Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation,and Compensation Amendment Bill

I move, That the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill performs two main functions. Firstly, it establishes an accident compensation petrol levy and provides for changes in the levy rate. Currently, under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act, an accident compensation amount is collected alongside the petrol excise duty. That amount is not literally a levy. Consequently, it is not possible to change the petrol amount without either making legislative amendments to the Customs and Excise Act or by affecting Crown revenue. This bill amends both the Customs and Excise Act and the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act to address those two issues.

The second function of the bill is to reverse the changes to the accident compensation appeal regime that came by way of the District Courts Amendment Act 2002. That amendment Act will repeal section 162 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act, which requires that appeals to the High Court be either by leave to appeal being granted by the District Court or by special leave being granted by the High Court. Consequently, people would be free to appeal to the High Court, regardless of the circumstances. That will potentially impact on the High Court’s workload, and it also has cost implications for accident compensation. So the bill preserves the requirement under the existing section 162 of the Act that leave of the District Court is sought prior to an appeal to the High Court.

The key elements of the amendment bill before the House for its third reading today are as follows: formal establishment of the petrol amount as a petrol levy under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act; provision to enable the levy applied to petrol to also be applied to any other category of fuel that may be prescribed by regulations, to enable future options for accident compensation levies on other fuels as described in schedule 2 of the Customs and Excise Act; provision to set the initial petrol levy rate at 5.08c per litre for the 2003-04 levy year, and regulations to set the rate of the petrol levy; amendment of the Customs and Excise Act so that any future changes to the fuel levy do not require a legislative amendment to schedule 3 of that Act whenever the levy rate changes; provision for regulations to enable a fuel refund system, as the levy will be subject to the levy refund provisions set out in the legislation; amendment to section 236 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act so that challenges to levies do not apply because the accident compensation petrol levy will be included in the definition of “duty” in the Customs and Excise Act; and reverses to the changes to the accident compensation appeals regime that came by way of the District Court Amendment Act 2002.

The need for changes in the way that the Accident Compensation Corporation’s motor vehicle account is funded is due to the cost increases that account faces. Those increases have resulted primarily from improved estimates of long-term rehabilitation costs for seriously injured claimants, and underlying cost increases. As the motor vehicle account has the highest proportion of serious injuries of all accident compensation accounts, the improved estimates affect the motor vehicle account disproportionately more than the other accident compensation accounts. The Accident Compensation Corporation has an legislative requirement to collect sufficient revenue to fully fund all the costs associated with the motor vehicle account for the 2003-04 levy year, so the higher costs associated with that account need to be met by motorists.

The Government considered the options for the best way to fund the motor vehicle account in December last year, following public consultation. Previously, increases in the motor vehicle account costs have been absorbed into the annual vehicle licensing fee levy. The Government considered that the cost of vehicle licensing may have reached a point where further increases could lead to adverse social impacts, as some people already have difficulty in paying the licence fee. The funding of increased costs through the petrol levy is considered to be a fairer approach. That approach was certainly supported by a large number of New Zealanders during the Accident Compensation Corporation’s consultation on options for funding the motor vehicle account. It should also be noted that the proposed alignments align with the Government’s intention of reducing motor vehicle injuries, and that further work is also being undertaken on the long-term funding of the motor vehicle account, in the light of the New Zealand Transport Strategy.

In conclusion, I thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, the officials of the committee, and the officials of both the Department of Labour and the Accident Compensation Corporation for their constructive work on this bill. I support its further progress.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity of speaking on this so-called Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill. I say “so-called” with reason, because, undoubtedly, that is one of the most deceptive titles. One cannot call it a euphemism; it is outright deception, because this is a levy, a tax on the people of New Zealand. There is nothing to do with injury prevention associated with this bill.

I call upon the Government to remember what its members said when they were in Opposition and bandied around their credit card. They said: “No more taxes.”, yet we have had 15 different taxes since Labour has come into power. There have been 15, and this bill is all about introducing another one. It is very interesting also to recall that a former Prime Minister, Mike Moore, said several years ago, while he was, indeed, at the forefront of this Labour Party: “A levy is a tax; a tax is a levy.” Undoubtedly, this so-called injury prevention bill is nothing more than a tax grab.

But, more important, this Government says it is focusing on economic growth to bring New Zealand into the top half of the OECD. This bill absolutely epitomises why the Prime Minister has had to admit that her Government’s policies have no date attached as to when New Zealand might ascend into the top half of the OECD. As I said before, this tax is just one in a series of 15 increases in taxes that this Government has introduced, after Labour had stated on its credit card that it would not do that.

This bill’s 5.08c per litre increase comes on top of two other increases—one the year before, and one the year before that. On 1 July 2001 the Crown revenue petrol excise tax increased from 17.8c per litre to 18.5c per litre. Then again, on 1 March 2002 the road fund petrol tax was hiked from 13.5c to 17.7c a litre. This Government, which said it would not increase taxes, has introduced an increase for 3 years in a row. This measure is probably only the beginning. Members should remember that this was the Government that said it would focus on accident prevention.

Let me go back a step. Let us look at how it has rationalised bringing in those taxes for 3 years in a row, and this time round. The Government said it was because it had “better methods of calculating the costs of long-term injury claimants”. Well, in actual fact, just as it has brought in new taxes for 3 years in a row, it has said for 3 years in a row that it has better methods of calculating the costs. How long will that go on? How good is the Government getting, or how hopeless is it getting? Every year, time and time again, we hear: “Oh no, we’re going to have to revise the costs to the poor old New Zealand motorist. We haven’t quite done our calculations right. We’re going to have to up the taxes a bit.” That is what the Government has done, not only once but three times in a row.

Let us again focus on this Labour Government’s record on accident prevention. It is not very good. Let us look at consequences, at what accidents are doing to New Zealanders. Although it is true that the road death toll has come down marginally over the last few years, and so it should, in actual fact it is still shockingly high. It is in the order of 50 percent higher than that in the UK. But more salutary is the fact that moderate to serious injuries went up significantly between 1999 and 2002 under this Labour Government, which says it is focusing on accident prevention.

💬 Darren Hughes: Prove it.

I hear the member from Otaki saying: “Prove it.” Well, I tell Mr Hughes that the figures are in front of him, in Consequences, a publication brought out by the Accident Compensation Corporation. Just to let him know, I say that under the National watch the figures actually reduced from in the order of 82,000 to 79,000 over a few years, and since then they have increased by 14,000 extra moderate-to-serious cases. So, yes, I can prove that, and it is an indictment on this Labour Government that, despite its rhetoric of wanting to focus on realistic accident prevention policies, it has failed. On the other hand, there is no doubt that when it comes to collecting taxes, this Government is absolutely rapacious.

One of the other big questions relating to accident compensation is whether it is an effective, efficient model. One of the very impressive records that we saw under the previous National Government, when competition was brought in, was an immediate effect on early case management and early rehabilitation, and the galvanising of the corporation into working incredibly hard to improve workplace safety. It was an extraordinary effort of focus in terms of accident prevention in New Zealand, and it was very successful—unlike the ideology of this Labour Government, which, when it came in, carried out the absurdity of removing the competitive model, taking competition away. Its old instincts of monopoly shone through, and, once again, we are going to see, in the long run, a lack of efficiency and efficacy. Because of that, in this bill we are seeing—not for the first time in 3 years, not for the second time in 3 years, but for the third time in 3 years—an increase in petrol excise tax. This Labour Government, out of pure ideology, has taken the competitive model away. There would have been a great deal of sense—and all the serious commentators say this—in continuing that model for at least 5 to 10 years, in order to ensure that the big gains that had already started would continue. Sadly, purely because of ideology, that model has been taken away.

I want to comment on two other points, which come from the submissions made during the select committee process. Submissions came from the Automobile Association, from Business New Zealand, and from Federated Farmers. The most powerful, I believe, came from Business New Zealand when it made a fundamental recommendation. Business New Zealand submitted that setting the motor vehicle levy solely on the type of vehicle and the amount of fuel consumed was a poor substitute for a system that should take account of all risk parameters. It said that the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Government should therefore investigate alternative options for setting premiums for the motor vehicle account that would take into account all aspects of risk, including driver, vehicle, and road characteristics, in accordance with commercial actuarial practice. That has been absolutely ignored by this Labour Government, with a consequence being the bill before us, which grabs more taxes from the unsuspecting motorist of New Zealand.

This bill establishes a formal Accident Compensation Corporation petrol levy. People get hurt really badly in motor vehicle accidents, and that costs this country a lot. The damage lasts longer, the vehicles cost more to repair, and it costs more to rehabilitate the victims, compared with any other class of injury. More serious injuries occur in motor accidents than in any other class of accident. This is a common-sense bill, and I commend it to the House.

I was hoping that I could have my call before that member, because I know that she is up with the play on this legislation—although she would not have given that impression with that speech. I would like her to tell me how the amount of 5.08c was arrived at. I can take an answer from her. Why the additional 0.08c? The average New Zealander could understand 5c, 5.5c, or 6c, but why is it 5.08c?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: We told you at the select committee.

The Minister is trying to give the impression that this Government has its finger really on the button. That is far from the truth. We have just had the Minister of Justice answering a question for the Minister of Police. He does not know whether the Prostitution Reform Bill will make a greater demand on the police, or a lesser demand. Yet the Minister for ACC knows that this increase is justified, down to a fraction of a cent! I have not heard any detailed argument about how that amount was arrived at.

The way that this bill has been handled and is being pushed through the House gives the strongest argument yet for privatising accident compensation. My view is that the Government should set its sights on getting the standard of coverage correct, and on stipulating the entitlements that an accident victim is entitled to receive. It should not necessarily have the responsibility of insuring the motorist. The way that this is being handled is by having a blanket increase right across the board. There is no recognition at all of driving record, type of car, or whatever, except to say that those who drive more and put more petrol in their cars will pay more—never mind whether they have a good safety record, and never mind looking at this on a regional basis or a company basis. There is simply a blanket increase in the tax on fuel. We say there was an opportunity here to look at this with a little bit more innovation.

Our second concern is that the motorist is already paying over the top, with 18-plus cents per litre of petrol going into the consolidated account. If we ask any of the members over there why, they say it goes there to be used for hospitals, or for this or for that. We believe there was a good opportunity here to take 2.7c out of the contribution to the consolidated account and put it into accident compensation. The Government should have said it has slugged the motorists long and hard, ever since it has been in Government, and now it will use this opportunity to give them back a little bit. It should have said it would do the right thing and take out a portion of the levy that goes into the consolidated account.

New Zealand First understands the reasoning. We do not accept the way this is being conducted. We do not accept at this point in time that there has to be an increase in the accident compensation levy, and we do not accept that the petrol-using motorist should be slugged yet again. For those reasons, New Zealand First is opposing this bill.

As I have previously stated to the House, United Future accepts that the increased costs faced by the Accident Compensation Corporation do need to be met, and we also accept that increasing the petrol levy is the most equitable way of achieving that, as opposed to increasing the vehicle registration fees. However, we think this increase should be absorbed into the total amount of excise duty taken by the Government, rather than it allowing $785 million of the $1.7 billion collected in—

💬 Dail Jones: He’s agreeing with New Zealand First.

—I am agreeing with New Zealand First—petrol excise duties, road-user charges, and motor vehicle licensing fees to be siphoned off into the consolidated account. There is no guarantee that this money will be spent on accident compensation and rehabilitation, roads, or anything else directly transport related.

In Part 2, clause 6 raises the Accident Compensation Corporation levy to 5.08c per litre, but when we consider that 18.5c of the petrol excise duty collected from motorists at the pump already goes straight back into the Government’s coffers, we have to wonder why this increase is not taken out of that amount. That is, in reality, the purpose for which it is collected. Taking the Accident Compensation Corporation increase out of the money that goes to the Government would support this principle, and would leave 15.7c to be diverted to the consolidated account. Then, at least, a greater proportion of the excise duty would be guaranteed for use for transport-related costs. That measure would, I believe, earn a lot of respect from the motoring public.

During the select committee process, Federated Farmers pointed out that the diversion of 18.5c a litre of fuel excise into the Crown’s account was initially justified on the basis that it was required to fund the medical costs of road accidents. Federated Farmers submitted that the subsequent introduction of the motor vehicle account invalidated this justification, to which the Government replied that medical costs were not the only justification for the diversion of the excise. It cited a number of educational enforcement programmes to which the excise contributed, but we would have to say that 18.5c for every litre of fuel purchased is right over the top of what could be called reasonable. In the meantime, spending on Transfund was actually cut in the Budget, at a time when the Government is running Budget surpluses and the New Zealand transport infrastructure is in dire need of investment. United Future cannot condone a further unnecessary increase in the tax burden already borne by New Zealand motorists, when there is not enough to show for the money they already pay.

The purpose of this bill is to bring into effect announced changes in the petrol levy because petrol use takes into account the amount of time the vehicle is being driven. It roughly corresponds to the consequent degree of exposure to risk of injury. The Government announced in December 2002 that for the 2004-05 levy year the petrol amount will be raised by 2.3c per litre to 5.08c per litre. The reason for the increase is that the Accident Compensation Corporation motor vehicle account has recently faced a significant cost increase. It is legally required to collect enough levy to meet those costs. Although the number of fatalities has declined, this has had the perverse effect of increasing the medical and rehabilitation costs for those who survive but sustain serious injuries. The other practical option for raising the necessary levy is to increase the annual vehicle-licensing fee. However, the Government considers that it has already reached a level whereby any further increase could have adverse social consequences. So, in the Government’s view, the only practical and equitable solution is to increase the petrol levy.

United Future does not fault the Government’s reasoning. We accept that the increasing costs faced by the Accident Compensation Corporation need to be met. We also accept that increasing the petrol levy is the most equitable way of achieving this. However, this runs counter to United Future’s view of the wider transport policy, as expressed on many occasions by my good colleague Larry Baldock. United Future cannot condone a further unnecessary increase in the tax burden already borne by New Zealand motorists. We already pay more than $1.7 billion in petrol excise duties, road-user charges, and motor vehicle licensing fees, but $785 million of this is siphoned straight back into the consolidated account. As I said, it is not spent on accident compensation and rehabilitation, roads, or anything else directly transport related. As I asked previously, at a time when the New Zealand economy is said to be under pressure from external factors and from national infrastructure deficits, is this really a good time to siphon an extra $75 million out of the regions? That is what this bill does. The poor old New Zealand motorist gets hit again, especially those who use our roads more often for their work. Many, in my opinion, do incredible mileage, often with no accidents. The poor old employer with his salesperson on the road gets hit again. United Future will not be supporting this legislation.

I rise to speak to this bill on behalf of ACT New Zealand, which, as I said during the second reading and throughout the earlier debates on the bill, does not support it. ACT opposes the bill because it imposes an unnecessary tax on the motorists of New Zealand. If passed—and I presume it will be—it will create the third unnecessary increase in petrol levies since the Labour Government came to power. As we have been reminded at least once in the third reading debate, Labour is the party that campaigned on the basis of no new taxes. Since that party came to power, as we heard a moment ago, the Government has introduced 15 new taxes, and that almost became 16 with the proposal of the “fat tax”. Had it not been for the fact that ACT New Zealand raised that matter with the Government, we might well have still been in line for that. Thankfully, that proposal has now been squashed, and the hard-working New Zealander who always foots the bill will not be subject to that tax, at least.

Unfortunately, as we progress through the debate on the third reading of this bill, it is becoming obvious that yet another petrol levy will be added. This legislation will increase the petrol levy used to fund the Accident Compensation Corporation from 2.3c per litre to 5.08c per litre. That is a massive increase in tax of 120 percent. Labour had hoped that motorists would not notice that; it has been snuck through as quickly as possible. We first heard about this bill in December of last year. The timing was perfect. It was Christmas time, when everybody was too busy out doing the Christmas shopping to notice that yet another tax was about to be imposed. Then the bill was introduced to the House—with the proviso that the levy would start on 1 July, which had already been predetermined before anything had come before Parliament—on 8 April, in the middle of the Iraq conflict. At the time the oil prices were all over the place, so our petrol prices, of course, were doing the same. They were fluctuating wildly, and the Government timed the introduction of the bill precisely so that, again, nobody would notice it. Motorists did not know quite how much tax they were paying on their petrol at that time; it was not obvious from day to day.

This is also the third petrol tax that we have had since Labour came to power. It comes on top on the Crown revenue petroleum excise tax increase on 1 July 2001 and the National Roads Fund petrol tax hike on 1 March 2002. Like the previous two increases, this tax hike is totally unnecessary. We are talking here about injury prevention. Quite why we are, I do not know. This tax has nothing to do with injury prevention, as the National Party speaker said previously. The rate of serious injury and death over the past decade has steadily fallen by 30 percent, and over the same decade the number of registered cars has increased by 30 percent. Taken in total, we have had a drop of about 50 percent in the serious injury and death rate. So why, exactly, are we looking at this measure? It is just another excuse for a tax grab.

If we look at the Accident Compensation Corporation’s motor vehicle account, we can see it has run an underlying net surplus of more than $100 million per year before claim revaluation adjustments and changes in accounting treatments. Government members tell us that that is a way to cover rising health costs for road accident victims. Looking at the corporation’s annual accounts is also very instructive. We can see the corporation’s problems—or proposed problems—are actually due to the revaluation of the future cost of social rehabilitation, which over the next 30 years will be $858 million, rather than the $696 million that was stated. The accounts show that that is an estimate of future costs, based on the assumption that social rehabilitation costs will rise by 20 percent annually. Quite how the corporation came to that figure I do not know, but it is staggering.

The submissions on this bill were interesting, too, and we should look at them. The bill suggests that it will be fairer to lift the excise duty on fuel, rather than tacking the increased cost on to the registration fee. What that ignores is that the vehicles that use the least fuel often expose their driver or the operator to the greatest degree of risk of injury. Let me take, for example, motorcycles. They use considerably less fuel than cars, but a motorcyclist is at a hugely greater risk of injury than a car driver or passenger. With small cars, it is exactly the same situation. They use much less petrol—one can go a much greater distance on a small amount of petrol—than large cars, yet when they have accidents the passengers and drivers of those vehicles often sustain much greater injuries, because there is less protection for them.

The New Zealand First member talked about privatising accident compensation, and raised a very valid point. We should be looking at privatising that account. We saw great advantages when the employers account was opened to competition. [Interruption] Why does Mr Benson-Pope not stand and take a call, instead of muttering away?

💬 David Benson-Pope: What a good idea.

The member should do so. He should use his own time, instead of the Opposition’s time. Privatising the employers account would bring great benefits. The submission from Business New Zealand actually suggested, in relation to the fairness of this legislation, that the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Government should investigate alternative options for setting premiums for the motor vehicle account that would take into account all aspects of risk, including driver, vehicle, and road characteristics. What a sensible suggestion that was, but it would be much too sensible for this Government to look at, I presume. However, privatisation would not have that problem. The private insurers would look at the fairness of the system.

For those reasons, and there is good support on the Opposition side of the House for those reasons—[Interruption] Is Mr Benson-Pope going to take a call or not?

💬 Hon Member: Yes, he is.

Good. Perhaps the member could be quiet.

💬 David Benson-Pope: Sit down and I will take a call.

My 10 minutes are not up yet. As I have already said, ACT New Zealand opposes this bill, which is just yet another tax from Labour, which stated there would be no new taxes. How many times has it stated that now? We have had 15 new taxes to date. We see here an anti-motorist, nonsensical tax hike that will hit every New Zealand motorist in the back pocket, and we cannot condone that practice. For that reason, ACT New Zealand opposes this bill.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to take a call on this matter. I had intended to make some brief comments even before that kind invitation from the preceding speaker. I would like to thank her for giving such a clear enunciation of the ACT party’s policy, just as I would like to pay tribute on behalf of the community on the Government side of the House to Dr Hutchison, who spoke earlier. He made it very clear that despite the National Party’s very small minority in Opposition and very small presence in this House, its opposition to this bill is not about the size about the levy.

For both ACT and the National Party, this debate is once again about privatising the accident compensation scheme, which this Government was re-elected on the platform of renationalising in 1999. Any of the members on the Government side of the House who have electorate offices, and who have people coming in with issues that they ask for help with, can say that no issue has brought more misery than that associated with the privatisation of accident compensation by the discredited previous Government, whose members are now in Opposition. That is why those people are so few in number, and while they espouse policies of that kind, they will continue to be few in number.

Whenever members oppose a tax or a levy that is as specific as this one, the message I take from it is that they are opposed either to the thing that the levy will fund or to paying for their share of it. So let us look at the implications of the Opposition’s stance on this bill. The bill formalises the collection of a levy on petrol to meet the costs arising from New Zealanders being injured in road crashes. Are the bill’s opponents saying that they are quite comfortable with the notion of leaving people in their communities who are suffering from the consequences of a traffic accident—and perhaps an accident that occurred through no fault of their own—through which they may have been brain damaged, paralysed, or otherwise injured to such an extent that they can no longer care for their families?

Even with accident compensation, life after an accident is difficult. Without accident compensation, the difficulties become tragic. The consequences are not about tax or accident compensation; they are about poverty, with all its implications—the rent or the mortgage that does not get paid, the children whose school fees cannot be paid, and the children who are not fed as well as they might be. Are the opponents of the bill saying that they support the accident compensation concept, but that funding for it should come out of a different bundle of money—that somebody else should pay? Coming from an Opposition that stoutly defends user-pays in other areas, I find that stance a tad inconsistent.

The Greens support this bill, and are pleased that it includes the provision for levying diesel. Although we understand that the levy on registration is sufficient to cover the levy on diesel vehicles, if it were paid on the fuel it would not be the same levy for a diesel-powered museum piece that gets driven slowly and rarely on rallies as for a diesel-powered workhorse or a “bull bar shopping basket.” We will be happier when the accident compensation component is levied on all fuels—when registration is made more affordable, and a few cents per litre are added to fuels as an disincentive to those who might otherwise use their cars frivolously.

Much has been said about injury prevention. Prevention is not a major component of this bill, but if we are serious about prevention, then we should look at the volume of traffic on our roads—the number of people who climb into their cars needlessly, and the number of people who choose to live many, many miles from where they work, play, and send their children to school. We should reduce the volume of cars on the road; it is a major component in traffic accidents.

The Greens support this bill. Its intentions are good, and it has our full support.

It is my pleasure to rise in support of this bill. Accident compensation is an outstandingly good scheme, and this bill endeavours to finely balance the contribution to the scheme from those who cause the greatest cost. For that reason, and that reason alone among the many others that I could identify, I do support this bill.

I am delighted to take a call on the third reading of this bill. There are a number of points that the House—and, indeed, the many taxpayers who will be listening intently to this debate today—need to know about this legislation. The first point is that it is named the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill, but it is a tax bill. Other than one reference in the commentary, there is actually no reference in the bill at all—not one jot—to injury prevention. It is silent with regard to rehabilitation, and it certainly does not talk about compensation. What it does talk about is a levy—this Government is imposing another levy.

There would be people in this House, particularly from the Government, who would say it is not a tax; it is only a levy. The fact is that when the Minister of Finance was in Opposition and accused the then National Government of trying to skirt round taxes by calling them levies, he made it very clear indeed that levies are taxes. That is on the record. What we are dealing with right now is a tax, and there can be no one in New Zealand who is uncertain about the fact that this Government is imposing yet another tax. I remind the House again that this is the Government that said on its 1999 election pledge card: “No more taxes.”

Shortly, there will be a list—indeed, I believe it has already been published, but it is worth publishing again—of the number of levies that have been put on by this Government in the 4 years it has been in power. I think there have been 15 so far, and this is another one—from a Government that said there would be none. This tax is an addition to that. We now know that a number of others are in the pipeline, such as a 10 percent regional tax, a “fat” tax, and all those sorts of things. In relation to this bill, nobody can claim that it is anything other than a tax.

The only other thing this bill does is refer to the way a person can appeal to the High Court on a question of law. Other than referring to it, I do not intend to go through the detail of what that means, because it is actually quite technical—other than to make the point that late on a Thursday afternoon, towards the end of the week, and after the House has had quite a busy week, here we are again dealing with something that is quite complex, quite important, and very technical. The Government serves it up on a Thursday afternoon in the hope that no one will notice, because we are patching up a mistake that Helen Clark’s minority Government has made.

When issues like this are being addressed, the people of New Zealand need to know that the Government tries its best to manoeuvre the legislative programme of this House so it can avoid scrutiny. It ain’t going to happen! This Opposition, and the combined opposition here, will not let those sorts of things slide by without bringing them to the attention of the country. The country deserves to know. When Governments make mistakes—and Helen Clark’s minority Government has made mistakes on this issue—they must be held to account, and those mistakes brought to the attention of the country. Hear this New Zealand! This Government has made a mistake, and today it is trying to correct it. It will not be the first mistake, and it will not be the last. It is being addressed now, and the people of this country need to know.

Let me just get back to this whole issue of the levy. The problem with these sorts of things is that constitutents and taxpayers get confused because of the language we use in this Parliament. We should be far more forthright with the language we use when we draft legislation. The public has a right to know that when the Government is going to impose a tax, a tax is what it is called. Members of the public deserve to know that when they pull into the gas station in a week or two, a tank of gas in an average car will cost about $1 more. That may not be much, but to the average family with young children looking at the increased cost of food bills, medical costs, etc. etc., $1 is a $1, and it is pretty important to them. It is not just a oncer—those tanks often need filling 3, 4, or 5 times a week. We are talking about a tax that is likely to cost the average family—mum, dad, and a couple of kids, maybe three—as much as $5 a week extra out of their pockets, having already paid tax. Five dollars a week is a lot of money for a lot of families. Even if it is $3 a week, it is a lot of money.

This Government should have come cleaner and made it known to the public of this country that it is looking to impose an extra tax, particularly on middle New Zealanders—on mums and dads with children they are trying to educate. Those who do the shopping will know that the price of food today is significantly more than it was just 12 months ago, and another cost that families have to meet. If we add things like school fees, the cost of getting one’s children educated—and most people want to achieve that for their children—the doctors’ fees that have gone up quite significantly for a whole number of families, and the food bill of maybe $4 or $5—sometimes $10, or even $20 extra a week, depending on the size of the family—we are now talking about $30 or $40 extra a week on average, and now this Government wants to slam them with another $3, $4, or $5 a week. It is not good enough from a Government that absolutely promised that when it came to power there would be no more taxes.

The people of New Zealand should beware. This is not the first time, and it certainly will not be the last, that we see this Government break its promises. This bill is another in which Helen Clark, her Ministers, her caucus, and those who support them, are out there breaking promises, and members of the public will hold them to account in the coming election. They expect politicians to stand by their word. This is another example of where Helen Clark is letting this country down.

I intend to make just a very short contribution, as I cannot let the words of that previous speaker go unchallenged. This Government enjoyed record success in the last election, and enjoys record success in opinion polls of well over 50 percent because we do keep our promises. The people of New Zealand saw that in the last election. They have seen it as a hallmark of the Clark-led Government that it keeps its word to the people. In 1999 we promised—and we repeated that promise in last year’s election—that there would be no rise in income tax, and there has not been. We have kept our promise.

No new tax! No rise in income tax! Just levies on nearly everything that has anything to do with a Government service in this country—levies imposed by Helen Clark and her Ministers on electricity, on petrol, on roading, on alcohol, on tobacco, and on various food products. In respect of the latter, today we heard of the possibility of McDonald’s and other fast foods being additionally taxed. The Minister who stands up and says that the Government keeps its promises must know that by 2005 this Government will be one of those Governments that the people will wish to heck had never kept its promises.

I want to tell members what this bill is about. It deals with the motor vehicle levy that used to be applied to the registration of motor vehicles each year. It is the accident compensation levy, and it pays for the cost of motor accidents. One of the things about the old system was that if the accident compensation account had a good year, vehicle registration went down, and if it had a not-so-good year, the registration went back up again. This Government has pegged the registration fee at the higher levels. The cost to register the family car, I believe, is now $212. This additional tax will be built into the cost of petrol, and it will never come off. The registration fees will never go down and this levy will never come off. That means that New Zealanders are now paying far more for the cost of accident compensation cover on their motor vehicles.

The worst of it is that we all get levied at the same rate. It does not matter whether people are 70-year-old pensioners who drive to where they do a few hours’ work every week, or to the supermarket, to church, or to the bowling or golf club, and who drive perfectly safely, never causing any sort of an accident. Those people will pay the same amount as the boy racer who screams up and down Queen Street, squeals his wheels around corners, rams into people and, in certain sad circumstances, causes very severe injury. Under this system, no distinction is made at all between a safe driver and a poor driver. That is because this Government has an ideological belief that we need a one-size-fits-all approach to everything. We have an accident compensation system that does not measure people’s worthiness as far as their accident records are concerned; it simply says that the worst person in the pool sets the fee. The unsafest driver will now set the fee that every one of us will have to pay for our motor vehicle registration. That is this Government’s promise of no new taxes.

One of the things I observed when walking around supermarkets recently—and I do that frequently in my electorate—

💬 Hon Chris Carter: Ha, ha!

The member over there laughs. It is quite true, I do. Looking at what is going through the supermarket tills is a very good indicator of how people are feeling. But the most telling thing is looking around supermarket shelves now and so often seeing something that someone picked up in aisle B being dumped somewhere in aisle C. That is because people are watching the pennies and have either found a cheaper product, or decided that they simply cannot afford to take it. That is happening far more now than I have ever seen before. That tells me that New Zealanders—average, hard-working New Zealanders—are starting to feel the pinch. They are starting to understand what it means for New Zealand to have $200 a week wealth per capita less than Australia—man, woman, and child. They are starting to understand what relative poverty is. They are starting to understand that under this Government all that is ever going to happen is that another levy or charge will be put on them—and all in the name of keeping a promise not to increase taxes. It is an absolute disgrace.

I was thinking today about the extraordinary situation of a State-owned enterprise, Meridian Energy, investing some $1.2 billion initially, and then a second tranche of $1.2 billion—so $2.4 billion of taxpayers’ money over a period of time—in Australia, in order to make it a higher performing business. What is the advantage to any New Zealander in that? If that State-owned enterprise was doing so well, if its balance sheet was in such a strong position, might it not have repatriated some capital to the shareholder? It might have paid a huge dividend back to the Government, so that the Government did not have to tax the living daylights out of poor hard-workers up and down the country, so that we did not have to have this extra 4c on our petrol this time. Do members remember the other 4c in the dollar tax? The Deputy Speaker in the Chair would, because it apparently all went to Auckland. I am from the South Island. Transit does not have a single roading project for the South Island on its books for the next 10 years, and every time we go to the pump, we are paying an extra 4c for Auckland roads. Now we are to pay another 4c or 5c for the accident compensation levy on every litre of petrol, and it is never ever going to come off.

As I said before, people are starting to wake up. They are starting to realise that when Helen Clark promises no new income tax, she is certainly not promising to keep her hands out of the pockets of hard workers, because this Government has just gone fishing like one would not believe. We had the electricity crisis this year. That multi-billion investor in Australia—the company that could have returned a huge dividend to the taxpayer; a repatriation of capital, but chose rather to put it all into Australia—was part of the electricity crisis here. Rather than saying let us get some more investment in New Zealand, the Government’s only answer is to tax a bit more. Its only answer is to put a levy on to every consumer. Every time that consumer flicks on the lights, he or she will be providing a few more dollars—cents in the case of a light, but over a month it would be dollars—for a company owned by taxpayers to invest in Australia. I think that points to a Government that is out of steam and ideas. It has no idea at all of how to make life a bit easier for the average New Zealander.

I note that today is Thursday. It is a payday for many hard-working people around the countryside. I wonder how many of them are just hanging out to get their hands on their pay in the hope that the Eftpos overdraft will survive through to midnight tonight. More and more people are being put in that position, because this Government does not care about wealth creation. It does not see that a nation being prosperous is about individual citizens living well. Instead, whenever it has to deal with an issue, it simply comes up with another levy that is another tax.

Is it not extraordinary that while the foreshore and the seabed are being discussed at the moment, the Government performs the amazingly duplicitous act of saying on Monday that it would legislate away that right, and then by Thursday saying that it is entering into negotiation? The Associate Minister of Justice is talking about compensation. Where will that compensation come from? It will come from the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders—the same sad group that will soon wake up to the Labour Government and realise that they have to abandon it if there is to be any hope of improving their lives.