Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me here today to officially open this impressive new stretch of State highway 1 - the Northern Gateway Toll Road.

Before I begin I would like to acknowledge Rodney District Mayor, Penny Webster, Northern Gateway Alliance Board Chair, Lindsay Crossen and representatives of iwi Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima O Kaipara for their attendance today.

It is a pleasure to be here and I am looking forward to tomorrow when traffic will be able to travel for the first time on what is the largest single roading project undertaken in this country to date.

Its completion is a significant milestone - a $360 million project, four years in the making, complete with twin tunnels, seven major bridges, five major new culverts - and finished on budget and ahead of schedule.

To put it all in context - this has involved 4 million cubic metres of earthworks, 60,000 cubic metres of concrete to be poured and at its peak, 300 people working simultaneously on this project to see it completed.

Congratulations to all those involved with the design and construction of this road.

As a local, I know how eagerly awaited this new road is. It has been much- discussed over many years and we have all watched its construction in anticipation of this day, and its opening. The community of Rodney has embraced this highway over the past four years - as evidenced by the thousands who have come to the project's open days.

The road will bring a range of significant benefits - both to the communities concerned and the country as a whole.

It goes a long way to remedying what has been a very troublesome stretch of highway. The road takes a more direct and safer four lane route between Auckland and Northland - it will ease congestion and enhance safety.

Northland and Rodney will benefit from the improved access to each district. Reduced travel times will make these areas even more attractive for tourism and businesses looking beyond Auckland for growth opportunities.

For Orewa in particular the change will be immediately tangible with State Highway 1 traffic now able to bypass the township, enabling the community to restore the connection between town and beach. Similar benefits will be felt in smaller communities like Waiwera and Hatfield's beach.

Safety enhancements include clearer sightlines, smoother turns reduced road gradients, and of course the separation of the carriageways in each direction.

2008 saw the lowest road toll in almost 50 years but then we had a very high Christmas/New Year Holiday road toll. The importance of making our roads even safer cannot be overstated. Road engineering plays a big part in this, alongside driver education and enforcement

Another significant milestone of this project is the way we are paying for it - with some of the money coming through tolling and debt funding.

For larger projects which are expected to deliver benefits over long periods of time, over generations in fact, it is worth looking at the option of debt funding which more closely matches the cost of the project with those benefits. The tolling on this project will provide revenue to cover some of the debt of this project and that has helped enable the project to go ahead.

With a fully electronic system there is no need for vehicles to slow, stop or change lanes to pay a toll.

But for me one of the exciting aspects of this project is that it is a prime example of what can be achieved when the public and private sectors work together. The New Zealand Transport Agency and member organisations of the Northern Gateway Alliance have delivered this project ahead of schedule and on budget. 

Public private partnerships are something you will hear the Government, and me in particular, talking about a lot - we believe PPPs are very useful mechanisms to help with the quick and efficient construction and maintenance of some of our roads. Sharing of the risk and the knowledge between the roading agency and private industry ensures shared and innovative solutions to problems that appear in the design and build of large civil construction projects

You will be hearing a lot more about transport and roading construction over the next little while. In the face of the current world economic crisis governments around the world have signalled that they are prepared to step in aggressively and stimulate their economies to avoid the worst effects of what is looking more and more like a global recession.

New Zealand is no exception in this respect. While we have not yet been exposed to the downturn in the way that Northern Hemisphere economies have been, we have actually been in a local recession for longer.

So alongside other measures like personal tax reduction and the Prime Minister's upcoming announcement on measures to assist small and medium-sized businesses, the Government has identified accelerated spending on infrastructure projects as an ideal way of providing additional stimulus.

Accelerating infrastructure investment will not only stimulate our economy, but also leave us in better shape to grow more quickly again as world demand picks up again. And it's how well we grow out of the current recession that will determine our prospects as a country for, in fact, the next twenty years.

Roading, and transport generally, form an important part of the plan. National and regional land transport networks have long been funded by central government, so they are one area where central government is ideally placed to enhance its contribution to New Zealand's infrastructure.

We have already identified the fast tracking of a number of smaller roading projects that are consented or nearly consented and ready to go as part of the Government's short-term economic stimulus, and the Prime Minister will be making an announcement in this regard in the next month, alongside some other capital spending.

The second part in relation to transport is to gear up our ongoing State Highway construction programme to move more quickly over the next three to five years in particular. People from the Ministry of Transport and NZTA are currently working on options in that regard and I will have much more to say in that area in the coming weeks.

I can't give you details today about which major projects will be brought forward as part of that second phase of work. However I can tell you that the Government is committed to further extending of the four laning of State Highway One North of Auckland, progressively from the end of the Northern Gateway Toll Road at Puhoi as far north as Wellsford.

While the benefits of this current project are obvious and will be obvious to the members of the public when they commence driving on it tomorrow, it is just one of many projects planned or already underway in and around our biggest city.

Work has begun on the $150 million State Highway 1 Newmarket Viaduct replacement work, and work continues on the extension of State Highway 20 at both ends, and the link between State Highway 16 and the Upper Harbour motorway. 
Further improvements on the plans include resolving the Victoria Park flyover bottleneck in central Auckland, linking State Highway 16 and 20 at Waterview, and the completion of the Waikato expressway.

The Government is committed to delivering critical infrastructure. We understand the regional and national economic benefits of well-performing transport corridors. We will be giving priority to projects that will stimulate economic growth to our major regions and to the national economy and, like the Northern Gateway Toll Road, offer considerable number of safety and social benefits. We will also be ensuring that all projects that proceed are designed in the most cost-effective manner possible, making the appropriate tradeoffs to ensure the money of New Zealanders is well spent, and leaving a positive legacy for generations to come.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has been involved in this project, the designers, the engineers, the heavy equipment drivers, NZTA, everyone involved - and that includes the local communities. This has been a long and complicated project and I know the benefits of your hard work - and patience - will be very significant. Congratulations on the result - you all should be very proud of your achievement.

Thank you.