Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill

It is a pleasure to rise in the debate on Part 1 of this bill, the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I just want to note before we get into the detail of Part 1 of this bill that in the explanatory note of the bill there is the suggestion that the increases in petrol tax being proposed here “are to provide additional funding to the national land transport fund”—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: They’ve all been told to stand up.

Mr Henare can stand up any time he likes. Mr Henare can stand up any time he likes and give a speech in this Chamber to justify this increase in petrol tax, because we have not heard that.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: OK, sit down and I’ll take a call.

No, I am not sitting down. I am not sitting down until Mr Henare tells me that it will be a substantive call—that he will use his full 5 minutes and he will justify to this Committee—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Right, you’re on. You’re on—sit down.

—why National is putting petrol tax up by 3c a litre this year, 3c a litre next year—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Yep.

—when I have finished, when I have finished—3c a year in the third year. Then we can hear—Mr Henare has got plenty to say now, but when I sit down he will not be seeking the call, because those National Government members do not want to stand up in this Chamber and justify to New Zealanders, whose budgets are already squeezed, why they will be paying more in petrol tax this year, next year, and the year after. We have already heard today that petrol tax will be 59c a litre. To the taxpayer, it will be 59c a litre after this budgetary increase, up from 42c a litre when National came into office. So Mr Henare and all of the rest of his National colleagues could get up and justify to this Committee why they are doing this.

But to return to the point that I was making, the explanatory note says that “The increases are to provide additional funding to the national land transport fund”. My concern is that that really is not the reason. Yes, the money will—in the sense of the way that National likes to describe these things—be going to the roads of national significance under the National Land Transport Fund, but the reason that Part 1 of this bill is here is, in fact, not that. The reason is in order for National to put over a hoax on the public that there is in fact a surplus—that there is in fact a surplus. Jonathan Coleman raises his eyebrow, but that is the truth. That is the truth.

If we go through the Budget and we look at the situation heading towards 2014-15, when the National Government says it thinks it will be in surplus, it does this by a series of fixes and fiddles of which this bill, including Part 1, is part. Those other fixes and fiddles include overcharging New Zealanders on their ACC levies—a magic $400 million worth of tax credit offsets that happen only in the year in which the Government says it will get into surplus. They also include an additional $1.1 billion in corporate tax that comes in only in the year in which the Government says it is going to get into surplus—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: How much extra?

$1.1 billion.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: For $75 million?

Yeah, that is right.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: A bit margin of error, really, isn’t it?

It is, and this is the problem. It is giving itself a buffer, Mr Mallard, to make sure—for all the other things that will go wrong for this Government—that it will get there. But the truth is that this Part 1, and the explanatory note of this bill, is, I think, actually misleading. It is misleading to the people of New Zealand, because the real reason for this is to try to make the political promise that National made of getting into surplus somehow real. It is a marginal surplus. It is wafer-thin. It could be wiped out with one Hekia Parata stuff-up and then it will be gone, like the class size—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s probably Simon Bridges now.

—or Simon Bridges. In fact, the cost of coming back every month to amend the Crown Minerals Act will probably wipe that out in itself. So I think that is misleading.

What Part 1 does, as we have noted before, is increase petrol tax—or motor spirits tax, as it is written in the bill—on 1 July 2013, 1 July 2014, and 1 July 2015. It is 3c a litre. That equates to around a 5 percent or nearly 6 percent increase each year in that rate. The National Party has gone to the public at the last two elections saying: “We are not about increasing taxes. We are not about increasing taxes. That terrible Labour Government—that is what it did.”, except that the record of the National Government is that there is one group in society who get their taxes decreased. They are the well-off. We know that from the 2010 tax package, where 40 percent of the benefit of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent. So National fulfilled its promise for the top 10 percent, but what the other 90 percent have seen are tax increases just like the ones contained in Part 1, and, in addition, they have seen GST going up. That GST increase, we know, detrimentally affects people in the lower and middle-income brackets, because—[Bell rung]

💬 Hon Member: Thank you, Mr Chair—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Grant Robertson. Oh, sorry—I call Grant Robertson.

Thank you, Mr Chair—a bit slow. That detrimentally affects the 90 percent of people who do not fall in the National Party’s target market. We have also seen massive increases in ACC levies, and we know that this is a classic Nick Smith trick. You bump up the levies. You push the levies up more and more and more, you create the crisis, and then you get the great credit in a few years’ time when the ACC levies come down. There has been a 67 percent increase in those ACC levies in the time of this Government.

So this is a Government that has promised New Zealanders that their taxes would not go up, but, in actual fact, what it has done is transferred the burden of debt away from itself as a Government on to households. It is a transfer of the debt and the problems that New Zealand has on to households so the Government can make its books look good. In the Budget, of which this bill is a core part, it sits alongside a transfer of wealth, as well. What we have seen if we look, for instance, just at the asset sales programme, is a transfer of wealth where half of our energy companies, which were 100 percent owned by New Zealanders, go to a 2.5 percent ownership. That is a massive transfer of wealth away from New Zealanders, who are also at the same time having a burden of debt transferred on to them.

Part 1 of this bill sits in the middle of the National Government’s budgetary strategy. That is why the Labour Party is opposing this. Not only will this bill, and this part, put enormous pressure on middle and low-income families, who are trying to fill up their cars each week, trying to make sure that they can get through the gridlock in Auckland transport that the Government has created—so it puts pressure on them—but, more than that, we are opposing this bill because it is part of the Government’s strategy in this Budget to pretend that it can get into surplus. That, as I said, is a hoax on New Zealanders, because that surplus is created by burdening New Zealanders for a short-term political goal for National.

The total impact on the National Land Transport Fund would actually put it $17 billion into surplus. Mr Brownlee might like to tell me whether that is true. It goes well beyond what is absolutely needed in order to keep the National Land Transport Fund operating. That is because its purpose is actually much wider than the one that Mr Brownlee has looked at.

I think my colleague Phil Twyford made an extremely good point in the second reading about where this money is allegedly going. As I say, I believe the purpose is actually a political one, but the stated purpose is for the National Land Transport Fund. The National Land Transport Fund is focused on the roads of national significance. The important thing to note about the roads of national significance is that National has chosen these for its political purpose. I recommend to everybody who has not seen it to have a good look at the documentary The Hollow Men—it is available on DVD—and they will be able to see in that documentary how National planned it out to make political decisions about roading—political decisions about roading—which have now turned into this programme of roads of national significance. So it is not just a political matter of getting into surplus; it is a political matter of where the funding for roading goes.

Phil Twyford made the point: if these decisions were being made on what is in the best interests of all New Zealanders, why would you be funding a road with 9,000 cars a day on it and not funding a road with 36,000 cars a day on it? Why would you not fund an inner-city rail link, which would actually reduce congestion, and which would actually have a much higher level of benefit to New Zealand, and instead decide to fund unnecessary highways in other parts of that area? It is because it is purely political. It is because this is a political statement by the National Party, not a statement in terms of building a sustainable transport policy that has got investment across different modes.

I reiterate what Phil Twyford has said: the Labour Party is not opposed to investment in roading projects where that makes sense. It is important that we have a good roading network right across New Zealand, not just in the electorates that the National Government picks off, but it is equally important that we invest in other types of transport, as well. The taxation that is being generated in this bill will go into the National Land Transport Fund to fund politically motivated projects by the National Government, not projects that are in the best interests of developing a sustainable transport network across New Zealand. That is a significant reason to oppose the bill.

Whatever some parties in the Chamber might feel in principle about the fact that petrol tax should rise, they need to look at this bill in the context of a National Budget that is not about sustainable transport solutions. If you are increasing petrol tax in order to create a more sustainable transport network, all well and good. That is not what this Government is doing. This Government is putting a hoax on New Zealanders.

I am taking a call because I think the proposals that are being put by the Labour Party, not so much by the Green Party, and by the New Zealand First Party through the first two readings and now through the start of the Committee stage are completely wrong—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The rules around the Committee stage of debate are very clear and they are that it is a debate on that particular part of the bill. There have been no proposals put by New Zealand First or by the Green Party in the Committee stage, because they have not even had a call yet.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening very carefully and if there is any rebuttal the Minister can bring up those points. I am listening very carefully. He has just moved into the first few seconds of his speech, and we will see what develops from there.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Are you ruling that a Minister in the chair can rebut the second reading and first reading debate during the Committee stage?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. I am saying here that the Minister is making some initial comments, and that is where we are taking it from.

It is fascinating that the Labour Party thinks you can have a debate without a proposition. Grant Robertson is completely wrong in asserting that this move is all about the Budget and how it looks in years ahead. I want to take members back to the regulatory impact statement that they have all been provided with and I want them to look at their own history.

From 1 January 2002 there were rate increases from Labour on both the petrol excise levy and the road-user charges. Labour had this sort of lumpy approach where it would simply put the rates up when it thought it could get away with it. So it would have a 2.8 percent increase, followed by no increase for 2 years, then whack the public about with a 13.8 percent increase. That was on top of the 2 years before, where it was 8.4 percent. Then it sneaked around and let the fund run down to the bottom, so that you could not do anything with it, with 1.7 percent and 1.5 percent increases.

What we have tried to do is to get over this sort of lumpiness. Labour went from 1.5 percent to 7.1 percent, then to 6.6 percent, and then to nothing. What we have tried to do is say to New Zealanders right up front that the cost of the roading network is one that is borne by the people who are actually using the roads—actually using the roads.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: 6.6 was National. That was National, not Labour. Come on, read it.

Now he wants to deny that the 2008 Budget had anything to do with Labour. That is not the case, Mr Mallard. No wonder they are in trouble. They cannot even read the Crown accounts.

I think that this mock outrage from Labour is exactly what it is—mock outrage. The idea that they are going to somehow sail into Government and then not put on road-user charges, not put on excise tax, is utter rubbish. What we have honestly said to New Zealanders is that here is a programme, we are getting it done, and these are the costs that are involved in it—right up front, not this sneaky year-by-year thing, getting away with what you think you can. It is a whole programme that runs out for 3 years.

This idea too that it is all going into these roads of national significance—great that they are—is wrong. There is a lot of money going into public transport, a lot of money going into local roads—all of those things are happening. [Interruption] It does not suit Phil Twyford’s rhetoric when he is talking to people in Auckland. He has actually bought into the idea that there is somehow a massive business case acceptable for the Auckland rail loop right now. What we have said to Aucklanders is that we want to consider the transport plan for Auckland, and we want to work with them about the timings for the transport plan in Auckland. The member knows that because Len Brown has told him. Len Brown has told him that.

We need to say, we need to make it very clear, that Auckland is the most important city in New Zealand. There is no doubt about that; it is an important place. But it is not the only city, and we do need to spend in other parts.

💬 Phil Twyford: John Campbell got your number! He nailed you!

The member can sit there saying that his good friend John Campbell, that well-known acolyte of the Labour Party, has somehow got me into a tricky position. I am not aware of that. I find him an absolutely fair man, to be honest—absolutely fair. The fact that he mixes with people like Phil Twyford is something that worries me, but I am not going to make too many more comments about that as I want to come back to this Part 1.

What Part 1 does is effectively say to New Zealanders that the roads they run on are becoming more efficient, the vehicles they run are becoming more efficient, we do need to fund these roads, and here is a proposal for doing it. The cost of this will raise the price for motorists by about $45 a year in the first year. You have got up there in Auckland the Victoria Park Tunnel, you have got the Newmarket Viaduct, you have got the Waterview Connection coming soon, which people are very, very keen on, plus the other roading networks to be done up there.

I am told by many people who use the new roads in Auckland that they are saving up to 20 minutes a day on their land transport journey. That is 20 minutes. If you price that out, looking at what those savings mean, they are extraordinarily large. Those savings are in excess of $250 a year for some of those people. When it comes to issues like the Christchurch Southern Motorway, people tell me it is saving at least 10 minutes a day on their trip. That is having a very big financial impact on that city. You say to yourself: “Well, what do we do if we take the horse-and-cart approach? What if we say we are going to put out just rail networks for ever?” We are already putting $1 billion into KiwiRail. Thank you for the glass of water, Mr Mallard, it is very kind of you. I do appreciate it. You may have found your station in life. You may have found your station in life. In fact, with that jacket on, you look a bit like a messenger.

We are putting all of this money into the recapitalisation of rail because we know it is important. We are investigating Clifford Bay, because we know it is important. We are funding, with Auckland Transport, all those new trains that are going in the urban network there. Yes, there is a place for rail, but there will always be a point where it is at its most optimum, and there is not a business case that says it is a good idea for this current Budget cycle. But I want to tell you, we are looking at all of those options with Auckland and there is plenty of time for things to be considered before we reach those peak, difficult points. One thing I would ask is—

💬 Phil Twyford: Take 20 years, Gerry. Take 20 years.

Well, why would it take 20 years? Why is the Labour Party putting up a 20-year plan for Auckland and pretending that that is going to solve their problems overnight? It is not. It is a big, big issue, and everyone knows that Auckland is going to get bigger. It is going to grow by 600 more people a week over the next decade or two and we are going to have to have the roads that those people expect to run on. You can rail against that with your rail proposals as much as you like. The fact is that we are not seeing the trends that we need.

The reality is that in 1944, when petrol rationing was at its peak, during the Second World War, New Zealand in real terms had its highest patronage of public transport, and it has been falling off ever since. The tunnel loop is actually predicated on that number being reached again and then expanded several times over. So it is not a simple matter of just saying: “Let’s magic up $3 billion and build this tunnel, and the problems are over.”—far from it. Frankly, politicians on the left have got to stop trying to tell people that that is the case, because it is not a deliverable.

Part 1 is a very, very clear attempt—in fact, it is a very, very clear message to New Zealanders that the Government wants to be up front about these charges. We are not hiding them. We are saying, as has always been the case, that the users of the roads pay for the roads. We actually told New Zealanders in December 2012 that we were going to do this.

💬 Phil Twyford: During the Christmas lull.

And where was Phil Twyford? He had already gone on holiday.

I am going to do something relatively unusual. I am sure my colleagues will come back and rebut the comments made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I want to thank you, Mr Chairman, for letting him run on and, effectively, do the second reading rebuttal as part of the Committee stage, because the debate is now so broad that all our members will want to have a go at least twice, and possibly up to four times, as they are allowed to do. I would like, though, to do something slightly unusual, and that is to focus on the detail of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and in particular the detail of the Customs and Excise Act, which it is proposed to amend.

I will start, as the Minister briefly referred to the regulatory impact statement, by informing him that the 6.6 percentage increase in petrol excise duty to which he referred was on 1 October 2010. In case the member does not remember, that was when he was the Minister of Transport and in charge of the area. To blame the Labour Government and say it was a Labour Government increase is just clearly wrong, but it shows the grip on detail that occurs when you put either Steven Joyce or Gerry Brownlee in charge of these areas.

It is interesting to note that the proposed increases are at about double the rate of inflation. So what we are doing over the period of this Government is a transfer of the effect of taxation from those on high incomes to those who are on low incomes. There is no doubt that this is a regressive tax, something that is pushed on to people, especially poorer people in rural areas, people in cities who do not have public transport alternatives, and people who are forced to use their cars. I think in particular of my constituency of Wainuiōmata. Although in some places and at some times the public transport is relatively good, in other parts and at certain times at the weekend and in the evenings, people are forced to use their cars because public transport is not properly available. What this bill does is push it back on to them.

The question I want to get to, though—and I apologise that I was unable to be in the House for the Minister’s speech on the first or second readings—and what I am slightly surprised about when I look carefully at this bill, is an indication of whether it is necessary. My reading of section 79A of the Customs and Excise Act as it was amended in the latest set of amendments, is that there is already a regulation-making power sitting there for the Minister to increase excise rates in this particular way. I am left with a dilemma here as to the reasoning on the part of the National Government for taking this approach. One reason could be—and it is fair to say that this is slightly cynical—that it is doing this now, rather than passing a regulation later on at the appropriate point in time, in order to make its Budget figures look good. We do not need to be here. According to the calendar on the wall, today is, theoretically, Thursday, but actually it is Saturday afternoon. We are debating legislation, but the Government already has the power to do these sorts of changes under regulation. The Government does not need this legislation to do it, but methinks one of the reasons the Government is doing it is in order to gerrymander its Budget figures. It is to get into the Budget, to do it as part of the Budget legislation, and to create an illusionary surplus through this method rather than using the regulation-making powers that already sit within the Act. I am going to be even slightly more cynical still and ask the question—

💬 Chris Hipkins: For one so young.

Well, I like the compliment from my teenage friend Mr Hipkins, but at this mid-point of my career I accept that I am not that young.

The point that I would now like to make in a slightly more cynical way—although nothing would surprise me about Steven Joyce and his cynical approach—is that by passing this bill in this way, the Government leaves open the option of also regulating for more. The question I am asking is whether we are having this change now so that the National Government at some stage later on can again hit motorists up for yet another increase. I would not have said that even about Bill Birch, because Bill tended to be pretty transparent. Muldoon would just tell you if he was going to do something like this; there would no surprises from Sir Robert. But I am not sure, with Mr Joyce in charge of this part of the finances, whether in fact what he is doing in using the powers that are available under 79A(1), the power to alter “rates of excise duty and excise-equivalent duty on motor spirits … by Order in Council,”—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Annually.

Annually—that is right. So what the Government can do is implement this 3c increase in July, and it can do an annual change in January as well. So, in fact, instead of having one set of 3c increases a year, it could have two.

I know that there are some people, who may well be future colleagues, who think that that is a good thing, and some people will want to keep increasing the rate of excise in that way. What I want to say to my Green colleagues is thank you for your transparency. Thank you for your honesty, much unlike Gerry Brownlee, who appears to be taking this approach for two reasons: firstly, to gerrymander the Budget figures, but, secondly, under sections which are—it says B48S; it does not say “BS48”. It is B48S. This amendment to the 1996 Act has the power that appears to be reserved and preserved—preserved and reserved by this amendment—to have increases in excise tax on an annual basis other than that which we are addressing now. Maybe the Government is going for two hits a year. If it is, I would be interested to hear from the Minister, who says he has not yet decided the level of the next increase. He is shaking his head. Has he decided the level of the next increase? He shakes his head. Well, that is fair enough if the—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: When is it going to be?

Well, I tell you what, I think it has got only one more chance at it—1 January 2014 will be its last chance. It will probably do it on a holiday. It will be the last Order in Council of the year, the one that has the Christmas cake with the Governor-General. It will be Christmas cake for the Governor-General and Mr Brownlee, and at the same time the Governor-General will be signing off yet another increase in excise taxes, excise duties, Budget measures—no, it will not be Budget measures, because that is a different set of amendments.

The other area, which I think I will get on to in my next call, relates to the main method, which is in clause 5. Clause 5 is very important. It really is the operative clause. To be absolutely fair, I am sure that it was Mr Joyce, not Mr Brownlee, who said this made it clearer. We know what Mr Joyce is up to.

I call Julie Anne Genter.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Sorry, I was just making sure you had a Minister in the chair.

I do. Thank you.

I rise to speak on Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. What clause 4 of Part 1 of this bill does is it says that petrol tax will be going up 3c a litre every year for the next 3 years, starting this year. Essentially, what I would like to focus on in this part of the bill are the reasons why the Government has to put up the petrol tax.

It is very clear from the regulatory impact statement that the Government has to put up the petrol tax because people are driving less. They have not been driving as much for over 5 years now, and that is due to a number of factors. It is due to oil prices being much higher. It is due to the fact that we have not seen the anticipated level of economic growth. It is due to the demographic factors, like younger generations who are waiting longer to get their driver’s licence and who are less interested in owning a car. They are much more interested in owning a smartphone, connecting with people in other ways, living in vibrant towns and cities and urban areas where they can walk and cycle and take public transport, and not being forced into spending thousands of dollars a year on owning a car, maintaining it, and taking it in for a WOF. They would like smarter transport options.

What has been happening over the past few years, we know from data from the Ministry of Transport, is that public transport boardings are up. So I would like to explain to the Minister of Transport, based on his comments earlier, how it is that an economic instrument works. What the Minister said during his speech was that back when petrol was very expensive, lots of people took public transport. So would we not expect that, given that petrol has become much more expensive—the price of it has doubled in the last decade, and the International Monetary Fund has said that we can quite realistically expect it to double again in the next 10 years—even more New Zealanders are going to want to take public transport, and are going to want to walk and cycle and leave the car at home if they can? Would we not want to put most of the transport budget into infrastructure that gives New Zealanders the choice—that gives them the ability to avoid paying huge amounts of money on petrol? Would we not want to give them those choices?

That is not what the Government is doing. What it is doing is putting up the petrol tax and then saying it is going to put the vast majority of this money that it raises—the revenue that it raises through the petrol tax—into a few motorways that carry a relatively small percentage of vehicle trips, about 4 percent of daily vehicle trips collectively on all the roads of national significance that remain to be built. We are putting all that money into a few, very expensive solutions that do not actually solve a problem, because vehicle trips are down. There are smarter ways to deal with congestion, and part of the way that we deal with congestion and safety is actually investing in alternatives so that New Zealanders can take public transport—and walk, and cycle—which is a safer way of getting around. It reduces road accidents, it reduces the cost of road maintenance, and it reduces the need to expand road capacity because it moves more people at peak time for a lower cost. Would that not be a rational economic approach to the future of our transport investment for New Zealand?

There are lots of good things about putting up petrol tax. You see, the great thing about an economic instrument is that it encourages efficiency. So we could expect, if New Zealanders get enough advanced warning that petrol is going to be more expensive in the future, and that petrol tax is going to be higher, that, therefore, when they look at buying a new car, they will consider that, and they might buy more fuel-efficient cars. But the other behaviour that we can expect them to respond with is to drive even less. So why would we be spending the vast majority of the money on a few new motorways when we know that putting up the price of the petrol tax, and the oil price increasing anyway, is going to lead to fewer people using the road and more people wanting to use public transport?

The Minister claims that his Government is spending money on new infrastructure for public transport, but, if you look at the Government policy statement for that budget, it is very, very clear. All of the money—85 percent of the money on new infrastructure—is going on a few new motorways. There is a tiny percentage going on local roads. Local roads, by the way, carry more than 50 percent of all the vehicle trips. It concerns me that the Minister of Transport does not know how money is raised to spend on the transport network—that 50 percent of all the funding that goes to local roads, to walking and cycling, and to public transport is paid for by ratepayers. So we have got over 50 percent of the traffic going on local roads, which are half paid for by ratepayers. There are ratepayers who might decide, if they were not going to pay directly, that they would rather walk and cycle and take public transport. But they do not have that option because central government is controlling the way all of the money is spent. It is saying to local councils: “We don’t want you to spend money on walking and cycling, even though it’s cost-effective. We don’t want you to spend money on local roads because we don’t want you to raise rates, but we’re going to put all this money into a few new roads.”, which do not go, by the way, from the farm gate to the port. It is a very, very bad analogy to say that somehow because you are spending all of the money on a few new motorways that that is going to help freight. Actually, a lot of our exporters are moving their freight by rail already, and they could do so even more. A lot of freight is on local roads, and, yet, the money available to local roads has been reduced because all of the money is being put into three, very expensive, duplications of existing motorways that are going to have a very limited marginal return.

What we see is the Government putting up the petrol tax and then not providing New Zealanders with options. Normally, when you are going to approach a tax like an economic instrument, you would say: “OK, well, we want to encourage efficiency in our oil use. We want to future-proof our economy and our transport system against higher oil prices, so we’re going to slowly but steadily increase the petrol tax, and we’re going to put all of that money, or most of it, into alternatives so that people have the option to leave their car at home.” That is going to cost New Zealand Inc a whole lot less money. Although I often hear that roads are paid for by users and, therefore, it is OK to be spending most of the petrol tax on a few motorways, they are not the projects that are going to benefit most road users. They are not the projects that are going to benefit New Zealand’s economy. We know this from the economic studies that have been done on them, which were completed nearly a year after the projects were announced. All of the roads of national significance have never been subjected to Treasury’s Better Business Cases for Capital Proposals guidelines. Why is that? Because if they were, it would become very obvious that you could achieve 90 percent of the benefits at a tiny fraction of the cost of building a flash, new motorway rather than by just upgrading the existing road and getting some of the commuters off the roads.

What National is doing is akin to putting up the tobacco excise tax and then spending all of that money on advertising for cigarettes and cigarette stores. What it is doing is, instead of giving people the option to avoid taking the car and to reduce their oil use, it is putting up the petrol tax and spending all of the money on projects that increase New Zealand’s oil dependence. It is not a smart approach, particularly given our current account deficit problem. Last year New Zealand spent $8 billion importing oil to put in our cars and trucks. New Zealand households and businesses spent over $3 billion on vehicles. We are still importing the same quantity of oil we were importing 10 years ago, but we are paying twice as much for it. Our current account deficit, which is somewhere around $10 billion, is actually quite close to the amount—it is slightly less than the amount—that we are spending importing vehicles and oil, which is about $11 billion last year. That amount could increase rapidly if we see another oil price spike. The National Government is really missing an opportunity to reduce the oil dependence of our transport sector, by investing in smart alternatives that would have longer-lasting benefits.

The Minister put out a press release yesterday, I think it was, saying that some of the new investment in roads is resulting in travel time savings. Well, that is a very short-term approach to it. I mean, yes, of course, as soon you initially build the road, it seems like people are able to get there faster. What happens after 3 or 4 years? As the Minister said, if you build it, they will come. So more people are going to move further away and put more pressure on those roads. Their travel time savings are not there 3 or 4 years after the project is built, and it remains to be seen whether or not that traffic would have even happened, if you had not built the road. Of course, if you make it cheaper and easier to drive, more people will drive. That does not mean it is an economically efficient outcome for the economy as a whole. Interestingly, there are centrist Governments across the world, even right-wing Governments, which see the economic opportunity of smart transport, and that is what they are investing in. There are cities all over the United States that are investing in walking and cycling because it is good for business and it is good for the economy.

You would think, from listening to the last contribution from Gerry Brownlee, that this is a bill that is all about fiscal rectitude, that is sensible, and that is making just the right amount of money necessary to continue the Government’s sensible programme of road building. Well, nothing—nothing—could be further from the truth, because this is not only an illegitimate tax grab, as we have already said, but it is only one of a suite of greedy, voracious, money-grubbing efforts that this Government and this Minister are making to fund the Government’s out-of-control and bloated motorway building programme.

We are talking today about a tax that is going to raise the petrol excise, as it says in Part 1, by 3c every year for the next 3 years. If members have got the regulatory impact statement in front of them, they will see on page 4 quite an interesting outline of alternative funding options that officials recommended the Minister and Cabinet consider. It sets out a number of possible ways that the New Zealand Transport Agency could get the funding it needs to continue this out-of-control motorway funding programme that we have been talking about. It includes tolling and it includes long-term borrowing. Of course, we know it includes public-private partnerships, which is how the Government is going to do the Transmission Gully project, at the cost of an extra $2.3 billion to the taxpayer. That is $2.3 billion on top of the project cost, just so that Gerry Brownlee can try to get Transmission Gully up and running before the Government changes.

The Government not only chose the option of this tax grab through the petrol excise but chose half a dozen other options, as well, to throw more and more taxpayer cash at this motorway building programme. Gerry Brownlee walks into a pie shop and he sees a smoked fish pie, a kumara pie, a meat pie, and a cheese pie. He does not choose just the smoked fish pie because he likes that one the best; he chooses all the pies in the shop. Every single option has been chosen by this Government to throw more and more taxpayer cash at this out-of-control motorway building programme.

We have seen public-private partnerships. The Minister asked the officials to go away and come back with a project that could experiment with the public-private partnership model. The Government decided to go ahead with it at the cost of an additional $2.3 billion. What an extraordinary waste. The Land Transport Management Amendment Bill is going to clear the way for more public-private partnerships and more tolling, and the Government is giving itself the power, which it has never had before, to do long-term borrowing for these kinds of motorway transport projects.

We are talking about the petrol excise tax and the fact that the Government has chosen one particular way, in this bill, to refill the coffers that have been so depleted by this motorway building programme, but it is not the only way. We need to be aware that the Government is getting extra money from all over the place in order to front-load the motorway building programme, to get as many of these gold-plated projects up and running, like the Pūhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” and the Kapiti Expressway. It is desperate to get all these projects up and running, to rev up the bulldozers, and sign the contracts before a Labour-Green Government comes to office at the end of 2014.

We are not against all these funding options. We are not against the idea of, for instance, long-term borrowing. It makes sense to borrow long term to fund major infrastructure projects that will benefit future generations. But we are utterly opposed to a measure like this bill, which is pouring taxpayer cash into a transport programme that is unbalanced and unwise. It is going to saddle future generations with more and more debt, simply in order to fund the building of white elephant motorway projects that were hand-picked by this Government, as colleagues have previously said, as part of a political strategy to get National elected in 2008. These projects have never been subjected to Treasury’s Better Business Cases for Capital Proposals guidelines. Under this Minister and his predecessor, the transport sector has been some kind of financial Bermuda Triangle. Vast wheelbarrow-loads of cash have been poured into it, with not the slightest bit of the financial accountability that we would expect from every other part of the public sector.

I am pleased to rise to take a call in the Committee stage of this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill, which, as my most erstwhile colleague from the Greens, Julie Anne Genter, referred to, is the bill that will raise petrol taxes. I am ecstatic, actually, to be here on a Saturday. I am over the moon—overjoyed at having to be here on a Saturday because this Government has no other way of ramming through all the unnecessary and unwarranted legislation that it needs to in order to enact this latest diabolically awful Budget. This Government is so disorganised, and it is such a poor manager of the business of the House, just as it is of the economy in general, that we are here on a Saturday. We were here until midnight last night, and we are here today under urgency, cleaning up the National Government’s mess. And for what? So that the Government can put petrol up again, so it can bleed the motorists yet again. The poor downtrodden, long-suffering motorist is to be the Government’s economic whipping boy yet again. The Government has stuffed up its sums, and yet again it is coming to bleed the motorist to make up for its failings.

What are we going to get for it? What is the south going to get? What are the provinces going to get? Will we get roads? Will we get new roads? Will we get better roads? Will the parts of the country that actually generate the wealth get to see any of it? Will we see new roads, better roads, between our farms and our freezing works, and between our freezing works and our ports? Or will we be sidelined yet again while the National Government builds roads so that its mates in Auckland can get to their baches more easily on the long weekends?

I ask where the Government’s priorities are. Where is the new spending for rural New Zealand? Will we have the South Island loop road completed, finally? How many in the Government actually know about the South Island loop road and the plans for it? Will we see a dual carriageway between Christchurch and Dunedin? Will we see an end to one-lane bridges on the West Coast? Or do we not matter? Does the south not matter to this Government ? Do the provinces, the regions—do we not matter? The provinces generate the wealth, and we would like to see some return from it. The provinces, the regions, and the scenery in the regions are what attract tourists to this country. We bring tourists to this country in their millions, and we make them drive on Third World goat tracks with one-lane bridges.

The truth is that this tax is an excuse to cover up the loss of revenue that this Government is going to experience from selling off State assets, because this is the flip side to the mixed-ownership model. We talk about 49 percent ownership and 51 percent ownership—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—thank you, Mr Chairperson—but what we do not talk about is the revenue that the Government is going to lose by flicking off half of these wealth-generating assets. This tax is an excuse, just an excuse, to cover up that loss. It is a bad tax, part of a bad Budget from a bad Government. Thank you.

Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill raises taxes on lower and middle income New Zealanders. It is a direct contradiction of what the National Party said it was going to do before it came into Government. John Key went up and down the country telling anybody who would listen that he would bring taxes down. He would bring taxes down for everybody. He even promised that he was not going to put GST up. That is what John Key said. He promised that he was not going to put GST up and that taxes were going to come down. Well, GST went up. It is one of the most regressive taxes that we have. It was put up.

Then a whole range of other costs were put up, such as ACC. We know that early childhood education costs have gone up. The cost of prescriptions has gone up. The cost of going to the general practitioner has gone up. And, of course, over time, the fuel tax has gone up, and once again here we have the fuel tax going up. As Trevor Mallard pointed out in his Committee stage contribution, we are not absolutely certain that this increase was required under legislation. In fact, the principal Act, which is amended by Part 1 of this bill, allows for regulations to be made by Order in Council to increase the excise tax on fuels.

So why are we here, on a Saturday afternoon, debating this bill? Well, the only logical answer can possibly be that the Government desperately needed these fuel taxes to be considered as part of the Budget, to get the Government to that wafer-thin $75 million Budget surplus that we know is 0.1 percent of the total revenue. That is well within any margin of error. At any point in time that surplus could be lost by any one of the errors that could be caused by any one of the Ministers over there. Simon Bridges—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s smaller than 0.1 percent—much, much smaller.

It is much smaller than 0.1 percent. Well, maybe that will be a debating point—that we can figure out exactly how small the margin of error is for this. But that is why the Government is increasing taxes on fuel and increasing them by legislation here in Part 1 of this bill.

The Government had other options. It could have done it by regulation, but it needed this increase to be part of this year’s Budget so that the Government could account for it as part of its surplus, which we know it will barely meet and only by searching around for every single possible little cent, by increasing costs. The poor old paper boys got it last year. The Government was looking at the car-parks, and it was looking at a fringe benefit tax on laptops and iPads. The Government has looked for every possible way to shake middle-income New Zealanders down for every penny they have got, because of its unaffordable tax cuts. That is why the Government cannot get to surplus. One of the first things the Government did when it came in was to cut taxes like it promised it was going to, but who did it cut taxes for? The Government cut taxes for its mates, the people at the top. That is who the Government cut taxes for, and then it loads all these extra charges on to people, like the increase in the fuel excise tax, which is included in Part 1 of this bill. That is what this is all about. It is about making up for those unaffordable tax cuts.

Even if the Minister is right and this is genuinely about putting more money into the National Land Transport Fund, the reason for that is this Government’s profligacy when it comes to the roads of significance to National—the roads of political significance. They do nothing for growth. It is not about growth. It is not about a growth agenda, because a growth agenda would be about an integrated transport network. This is about roads of political significance to the National Party. As we saw from The Hollow Men, we know that National’s internal emails have been about making sure that all the money that it raises from fuel excise taxes and road-user charges goes into super-highways. National has talked about actually making that part of its policy. Of course, it has realised that it cannot quite go that far, so what we get is a bill like this that the Minister himself said, in his first reading speech—

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr Chairman—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s an outrage. Toss him out. It’s disorderly.

It is an outrage. However, for the public out there, the Committee stage is the part of the debate where we go through the bill clause by clause and we dig down into the detail. I just want to recognise the contributions that some of my colleagues have made, such as Trevor Mallard rightly pointing out that this bill, the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill, is not even necessary. The Government has a thing called a regulation-making power in the main Act. It does not need to pass this amendment. It can do this by a Cabinet decision, an Order in Council, in January. So why are we here? We are doing this simply and only because the Government wants to be able to claim a wafer-thin surplus in the Budget. This is a political tool, because this is one card of the house of cards that is propping up that wafer-thin line. Without this one, without the $600 million extra tax that the Government is magicking in that year, without the $1.1 billion corporate tax, the $400 million tax receipts, and without all of the other “Shon-key” funny money manipulations of the Budget documents, none of that would have got there if it had not put this petrol tax rise in as well.

I want to acknowledge my colleague Phil Twyford, who has quite rightly gone through the list of some of those roads of national significance and made the crystal clear point that they just do not stack up on the traditional benefit-cost ratio. The “Holiday Highway” has got a benefit-cost ratio that is about 1.0. That means they get a dollar back, at best, for every dollar they put in, and that is a complete waste of money. It would be so much better to cut that back to about $300 million, not $1.2 billion, and spend the $800 million difference on getting that city rail loop in Auckland so that Britomart was not a one-way street that you have to back the trains out of, after you have put them there. You could actually run them around in a circle and have a decent commuter system, which would make the whole Auckland rail network more efficient. The Government could do that in partnership with the Auckland Council if it could discover the meaning of that word.

What about the Kapiti Expressway? I see we have got my colleague Kris Faafoi from Mana here. He has led the charge on that issue. Not even the locals want it. The Government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars that it does not need to spend, because it could simply improve the existing arterial road. It is cheaper, and it is what the locals want—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Nearly as bad as Transmission Gully.

Mr Mallard said it is nearly as bad as Transmission Gully, and who would disagree? My colleagues are almost—almost—unanimous on this point.

💬 Grant Robertson: Almost.

So we will leave it to the deputy leader to sort out the Wellington colleagues on that matter.

I want to come back to the point that my excellent colleague Iain Lees-Galloway made about the unaffordable tax grab that this measure is part of. This is what they call trickle-up economics, right? The money is trickling up from every Kiwi family to the Government’s coffers. It is trickling up, not trickling down. The Government is taking from the many and giving to the few. As Mr Lees-Galloway has pointed out, the reason that the Government is in this predicament is that one of the first things it did when it came into office was to reward its rich mates by giving unaffordable tax cuts, as 40 percent of the money went to the top 10 percent of income earners—40 percent went to the top 10 percent. It was ridiculous. The Government enriched the rich and impoverished the poor, and, worse, it created a billion-dollar fiscal hole that these tax increases are having to make up for.

In my earlier contributions to the first and second readings, I went through in more detail the other cards that are required to prop up this bogus surplus in this Budget, and they are extensive. It is the cuts of new operating spending in 2014, it is the artificial tax flows, and it is the fact that the Government has not declared the cost of the research and development tax credits, and there is probably a couple of hundred million in that. Mr Chairperson, you are quite rightly drawing me back to the substance of this part of the bill, Part 1, but it is gobsmacking that we are here raising everybody’s petrol prices by 9c a litre in a bill that we do not need to be here for, because the Government—even if you agree with the idea—has already got the power to do it. So why are we here in a parallel universe? According to our calendar it is still Thursday, but for everybody else it is Saturday. Why are we here to pass a bill that does not need to be passed? The answer is that it is only to make the Budget look like it balances. It does not, anyway. But if anybody out there in New Zealand wanted proof positive that this Government’s whole Budget is a complete sham, this is it. We are here in the weekend, passing a bill that is not legally needed.

Kia ora, Mr Chairman. I rise to speak predominantly around new section 79AC in clause 4 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I will just pick up on a couple of points that have been made by other speakers, predominantly the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Transport.

The Hon Gerry Brownlee said that this measure was a case of being upfront—upfront—with the taxpayers of New Zealand. All I can say is that for the people of the Rodney Local Board there is nothing upfront about this at all. I would also just point out to Mr Twyford that there is no better way to annoy 54,000 voters than to continue to call what is actually an important route into their area a “Holiday Highway”. That road is not going to be paid for by this petrol tax. This petrol tax—3.45c, to be exact—is not a 3c increase in the first year, and then the next year and the next year. When you put GST on top of it, it is 3.45c, and that adds up to 10.35c at the end of 2015. All our communities can hope for is that the supermarkets keep owning something to do with the petrol stations because we will need to use our petrol vouchers that we get when we go to New World to be able to afford to get to New World the next time.

The interesting thing about the road of national significance, which is the extension of the Northern Gateway, is this, and as much as I admire Ms Genter—and I would like to ask the 52 percent of the voters in New Zealand to have a look at the first comment, the condescending, chauvinistic comment, that Mr Sabin made with regard to Ms Genter’s speech at the second reading—and with all due respect to Ms Genter’s qualifications and her abilities in this area, she does not seem to understand that the extension of the Northern Gateway is the only way that the people of the Rodney Local Board area will ever see public transport. It is the only way that there will be any electrified cars going into the Rodney Local Board area. The Wellsford Library has just had electric charge points put in there.

But for Mr Brownlee to suggest that this is upfront, when you are talking to the people of the Rodney Local Board area, is erroneous. This 3c rise for the next 3 years is actually just increasing—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. These exchanges across the cross benches make it very difficult to be able to hear the speaker, so please cut them down.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. So this 3c rise every year for the next 3 years is actually just the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to have to pay for any road they get, to get them any public transport. It is the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to be able to transport their young people out to tertiary institutions. It is the fourth way that the people of Rodney are going to be able to actually live and work in the same place. There seems to be some misunderstanding here. The Rodney Local Board area is in Auckland. So when parties continue to talk about investing in Auckland infrastructure, do not forget that Rodney was dragged into it. This is part of that infrastructure improvement. There are 20,000 more houses going to be placed inside the Warkworth rural-urban boundary in the next 30 years, and those people need to access employment, access tertiary education, and get themselves out of there. But this 3c will not go anywhere near it. These people already pay an extra $20 a week to get on to what is the Pūhoi to Ōrewa Northern Gateway.

Let us get real—let us get real—I say to the Minister in the chair. The largest argument about not having an on and off-ramp at Pūhoi was the fact that it broke the tolling. So there will be another toll on the Pūhoi to Warkworth motorway. My community will pay not only through their normal taxes, not only through the current taxes on petrol, not only through the toll that they currently pay—

💬 David Bennett: Not your community; you’re one of those member-less MPs.

—at an extra $20 a week to get to work, Mr Bennett, they will now pay an extra 10.35c by 2015. So this is my community. We will vote against—

💬 David Bennett: No, it’s not.

Yes, it is, Mr Bennett. And you have three members of Parliament—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

I beg your pardon. There are three members of Parliament sitting in this House who represent these people, who are going to vote for them to have this fourth increase in respect of the way that they can get on to their State roads. Their roads are not sealed. Their sealing has been pulled from other areas, and there is no way that this 3c will do anything—there is no obligation here. The Government has made no commitment to actually increasing the sealing subsidy towards Auckland so that some of our rural roads can be sealed. Mr Sabin might like to go and talk to his Cabinet about that.

This 3c will do nothing. It will merely go into a general pool. It will do nothing.

I move, That the question be now put.

No surprise there—no surprise there. One of the justifications that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Transport, gave for this 3c per litre increase over the next 3 years is that he announced it early. He announced it a week before Christmas last year. Gerry Brownlee, acting as Santa Claus, gave the people of New Zealand a 9c increase on their petrol tax over the next 3 years.

Those people who are going to be paying around $45 more per year for their petrol are hard-working—

💬 John Hayes: Wow!

Wow—he does not think it is much. There he goes, John Hayes across the Chamber. The MP for Wairarapa does not think that is much. Well, he might not think it is much, but, Mr Hayes, when you add that on to—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: They do in Dannevirke.

They do in Dannevirke—they do. The people of Wairarapa do—Mr Hayes is not one of them; $45 is nothing to Mr Hayes. But if you add on the $40 more for prescription charges that each Kiwi has to pay, and if you add on the increase in GST that the Government brought in, Mr Hayes, it is a lot of money. So here you go—John Hayes is probably the most out of touch member of Parliament in this House. He thinks that putting up the petrol taxes by $45 a year is just a little bit of cash. It might be a little bit of cash to him, but to a lot of Kiwis out there, who have been watching this Budget very closely, it is a lot of money. I am quite happy for Mr John Hayes to put on the record here in this Parliament that $45 more a year to pay for their petrol is not a lot of money. Mr Hayes, you are so, so out of touch.

Getting back to the clause in Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That would be a good idea.

—that I was referring to, I want to look directly at new section 79AC(3), which does set out the yearly 3c increase per litre in petrol excise over the next 3 years. As a number of speakers have said, this is all part of an illusion that the Government is trying to create that its books are well in order, but the reality is completely the opposite. I think one of the Kiwi traits—a good Kiwi trait—is that when you are trying to spend money or buy something, you make sure that you have got the money to pay for it. One of the promises that this Government made around the roads of national significance is that it could afford to pay for it. But by bringing in this petrol tax, 3c more per litre for each year over 3 years, as it says in Part 1, it is clear to see that this Government did not have a plan to pay for it—it did not have a plan to pay for it at all. So it has been forced to come to this House and bring in a petrol tax of 3c more per litre, as it says in Part 1, to help pay for it. But, again, as many other speakers have said, this is all part of the illusion.

I just want to put that in the context of the Kapiti Expressway because the Government thinks that the roads of national significance are a good investment for Kiwis. If $45 for each Kiwi motorist is not a lot for Mr Hayes, let us see just what kind of return on investment Kiwis are going to get. In terms of the Kapiti Expressway, a leaked report by the Beca Group showed that the half a billion dollars spent on the Kapiti Expressway was going to have a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2—0.2. So for every $1 spent, the economic benefit to New Zealand is 20c—20c. That is not a lot of money to Mr Hayes. That is a drop in the bucket to Mr Hayes. But that shows just how stupid some of these roads of national significance are. If the National Government thinks that spending $1 on a motorway and getting 20c back for it is a good investment, well, I hope that quite a few people at home are watching this debate because that is a complete dog of an investment.

Going back to that 3c increase per litre, and back to the Kapiti Expressway, how much money are we talking about? Well, we are talking about $515 million. I think that even Mr Hayes would agree that that is quite a lot of money. The return over a 30-year period is just $118 million. In an economic sense that does not make sense.

I think there is a need to focus heavily on this part, Part 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I think it is fair to say that it will be important to focus even more heavily on the next part of the bill because that is the grubby bit where the Government gives even more money that it is taking off hard-working, hard-taxed New Zealanders back to its mates. That is in the next part, and I will get on to that after we have had the division on this one.

But I cannot go any further talking about this part of the bill without absolutely refuting the comments made by way of interjection by the person who purports to represent the Wairarapa electorate, John Hayes. I am stimulated by that comment to go to Dannevirke on Monday and tell the people that he thinks that $45 extra tax for the average person, the average motorist, in the Wairarapa is nothing—that to the average motorist in Wairarapa it is nothing.

💬 John Hayes: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I did not make any of these comments at all.

Speaking to the point of order—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! I think we could just calm it down a little bit. The reality is that whatever Mr Mallard says is a debatable issue anyway. I call the Hon Trevor Mallard.

💬 Hon Member: Stick to the part.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Stick to the part.

Forty-five dollars in the first year, $90 in the second year, and $135 in the third year, and the member who represents one of the biggest rural electorates says that is nothing. He says that is nothing. That is John Hayes.

Why does he say it? Because his fuel is paid for—his fuel is paid for. His constituents are not paid for their fuel. It comes out of their income—it comes out of their tax-paid income. It is an outrage—it is an outrage—that the 3c plus GST, the 6c plus GST, and the 9c plus GST that is to be paid by his constituents he regards as nothing. That is just nonsense. I am going to spend some time in Dannevirke on Monday. I will go to Dannevirke and I will talk to the people in Dannevirke about how their local member says that charging them an extra $45, nearly $1 a week—nearly $1 a week—

💬 John Hayes: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I must insist that you ask that speaker to withdraw those comments. I have not made them.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, there is no need for a point of order. This is a debatable issue, and the member has put on Hansard where he stands.

💬 Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The point that I wish to raise with you is that these are indeed debatable points and it is open to any member to take a call and elaborate if they think—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

💬 Chris Hipkins: You have not heard my point of order yet, Mr Chair. [Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order! There is a point of order on the floor. Silence.

💬 Chris Hipkins: The point that I am raising is that Mr Hayes has interrupted Mr Mallard twice in order to make points that he could make in a debate. You as the Chair making a judgment on how long this debate will go for have to weigh up as one of your considerations contributions from both sides. I want an assurance from you that you will regard Mr Hayes’ contributions as being contributions to the debate. The National members are contributing by way of points of order, even if they are not taking a call.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, that is not classified—no.

John Hayes indicated that he thought that these increases were nothing, or not much, or something like that. [Interruption] “Not much”—I apologise. It was not “nothing”; it was “not much”. Well, it might be not much to someone whose travel costs are paid, who runs up and down with his massive Volvo and the taxpayer pays for him. The taxpayer pays for him, but most of the people who run around Dannevirke, Eketāhuna, Tīnui, Masterton, Featherston, Pahīatua—it does not go to Wairoa—and Waipukurau, all those people who pay for their petrol, know that it is significant paying an extra $1 a week per car in their family. And they have got to have a car. Many of them, because of the very poor public transport, have to have more than one car. It cannot and should not be described as “not much”—it should not be described as that.

Getting back to the detail in this particular amendment, what this allows for is an increase in the first year of 5.9 percent. But the 5.9 percent does not include the GST. Is this honesty? Is this honesty in a regulatory impact statement? Is this honesty in a regulatory impact statement? To be fair to the Government, because of its massive upward track in percentage terms in the impact it is only 5.3 percent in the third year, but that is, as we have heard, over a 10 percent increase over the period of time.

But I will go back to a point that I think needs to be focused on by the Committee. That is—and I do not want to sound like Sir Geoffrey Palmer, but still—we are the fastest lawmakers in the West. We have only —

I move, That the question be now put.