He says today the roads around Tairawhiti are in fact worse than they were fifty years ago. Burke says the present settings for funding roads are based around use - in other words, the number of vehicles using them - rather than the opportunities they offer and particular needs of the primary sector. "The present settings don't make sense to me because high export earners such as the primary sector and tourism miss out," he says. According to Burke, "commercial settings" should be applied to infrastructure - roads, water, etc. He maintains that roading is still the big issue and roads need to be able to cope with bigger trucks.