, and in fact we've already done that, we've had a series of briefings with them, and I do want to make sure this decision is made in a way where we have some consensus so that people have stability. It is critical.

Successive governments have Well uh i look it's easy as a politician to say, you know, we're gonna build this and we're gonna build that and you know, second harbour crossing and you know, isn't it gonna be amazing and stand in front of a you know, a nice stylized design and say, isn't this amazing? The reality is it's a significant infrastructure project. It will take many, many years to build, long after I'm transport minister, or hopefully I'll be transport minister a few for a few more years, but you know, long after I'm transport minister, it will be being built and then it will be open. And um I'm just trying to do the right thing as the minister and make you know, alongside the rest of the cabinet, make a decision that's in the national interest that enjoys broad support of of the other political parties in parliament and also the Auckland Council. Now, can we get there? Well, I'm gonna give it a red hot go here.

Well, as Dr. Sweeney says, who I've got a lot of time for, remember he ran the project, but he ran it to what the government and the council agreed on would be the design scope at the time. People will see when CRL opens in the second half of the year. It's an amazing. piece of infrastructure, but I think people will also be somewhat surprised by, how shall we say, the grandeur of the stations. They are... Some would say they're like palaces. They're amazing. They're going to be incredible, but they come at a price, right? They come at a cost and you just got to weigh up whether or not it's worth the price. And, you know, five and a half billion bucks is a lot of money. So I think it's like every other project, we should do a review once it's open.

Yeah, and that's a reasonable point too, and that's precisely why we're going to do a review. And I'm also really interested in having a look at how we got some of the scope wrong from the start when it comes to urban development, because CRL is not just a transport project, right? It's actually an enabler of growth around the city for housing, for commercial development, and except we didn't really think about all of those things right at the start of the project, okay? We just thought about it as a transport project. transport project and said okay let's go on and build an underground rail loop three and a half kilometres underground now that's fine that's important but we miss some opportunities along the way to really take advantage of CRL I mean if you think about it only now are we doing the level crossings along the rest of the rail network in Auckland and all of the evidence is that to really take advantage of city rail links increased passenger service trains you need to do the level crossings but we're only getting on with them now Now, 10 years after we started building CRL. So we've, you know, frankly, the country's made some mistakes along the way and I want to make sure we don't repeat those mistakes in the future.

Well, as Dr Sweeney says, who I've got a lot of time for, remember he ran the project, but he ran it to what the government and the council agreed on would be the design scope at the time. People will see when CRL opens in the second half of the year. It's an amazing. piece of infrastructure but I think people will also be somewhat surprised by how should we say the grandeur of the stations um they are Some would say they're like palaces, they're amazing, they're going to be incredible but they come at a price, right, they come at a cost and you just got to weigh up whether or not it's worth the price and, you know, five and a half billion bucks is a lot of money so I think it's like every other project we should do a review once it's open.

Yeah, and that's a reasonable point too. And that's precisely why we're going to do a review. And I'm also really interested in having a look at how we got some of the scope wrong from the start when it comes to urban development, because CRL is not just a transport project, right? It's actually an enabler of growth around the city for housing, for commercial development. And except we didn't really think about all of those things right at the start of the project, okay? We just thought about it as a... as a transport project and said okay let's go on and build an underground rail loop three and a half kilometres underground now that's fine that's important but we missed some opportunities along the way to really take advantage of CRL I mean if you think about it only now are we doing the level crossings along the rest of the rail network in Auckland and all of the evidence is that to really take advantage of city rail links increased passenger service trains you need to do the level crossings but we're only getting on with them now 10 years after we started building CRL. So we've, you know, frankly, the country's made some mistakes along the way and I want to make sure we don't repeat those mistakes in the future.