Good morning everyone. You've heard a lot of candidates talking about transport and how Christchurch can develop as a city, but as the leader of the Pirate Party, I'd like to talk to you about what we'll do to give Christchurch the public transport system it deserves. Firstly, the Pirate Party has a strong commitment to protecting the privacy and safety of public transport.

We'll introduce cryptographic security on public transport, which is a very complicated computer cyber thing - I understand it very well, I know tech better than anyone - and wipe everyone's purchase data on public transport to 28 days to protect their privacy. In addition, we were the first party this election to promise light rail for Christchurch - from the city centre, right here to Rolleston. I'm very pleased by it, and our local candidate here, model-kyosanto, helped a lot in drawing it up.

We will give New Zealand's second-largest city, a city of over 380,000, the transport connections that it deserves. A light rail line will, under our plan, operate in the middle of the road with 11 stops. It will create a smoother commute for thousands of residents, giving them easy access to the city centre, and enabling them to skip the traffic.

That's why I'm very confused about what I've heard from the National candidate here. They say that railways are useless, and that they'll always be repaired because of the earthquakes here. Melbourne has the largest light rail network in the world, and just last week they had a 6.0 earthquake. Not a single bit of their track had to be fixed! But what really takes the cake is that this guy said that we should spend money on roads instead of railways! Now, don't get me wrong, we should invest in reducing traffic time and supporting commuters, but how are roads any less earthquake-prone than railways? Why is it worth the investment to fix roads but not railways?

Mind, don't think that the Alliance is all good in this area either. Yes, I am pleased by the new commitment by transport minister CaptainKate2258 to build airport light rail in Christchurch. I don't think it's a bad idea. But what good will strengthening the connections tourists have to Christchurch and our beauty do without helping Christchurch residents with light rail? It's putting the horse before the cart. Not to mention, the plan is completely uncosted. The Pirate Party has developed our policy using information from expert studies, and has provided a $5 billion sum for how much we will spend on this.

So I don't entirely disagree with both of what the two major parties are saying on transport. But a lot of it can just be hot air, and at the end of the day, if you want someone up there to keep them honest, that is the Pirate Party. We were, as I said, the first to act and promise real action for Christchurch. I hope that we can deliver if we're in government.