Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): The Government is committed to supporting more people to travel by public transport and to ensuring that public transport is frequent, reliable, and accessible to support mode shift and our emissions reductions goals. The member will be familiar with announcements that were made yesterday that will assist significantly there over the next three months. In addition, we have, over the course of our time in Government, increased public transport funding in the National Land Transport Fund from $336 million to $636 million. This has supported better outcomes, such as new public transport services in places like Timaru, which now has an on-demand public transport system; $2 fares for buses in Queenstown; major new infrastructure such as the Puhinui train station in Auckland, partly funded by the regional fuel tax; and the Eastern Busway. I also announced earlier this year a pilot Community Connect card to provide half-price public transport to low-income earners in Auckland. I would note that while affordable fares are an important part of ensuring an accessible public transport system, they're not the only part. Making public transport completely free would reduce the revenue coming into the system, and much international evidence suggests that factors such as the frequency and reliability of services are actually more important in terms of driving patronage than free fares.