7. Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this
to the Minister of Transport
What progress has been made on the Victoria Park Tunnel road of national significance?
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is an amount of giggling here. We did not all hear Tau Henare’s interjection; I wonder whether you would like to repeat it.
Mr SPEAKER
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) Link to this
Good news! I visited the Victoria’s Secret—sorry; Victoria Park construction site this morning, and I am pleased to report to the House that Aucklanders will begin to benefit from the Victoria Park Tunnel in November this year, well ahead of schedule. The $340 million Victoria Park Tunnel project will increase the capacity of State Highway 1 between the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Newmarket, one of the country’s most important freight and commercial routes, and the last major bottleneck of the central motorway junction. It is great to see that the whole programme will be completed in February, 3 months earlier than planned.
How has the Government’s commitment to infrastructure spending boosted confidence in the construction sector?
The Government’s funding pipeline of $10.7 billion of State highway funding over 10 years has provided a secure funding pipeline, which has given contractors the confidence to continue investing in their people and machinery, and to complete projects more quickly. This has sped up the construction of a project that may in fact never have happened if the previous Government had cut back on its State highway funding, as it had planned to do. I am pleased that this confidence is flowing through to a number of projects, which are now being delivered even earlier than scheduled. Last week I announced that the Hobsonville motorway will be completed 6 months ahead of schedule. Last year the southbound part of the Newmarket Viaduct opened early, and the Manukau Harbour crossing also opened early.