Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

The debate on this part includes the schedule.

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the bill in Part 1. Can I highlight at the outset that this side of the committee will be taking a lot of opportunity—if granted by you, of course, Madam Chair—to examine this bill. The reason why I want to highlight at the outset that we’ll be taking a lot of opportunity is because I think it needs to be put on record that this bill has not been through a particularly normal or lengthy parliamentary select committee process. This bill is a bill which would give a council the power of taxation and it also is a bill that gives the Minister some very considerable powers to put in place greater taxes than were otherwise expected or debated earlier last year. This bill gives the Minister quite a lot of powers in that regard and needs to be examined quite closely.

I think it’s also important to highlight that when this bill went through the select committee process it was a truncated process, the select committee had a shortened report-back time, the select committee was in quite a hurry, and because of that shortened report-back time it did not have the opportunity fully to examine issues that it otherwise would. The reason why we’re in this position where we have had a bill which has had a shortened report-back time and has not had the normal, thorough select committee scrutiny is because this Government wants to put in place a regional fuel tax by 1 July.

Another reason why I think this House needs to examine this bill very closely is because the regulation-making powers in the bill are extensive. And the reason why it needs thorough examination is because, in many of the comments that the Minister Phil Twyford has made publicly and leading to last year’s election and leading up to the introduction of this bill, the Minister has made comments which make it sound as though this bill is only limited to Auckland and that make it sound as though this bill limits and restricts regional fuel taxes to 10c a litre.

In fact, the regulation-making powers in this particular bill give extensive opportunity for the Minister to both have regional fuel taxes outside of Auckland—and I do note that much of the commentary and much of the explanatory note around the bill says it’s only an Auckland issue. But, in fact, the bill does allow regional fuel taxes on a nationwide basis, and it’s only buried within the bill as their one line restricting it to Auckland—but only initially. In future years, there’s the opportunity for regional fuel taxes around the country. This isn’t an Auckland regional fuel tax bill; it’s a nationwide fuel tax bill. And this bill, whilst having been sold by the Minister as solving an Auckland issue is actually a detailed “How this can be applied across the whole country?”

I also think it’s important to note that whilst this bill says regional fuel taxes would only be 10c a litre, the Minister, through Order in Council, could put in place regional fuel taxes at any point he wants. There is no legislative restriction in this bill to restrict it to 10c a litre, because by Order in Council, using a “Henry VIII” clause, the Minister can extend regional fuel taxes to 12c, 15c, or 20c a litre by the stroke of a pen. That would not take place with normal parliamentary scrutiny. Taxation-making powers through Order in Council—granted, if this bill is passed—are extensive. And that means the committee should not just have a perfunctory consideration of this bill; it should, in fact, go through in much detail how this bill would operate. My side of the committee have got some Supplementary Order Papers—and more will be coming—because we are so aggrieved by the way in which this bill is written that we’re going to be submitting a number of Supplementary Order Papers which attempt to mitigate the great damage that this bill would have.

Regional fuel taxes are one way in which transport infrastructure could be funded, but we also have not had an extensive opportunity—also because the Minister struggles to answer questions in the House—to consider alternative mechanisms for funding transport infrastructure. The Minister in the chair, right here, at the first opportunity to tax Aucklanders and put in place a bill that would tax the rest of the country through regional fuel taxes, has not given thorough consideration to the alternatives out there. He’s confirmed in the House that he hasn’t actually thoroughly considered whether the Auckland Council could find the savings that his former colleague, now the Mayor of Auckland, promised he would have. He’s not giving consideration to whether the desires for light rail and the desires for many transport projects that that side of the House wants are actually going to bring—[Time expired]

Thank you for the opportunity to speak at the committee stage on this bill. It’s not clear—to me, at least—the purpose of the bill: what this Government is trying to achieve by introducing this regional tax bill. Is it just to reduce and tax those who use fuel? Is it to reduce congestion on Auckland’s roads? Is it to reduce the congestion that exists in other cities, because we’ve already heard that this will be rolled out into regions? Is it to incentivise electric vehicles? Is it to incentivise those people who use CNG or LPG in their vehicles? As we know, CNG and LPG are exempt from this fuel tax, and, of course, electric vehicles simply don’t use carbon-based fuel and so, therefore, are also exempt.

And so then the question arises: how do we capture and how do we tax or how do we ensure that those users of electric vehicles and those users of CNG and LPG vehicles do get charged for their use of the roading network? If that’s the purpose of the tax—because, as I say, it’s unclear exactly what the mission statement is, what the purpose is of this tax other than to simply collect tax, to simply tax those who are using fuel. If that is the case, why tax them at the point of distribution? Why not, as submitters submitted, tax them as it leaves Marsden Point? Why not tax it at one spot for all the fuel that leaves Marsden Point? That way all the road users will be—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Paying for Auckland’s roads.

But that’s my purpose. The member asked the question, and that’s the question: what is the purpose? So if it is to tax fuel, then just tax fuel and put it at the point of source. If it is only to tax Auckland road-users—and that might be the purpose—why allow other regions, at a future date, in January 2021 I think it is, to introduce the tax if it is just to deal with Auckland congestion and Auckland roading?

Then, if it is to do with Auckland congestion and Auckland roading, why not take on a congestion charge? It’s a much more sensible, much more efficient, and much more effective use, and it’s less costly and much more targeted, because, of course, those who pay the congestion tax at the higher rate would be those who are using it at a peak time and so, therefore, should be charged more. So why has the Government not thought of a congestion tax? They haven’t. They are too lazy. They haven’t given any intellectual power to the debate around a congestion tax. Instead, they’ve gone after the regions.

I represent the large electorate of the Wairarapa. Those people, the people of the Wairarapa and other regions, will be paying a regional tax because, believe me, Wellington Regional Council will introduce this tax. They will be paying a road tax for the purposes of Wellington CBD, Wellington light rail equivalent through to the airport. So the guys in Pongaroa who have to drive more kilometres to take their kids to school, more kilometres to take their kids to the doctor, more kilometres to drive to the supermarket, and more kilometres to go to their workplace—for example, the cattle-yards or sheep-yards—will be paying the regional fuel tax for the purposes of the CBD of Wellington, and that is just unfair. That is just unfair.

The other people that this tax is burdensome on are those who can least afford it. That side say they support those who can least afford, but people who are at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder have less efficient cars. They don’t have electric vehicles (EVs). Those people who do not have so much money in their pockets, those people who are driving old cars and who live in cheaper parts of town, further away from their workplace—and I’m not talking just about the city-dwellers; I’m talking about those who live outside of Masterton, several kilometres outside of Masterton—will have to travel a long way to get to their place of work, which might be a shearing shed 25 or 35 kilometres up the road. They are driving in vehicles, and I’ll tell you what: they’re not EVs and they’re not hybrids and they’re not expensive and they’re not fuel-efficient. They will be paying this fuel tax, and for what? Are they going to see better roads on their way to and from work, on their way to and from the supermarket? They are not.

If the Government had spent 10 seconds thinking about it—have they considered, instead of a regional tax, talking about a district tax? Has there been any thought about a district council being able to collect this tax? We know, and particularly in the Wairarapa, it is low-density populations with many, many kilometres per capita which need extra roadworks, basically. There’s a huge amount of mileage that is required in low-density, large electorate populations. So has the Government thought about dedicating this tax—and it will be coming to the Wellington region—to the local councils so that the local council can determine which roads need the most repair? So there’s a lot of unfairness in this bill. There’s a lot of inequity in this bill. There’s little thought that has gone into this bill.

There are other issues that—well, I’ll give you another example. In the Wairarapa, we have a wave of wood—they call it the “wave of wood”—that is about to be harvested. Now, the fuel tax will not be applied to those operators on the farm, just as fuel excise does not apply to on-farm places of business. So we’re going to have a lot of fuel burnt in-forest, which will be exempt, of course, but then the logging trucks will be punching away through these on the way to the ports, on the way to Napier Port or on the way to the port of Wellington, and little consideration for those district councils, and particularly the district ratepayers who end up footing the bill for these huge vehicles. Of course, forestry is a fantastic industry, but we need to think about who is going to pay for what as far as road repairs. So we’re going to have a situation where logs are harvested, trucks are brought across these gravel roads, ripped up, and they will only pay road-user charges, only use road-user charges.

So there’s a lot of inequities in this bill, but I do ask the Government to think about those people, particularly in the Wellington region, who will be asked to pay for this fuel tax and who can least afford it—those who are travelling long distances to get to work, get to school, get to the football field, or get to rugby practice. And I also ask—the fact that not only the distance but the quality of vehicle is not as good as the townies who can walk to work, who can cycle to work far more easily. And I do ask for the Government to really think about what they are trying to achieve by putting this legislation through. Is it to dissuade people from using fuel or is it simply to raise tax for some black hole to fund the light rail system from Auckland CBD through to the airport? If that’s the case, well, my point is, target it. Target the tax to incentivise or disincentivise the behaviour that the Government is wishing to stimulate or to deter, but don’t just blanket swab a regional fuel tax across all people in all regions, in all places, for all conditions, because that type of attitude, that type of tax, is simply unfair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to begin my comments, in what I think will be a reasonably brief call, by thanking the National Party for its support in the second reading of this bill. That was a little bit surprising, but it was very gratifying to see that perhaps over the select committee process we’d built up some cross-partisan support. However, what we have learnt in the course of this debate is that the National Party are very good at changing their minds in respect of this issue. I do just want to acknowledge the voluminous petition for billions of dollars’ worth of roads that was tabled in this House earlier on today, yet here we have the National Party opposing any revenue-raising measure to actually get on and build the transport networks that our cities and our regions may need.

I also want to note the calls we’ve heard and some of the speeches so far about consideration of other means to raise revenue to support our transport systems. Of course, that’s something that the previous Government had nine years to consider and simply didn’t do the work on. What they did was raise fuel tax by 17c over six years. So, once again, we have a pretty significant shift of position.

I want to come to a couple of the specific provisions that came out of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and might I note it was a very pleasing select committee process, in spite of some of the comments we heard earlier from the member from Botany. We, in fact, received 520 submissions from people, so the suggestion that it was a truncated process, without ability for people to input, simply does not bear scrutiny.

One of the suggestions we heard is, “Why don’t we just slap on a tax at Marsden?” Curiously, we heard that from the member for Wairarapa, who seems to entirely miss the point of the bill—that at this point it is about regions such as Auckland funding their own infrastructure. If that member wants to go back to Wairarapa and argue that his constituents should fund Auckland’s transport needs, then I invite him to do so. But, of course, we haven’t heard that from him.

What he’ll be very, very pleased to hear indeed—and I want to just note his concern about the prospect of possibly the Wellington region maybe some years in the future, after 2020, considering whether it might want to have a regional fuel tax to fund its transport needs. I want to note new section 65D, inserted by clause 5 of the bill, which was a change made at select committee which does enable regions to make exclusions if it is inappropriate for a part of a region to pay the regional fuel tax when the main benefit is going to occur in another part of the region. That was a request which specifically came through from the Auckland Council on the select committee process and could be applied, for example, in that region to somewhere like Great Barrier Island. So, hopefully, that gives that member some comfort.

I also want to reflect on the somewhat grandiose statements made by Jami-Lee Ross earlier on in the debate, about the Minister’s ability to review the rate of the regional fuel tax. This is addressed in new section 65ZD, inserted by clause 5, of the reported-back bill from the Finance and Expenditure Committee, in which the select committee has included provisions in the bill which will make sure that there are reasons provided for any changes to the rate of regional fuel tax. Of course, what Mr Jami-Lee Ross forgets to mention is that any such change has to come back to this very House, just as changes to other rates of excise tax have to come back to this House. I haven’t noticed Mr Ross or any of his other colleagues opposing changes to general rates of fuel excise tax, which are made by Order in Council in exactly the same way, subject to confirmation by the House.

The previous speaker, Alastair Scott, asked “What does this bill achieve?” and sort of made the suggestion that it throws money into a pot somewhere, never to be seen again. Of course that is absolutely nonsense, because what this bill very specifically does achieve—and further changes were made at select committee to new section 65E, inserted by clause 5—is it achieves the transport objectives of particular regions. The particular region that is applying for the regional fuel tax has to put forward a very specific proposal, down to the level of particular projects and the benefits that those projects will achieve for the transport needs of that region. And that, in fact, has been strengthened at select committee in new section 65E, and really, that’s the nub of this bill. It’s about recognising that Auckland has a very specific set of transport needs after nine years of utter neglect and increasing gridlock on the roads of our city. Finally, thank goodness, we have a Government with a plan to fix that and with the gumption to front up and to fund it as well, and that is what this very good bill does. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a couple of points I want to raise on the bill. I’ll just answer a couple of points that Michael Wood, the member who’s just resumed his seat, made. One of the points he said was that, for nine years, the National Government hadn’t concerned itself with funding all of the transport initiatives that it wanted, and did, in fact, put in place. Well, actually, it was the National-led Government that came up with genuinely innovative solutions for funding infrastructure projects that didn’t require taxing hard-working New Zealanders more—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Like what? Name one.

Such as unlocking the potential of State assets to reutilise the cash in infrastructure projects such as our roading projects. I’d also remind the members opposite that those mixed-ownership - model assets have returned more in dividends since they’ve been mixed ownership, with lower State ownership, than they did before. Not only has it freed up cash for infrastructure investments—hospitals, schools, and, particularly, roading and other transport—it’s actually returned better dividends to the Government at the same time. Perhaps if Mr Wood had more commercial acumen, he would have realised that was a far better option for funding our needs than worrying about taxing hard-working New Zealanders more, hitting them in their back pockets—particularly the people in his electorate and in South Auckland, who will get hurt harder by this because of the regressive nature of a regional fuel tax.

I want to talk to a couple of areas of the bill, and the applicable clauses. The first one follows on from a very articulate contribution from my colleague Mr Scott. All of the narrative we’ve heard around this bill and the need for it has talked about freeing up funding for Auckland transport projects, to break congestion, to unlock the potential in Auckland, and yet, for some reason, the Minister has decided that cars that are more likely to be owned by wealthy people should be exempt—those are electric vehicles.

There’s a fuel tax if you’re using petrol or diesel, but there’s no charge on a kilowatt of electricity. If you happen to own a Tesla or, maybe a little bit cheaper, a Leaf or a BMW i3, if you are wealthy enough to own an electric car, you get a free run in Auckland—because I’m using the definition of “fuel” here; because, under the definition of “fuel”, which references the Local Government Act, of course a kilowatt of electricity is not included. It’s not excluded either, explicitly, but it certainly isn’t included. So, by using that definition, the Government has chosen to exclude electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles are going to cause the same amount of congestion on the road as other vehicles, as other cars. But, no, they get a free ride under the Minister’s plans, because, I don’t know, perhaps they just want to help the wealthy out. I’m not quite sure. But if we go to the intent that the Government has articulated, about why we even have this measure, they’ve excluded vehicles which should be captured. They are vehicles traversing the current roading system in Auckland and, therefore, contributing to the congestion which the Minister seems to want to address.

The other part I’d like to just touch on, which, hopefully, he might actually want to comment on, is the element which, in the commentary, is referred to as “price spreading” and which the Finance and Expenditure Committee recommended a clause change to allow monitoring of. I’m very interested to know how the Minister thinks that will, in practice, help to prevent what has been termed price spreading. If he is thinking, for instance, that it is clause 65ZC, “Offences and penalties”, particularly paragraphs (e) and (f) under subclause (1), which talk about failing to pay regional fuel tax in accordance or evading the payment, I’d actually suggest that perhaps the Minister hasn’t got the mechanics of how what has been termed “price spreading” will actually work.

Having spoken to some fuel companies, and I hope he did also, it’s not actually going to be an intentional act by a fuel company to take the tax and have it paid somewhere else. What is likely to happen is competitive forces in the Auckland market—because it’s the first market to get these—are going to see discounting take place after the tax has been applied in the first place at the pump, which will compete the price down. Now, that means the fuel companies will get a lower return from each litre of fuel in Auckland and, in order to make up their overall margins—because the cost of product will have gone up—they will end up charging more in some other part of New Zealand. That’s not refusing to pay the fuel tax, and it’s not evading the fuel tax; it is simply adjusting to competitive pressures. So, Minister, perhaps you might like to tell us how your monitoring regime is actually going to stop that practice. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair—a pleasure to speak to the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I say it’s a pleasure, but, in fact, it’s with mixed emotions, as you will soon see. It was, famously, the character King Lear, in the play of the same name—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Crocodile tears—crocodile, crocodile!

The rebuke was given to his errant daughter, I think Cordelia, but Mr Shane Jones will no doubt know, “Nothing will come of nothing”. If only that were the case in regards to this bill, that would be so much better than the present situation, because nothing is going to come from something in this bill. Specifically, no good outcomes will come directly as a result of this bill, but something is being introduced by it—namely, extra taxes at the petrol pumps of Aucklanders. So we’ve got a cost-benefit analysis that results in a finding, by me here today, that there is all cost and no benefit—no tangible benefit, no concrete benefit, if you’ll excuse the pun, almost, in the case of roads. Aucklanders, therefore, as I say—and certainly the rest of the country—will be getting something for nothing, but not in a good way.

Madam Chair, I want to seek your indulgence to speak about the effect of this bill on a particular electorate, and I’ll choose one at random—Helensville. It seems to me that some of the themes that have been mentioned by my colleagues in relation to the unfairness of the mechanism whereby, in effect, as a result presumably of unintended consequences of the bill, taxpayers and road users or petrol pump payments throughout the country will be used to benefit infrastructure in Auckland. Well, if only that were so within all the boundaries of Auckland Council, then the good people of the Helensville electorate might be somewhat happier than they are now about this bill, because there’s nothing specific in this bill to guarantee that certain works will be done in various parts of Auckland.

Now, I do acknowledge the points made by Mr Michael Wood in his discussion of the bill in relation to “Providing the ability to exclude parts of a region”—I quote from the commentary on the bill. But this much is unclear in terms of its application, and certainly what the implications would be going forward, because there is no guarantee that such a proposal would be met favourably under this bill. So in the example of the Helensville electorate, not only would the rural parts of that electorate, which I remind the House, for any who might have known but have forgotten, or perhaps indeed not known at all, are rural but none the less within the Auckland Council jurisdiction, and therefore paying, under the Auckland region, these regional fuel taxes—there is no guarantee that they will be gaining anything concrete in terms of improvements to their roading network, whether that’s State highways or local roads or, indeed, the specific projects that the current Government has recently announced.

So, for example, light rail. Well, there’s a certain amount that can be said in favour, and also against, the proposal of light rail to the north-west of Auckland, but one thing that can very definitely be said against it, as proposed by the current Government, is that it’s not the only light rail project that’s been proposed. It seems to me, unfortunately, obvious that if history is any guide, the light rail project in the north-west of Auckland will likely take a back seat on the trains that will travel on this hypothetical light rail transport mechanism to the light rail projects elsewhere in the city—for example, the one that begins in the Prime Minister’s own electorate. There are very cynical people, who have every right to be cynical about the likelihood of that happening any time soon. We note that there are no time frames for such a project, such a benefit, in that electorate, despite numerous positive noises having been made by various members of the now Government when campaigning in the electorate, including, but not limited to, the leader of the New Zealand First Party.

There’s no guarantee that these things will happen any time soon or, indeed, at all, given failures to deliver by this Government elsewhere, as characterised not by broken promises so much as promises that are not yet fulfilled. Well, the promises that will not yet be fulfilled under this bill seem, to me, pretty clear. The promise only is that you’ll have to pay more, but you’ll get nothing out of it concrete any time soon—that’s the message in relation to this bill from the good people of Helensville.

It’s a pleasure to speak on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. We oppose it strongly because they don’t work. Yet another tax by this Government—let’s be honest: this Government loves tax, and they love taxing us. Look out: there’re more coming—rest assured, there’s more coming.

“No taxes.”, they said, but they’ve given us four. It’s available only in the Auckland region—until January 2021, and then all hell breaks loose: Hamilton, Waikato, Tauranga, Wellington, and Christchurch—even Northland might want one. Local Government New Zealand chair Dave Cull wants it available to all councils. Can you imagine any council not wanting one? And it’s going to be subject to GST—tax on tax. They can review the regional fuel tax at any time. Now, that’s scary.

There were 520 submissions from interested groups and individuals at the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and 89 percent were opposed. Public opinion is dead against this form of taxation, and I’ll quote: A One News Colmar Brunton poll in May: 58 percent opposed; 36 percent in favour. In May, Auckland Council’s final consultation on the draft proposal: 51 percent opposed; 42 percent in support. Auckland Council Facebook poll: 74 percent against—

💬 Hon Member: How many?

—74 percent against, 26 percent in favour, and 10,600 people voted in it—that’s a fair few. In April, the 10-year budget plan consultation: 48 percent opposed and 46 percent for, and 21,000 people voted in that one. In the April Colmar Brunton poll for Auckland Council the poll shows that 52 percent supported it and 43 percent opposed it, but that was prior to the announcement. When they announced the actual fuel tax, opposition rose to 58 percent.

So this bill imposes steep costs on New Zealanders, especially in Auckland. It is an unnecessary burden on motorists and taxpayers. The impact of this should not be understated. It will cost households hundreds of dollars a year in order to project this $150 million. Businesses will, simply, pass that cost on to consumers in higher prices. Anyone that runs businesses knows that. On this side of the Chamber, we’ve run a few.

Regional fuel taxes must be viewed in the wider context of national fuel tax increases. This Government has proposed increases in fuel tax of 12c a litre, which, taken with this increase, means a 25.3 percent a litre tax increase for motorists and businesses. This will drive up living costs of many of those in the region, but the burden of this new tax will disproportionately fall upon the lower-income New Zealanders. It’s a higher percentage of their income—a larger percentage of their income. Lower-income families generally have older, more less fuel-efficient cars—that’s a fact—and they usually live further away from the CBD, so they’ll be affected more.

But we’ve got to talk about price spreading. Like it’s occurred in the past, fuel companies will likely spread the cost across their national network. It happened in the 1990s, and it’s the reason why we repealed this legislation in 2009. There is evidence that price spreading is already occurring in anticipation of this regional fuel tax. Fuel prices are rising in the South Island much faster than in Auckland. For example, fuel companies could charge 3c a litre nationally to cover a 10c per litre regional fuel tax in Auckland. Auckland Council only needs to find around 4 percent savings in its budget to fund this tax. That’s not a difficult task.

We also would not have gutted $5 billion out of the State highway budget, which could have been used to fund the likes of the East-West Link and the Mill Road corridor and my beloved Northland motorway. I’m very sad to see that bite the dust. National remains opposed to the use of regional fuel taxes in any instance, so we oppose this.

Look, I am, with a heavy heart, here to speak on this piece of legislation. I’ve been a member of Parliament for nine years, and one of the biggest things that people talk to me about—this is all Aucklanders but also all New Zealanders—is the cost of living. So let’s be very clear to those people listening at home about what we are talking about with this bill: we are not only talking about the Government raising national fuel taxes but we are talking about, in this bill, an extra tax, in the first instance, for Aucklanders but then also, potentially, for other New Zealanders.

When I get around New Zealand, it’s amazing the number of people that are not aware that this piece of legislation could enable in the future other regions to come in. So there is a bit of “Oh well, if it happens in Auckland, then I won’t”—you know, “Not in my back yard.” But the reality is that people are struggling, and they are not going to be able to afford not only the cost in terms of fuel but also around the cost of food.

So it is ironic that we have a Labour Government promoting this piece of legislation and pushing it through the Parliament, because of the impact on some of our most disadvantaged New Zealanders. So we know that some people who don’t have a choice are going to have to get in their car and travel and they are going to have that additional cost but also the cost in terms of food.

I represent a range of very diverse areas in Auckland Central. Some people might think, “Oh, well, it’s just the wealthy areas of Ponsonby and Herne Bay.”, but it’s actually not. There are people who live in central Auckland, in the CBD, who are really struggling, and this means more cost for their families.

But, also, the reason I’m up to speak is actually about a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that I have drafted, Supplementary Order Paper 27, as the local member for Waiheke and Great Barrier Island. Let me be really clear, as I’ve been clear when I’ve been on these isolated islands, that we oppose this regional fuel tax, but, actually, as well, our argument is we completely oppose it but I am pleading with the Minister of Transport—and I’d love him to answer some questions around this. When you have a community like Great Barrier—and I got a message from the chair of the local board the other day: at the pump on Barrier, fuel has gone to $3.30. It’s gone to $3.30 in the last couple of weeks, and then you have these taxes on top of it.

Now, we know that the Auckland Council have put in a submission to potentially have Barrier exempted but, at the moment, the bill doesn’t guarantee that; it requires the Minister’s decision. My amendment will permanently exempt them because they do not benefit from a number of the transport projects. They’re not going to benefit from the transport projects; they also have massively high fuel now, and so what you’re saying to a community, what the Minister and the Government are saying to a small community of a thousand people whose average income is very low, is “We are going to add, potentially, thousands of dollars a year more on your cost of living when you live on an isolated island and you’re not going to benefit from these projects.” So that’s the first point. I would ask the Minister to confirm whether he’s going to support my SOP with regard to Great Barrier but also with regard to Waiheke Island.

Now, again, there’s been a bit of a discussion locally about this issue in terms of Waiheke. A lot of people have said to me that when the Auckland Council went out around the submissions in terms of proposals around fuel tax, they didn’t understand exactly what the impact would be for Barrier. So I don’t want to have some of the surveys that’ve been quoted locally seen as the truth of the world, because the reality is that we also know that Waiheke may end up having additional costs in terms of their fuel because some of the hazardous substances rules may kick in for the island. But, at the moment, there is a price differential in terms of Auckland by, potentially, over 20c to 25c, so I am arguing, as a local MP for Waiheke and Great Barrier—totally separate to us being absolutely opposed to these regional fuel taxes—that the Minister supports and the Government supports our amendments around these isolated islands, because they have a different set of circumstances. They are not going to benefit from these transport projects. They live in an isolated area, they already have much higher costs in terms of fuel and costs of living, and this will send some families under.

I’m delighted to have this opportunity to speak, really, to some of the misunderstandings that have arisen, that have been talked about, in the course of this debate on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I thought I’d talk to some of the issues that have been raised. I think Mr Jami-Lee Ross, early on, said that, in fact, there hadn’t been enough time to debate this bill; it was a truncated process that, really, people hadn’t had time to have their say on. But, frankly, there were 520 submissions on it. I’d say that was an awful lot of people having their say. So there was plenty of time for people to put in submissions and have their say on this bill. So I just think the evidence contradicts Mr Jami-Lee Ross there.

Then we had some discussion as to whether or not there was much support for the tax. Now, not many opinion polls do support increased taxes; that’s just one of those things, and as a Parliament we have to take a mature attitude and try to think through the virtues in themselves. But I would point out to the members on the Opposition benches the Colmar Brunton poll released on 18 April, which showed 52 percent support for the regional fuel tax in Auckland. I’m going to sell it even further: it stacks up with a number of things that Aucklanders have supported recently because they understand the critical needs of their city. There is now going to be a targeted rate in Auckland to fix up our damaged waterways, and people are happy to pay that targeted rate. There is now going to be an environmental targeted rate in Auckland because people are deeply worried about our environmental issues, and they are happy to pay an extra targeted tax in order to fix those problems. Likewise, there is support in Auckland for this regional fuel tax because Aucklanders understand the problems. They understand the need to take action. They know it will hurt, but they are prepared to pay the extra money in order to fix the extraordinary congestion in their city.

And it is extraordinary congestion. Aucklanders spend so much time stuck on the roads. They spend so much time stuck in traffic. We now have issues where tradies won’t take jobs or won’t allow deliveries after 3 o’clock because they cannot guarantee that the deliveries will get to them. We now have issues where tradies won’t take jobs across the city because the travel takes just too much time. So when the Opposition talk about the cost of business, why are they not thinking about the extraordinary costs that congestion imposes on business and the need we have to do something about it, not in some never-never land, like the plans that they proposed when they were in Government, but now—right now? We need to take action now on Auckland transport.

Then there were the concerns—and this is an extraordinary thing to hear from the Opposition—that a regional fuel tax would impose the most on the poor. It’s a shame we didn’t hear those claims when GST was increased from 12.5 percent to 15 percent on everything that people buy, not just fuel taxes. Suddenly—suddenly—they have started this concern right now. But I want to say something here: congestion impacts hardest on the poor. Lack of public transport impacts hardest on the poor. I want to point you to what one Auckland councillor said when Auckland councillors debated this themselves and went through an extraordinary debate on it. This is an Auckland city councillor who represents people in Ōtāhuhu, who represents some of the poorest people in our city. Councillor Josephine Bartley said, as she voted in favour of this regional fuel tax—“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit under.”

We have to plan for the future, and a good society doesn’t plan just for today, it doesn’t plan just for next week or next year; it plans for the long-term future, and this is what this Auckland regional fuel tax will assist in doing. And that is why I support this regional fuel tax, and I ask the Opposition to consider it seriously instead of just standing up with mindless, braying, cackling opposition to it. There is a real need for this fuel tax, and on this side of the House we are prepared to take the hard action. We are prepared to go and walk the talk and make sure that we fund a decent transport system in Auckland. That is why I support this regional fuel tax.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve read quite a few of the submissions that’ve come through the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and the one that I think best sums up the feeling out there in New Zealand is the one from Ken Shirley from the Road Transport Forum New Zealand. He said that the regional fuel tax is an absolute nonsense. Here we have the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, laughing at those comments, and I can’t believe that. The Minister is laughing when he knows the cost of fruit and vegetables is going to go up, because I’ve heard and read Ken Shirley’s comments: this regional fuel taxes is just going to be passed on. Who’s it going to impact the most on? Those low-income earners. And then all those people in Auckland—and we didn’t hear that from the previous speaker, Deborah Russell—are going to have to pay 25.3c in a matter of days’ time. On 1 July, they will be hit by a double whammy. They’ll get hit with a regional fuel tax and the one that’s going across the whole of New Zealand.

On this side of the House, we could fund roads of national significance without having to enforce a regional fuel tax. Why can we do that? Because of prudent management. If the Government is so focused on this tax, why not have a congestion tax? What we haven’t heard from the other side of the House is how this is going to be spread out into other regions. What we know is already happening is when you drive over the Bombay Hills, down into the Waikato, already they know this tax is coming and the price is going to go up. What is going to have a perverse impact is motorists will probably fill their trailers and boots up with their good old jerrycans and head out of the Auckland region to fill up their jerrycans—imagine the safety consequences of that. This tax isn’t needed. The Government said—actually, the Labour Party and other political parties now in coalition said—there would be no new taxes. Now, this is going to roll out and really impact not only all of Auckland; but it’s going to be felt across New Zealand.

Now, we are debating Part 1 this afternoon, and I have got an amendment that’s going to come through in my name and be on the Table shortly. It’s going to propose an exemption for, primarily, commercially used vehicles that are travelling with agriculture products on board. As I’ve already mentioned, and it was to the fore when the Horticulture New Zealand board came and presented to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, this is going to have not only a big impact on fruit and vegetables; it’s going to impact on all of those staple food items that are going to go through to supermarkets. Those costs are going to be rolled out to all consumers.

What is also really interesting, and it relates to the regional fuel tax, is in my electorate, where we have a slowdown on the New Zealand Transport Agency confirming back to the Horowhenua community—400 houses in limbo at the moment—as to where the proposed route is going to go on the extension of the road of national significance from Ōtaki to around Levin. I’d be very interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that, because he is saying, “Oh no. Oh no, that’s at arm’s length. No, I don’t get involved in that.” And yet it was fine that he raided money out of the National Land Transport Fund for Auckland trams. It was fine for them to bring in KiwiRail when that used to go straight through to Cabinet. So the National Land Transport Fund is being raided.

Even with this regional fuel tax, there won’t be enough money, in my view, to build the Horowhenua Expressway. What was summarised the best was from the former coroner when he likened that section of road to “a killing field marked like a battlefield with white crosses.” Since 2013, there have been 11 deaths and 43 serious injuries. If Mr Jones, over there on the Government side of the House, was so focused on regional New Zealand, you would think that he would be supporting the Horowhenua Expressway. There’s so much doubt that my community are paralysed. They don’t know if the Government is going to confirm the route. They don’t know if they’re going to take a long cup of tea and say that we need to delay it. Those landowners in Horowhenua need certainty. What we have seen with the Kapiti Expressway is the huge economic development that flows on the back of a decent four-lane road. Not only is it about safety; it’s about productivity—getting your produce through to the capital city of Auckland, and connecting through with the lower North Island.

So this regional fuel tax—bringing it back to Part 1—is not necessary. If the Government really wanted to do something, it should be focused on a congestion tax. This is going to mean that the cost of not only the regional fuel tax but the other tax that comes in in a matter of weeks is going to be felt right across New Zealand. The Government policy statement has changed, and the concern that I have is that they have moved away from productivity. Minister Twyford, in the chair, a question for you: if the Government policy statement is focused on safety, will you confirm that you will provide the funding for the Horowhenua Expressway? Silence. I can’t even get—oh, he’s looking up now. I can’t even get a head nod or a shake of the head saying yes or no. This is the uncertainty that we have—

💬 Michael Wood: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I believe that this speech, along with most other Opposition speeches, are in breach of Speaker’s ruling 110/3, which sets out that all speeches at this stage of proceedings in the committee should deal with the nuts and bolts clauses of the bill. We’ve had absolutely nothing of that eight minutes into this speech.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It may well be. It is for me to judge, and I have judged that the debate so far has been focused on Part 1. They don’t have to refer to individual clauses, but they can talk about Part 1 of the bill, and I’m satisfied that that’s in fact happening.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Following on from the comments that I was just making previously, before the point of order was raised, I still look forward to hearing from the Minister, answering the questions that I have raised with him today. In particular, I also want to refer to the fuel outlets, which is in Part 1, clause 5, inserting new section 65A. What’s really important in this part is about the collection of this and indeed the fuel outlets and where the geographic regions spreads from, and then the prices that are going to incur just outside of the region—how indeed is that going to be monitored? We still don’t know. We’ve already seen prices going up.

It’s really interesting when I refer back to my electorate of Ōtaki, because I have some of the cheapest fuel in the whole of the country. It’s fascinating when you go into Levin because I’ve got the competition there with Gull, and Waitomo Group up the road in Foxton, and Allied Petroleum, and then down the road you have the big BP and Z Energy and Co in Ōtaki, and often the difference between Levin and Ōtaki can be 20c a litre on 91 fuel.

My advice, until the Government gets organised with their Commerce Commission inquiry and the recommendations that will flow from that, is that motorists should look at an app—and download it—called Gaspy. When they’re travelling around the country Gaspy is a fantastic app where you can very easily see when you go into a town. Gaspy will be really important when motorists move into Auckland or even just go out of Auckland. As they come over the Bombay Hills, or they’re travelling through Auckland, they’ll know that they’re going to need to pay an extra 25.3c with the regional fuel tax and the nationwide tax, so the Gaspy app is going to be really important when they come in or out of the Auckland region, knowing where the cheapest and most efficient fuel is.

Can I conclude by saying that this regional fuel tax isn’t warranted. I hope that the Minister will support my amendment that does allow an exemption for vehicles operated primarily during the course of commercial farming operations, because I believe that’s paramount. If this Government wants to be inclusive and focused on poverty and look after the most vulnerable in our community, you would think that they would make an exemption for vehicles that are carrying agriculture products either to market or to the supermarkets and back or, indeed, to smaller outlets closer to home. So this bill isn’t needed. It’s yet another tax. I look forward to the Minister responding to my questions as to whether he supports the Horowhenua Expressway.

Thank you, Madam Chair—fantastic choice. Now, look, I’d just like to make a contribution to this bill, as well. It’s interesting to note the lack of interest from the Government’s side of the Chamber in actually getting up and taking a call on this, which I think is representative of their lack of interest in general for the wider issue of transportation within Auckland. That is clearly demonstrated by the last member from the Government who actually did take a call, who was able to dredge up one poll that showed support, and clung to that poll for five minutes’ worth of rhetoric. Well, actually, there were four polls in May that all opposed this bill being implemented. They said there was no need for a regional fuel tax in Auckland. Four different polls conducted throughout the month of May all came up with the same conclusion. And the Government is not interested in taking a call today. They’re clearly not interested in listening to the public of Auckland either.

Really, this is about raising funds to cover the shortfall that the Auckland Council hasn’t been able to stump up. Mayor Phil Goff committed to reducing expenditure to provide extra capital available for investment in infrastructure, and that has fallen short.

💬 Simeon Brown: And what’s he done?

He hasn’t achieved it all, Mr Brown, as well you’d be aware as an Auckland MP. This is a disappointing outcome for Aucklanders in general. And now the Government’s trying to scramble and cover for Mr Goff’s lack of savings by implementing this regional fuel tax.

They’ve also gone and raided funds—a significant level: $5 billion of funding—from the roads of national significance projects outlined by the previous Government; projects that were going to enhance safety across New Zealand. And there were a number of petitions presented in the House, just today actually, some of those covering areas around the Waikato in my electorate, and those petitions were advocated for, on behalf of all New Zealanders, strongly by my colleague sitting beside me, Tim Macindoe MP for Hamilton West, and myself. We were both very keen to see these roads continue, in particular, and yet we haven’t seen that.

And, on top of that actually, what we’ve seen now is a significant change. We’ve heard, just recently actually, the Government Policy Statement (GPS) put out—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ll just remind the member we are debating Part 1 of this bill, not the GPS.

Yes, thank you, Madam Deputy Chair. And what we’re seeing is actually that their focus on safety, which they’re talking about in Auckland being a key priority—actually the New Zealand Transport Agency put out a list of 10 top high-risk rural intersections around the country, six of those were in the Waikato. Five of them were going to be bypassed by the expressway projects, and that’s now not happening. So I call them out on their claim that safety is their key priority, when clearly their actions are demonstrating otherwise. This is another example of the Government trying to talk their way out of something they’ve acted their way into. And, frankly, New Zealanders won’t buy it.

Looking now to the regional fuel tax, what we’re seeing here is, actually, there’s a number of issues with this. And I want to come back to some of the points that were touched on earlier around electric vehicles. We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of electric vehicles being registered in New Zealand. This graph shows exponential growth in terms of vehicles registered throughout New Zealand. We’re seeing a massive number now. There were at 31 May this year 3,875 electric vehicles registered. Now, when you consider that significant increase—and, coincidentally, that’s more than are registered in Australia by a country mile—this significant increase in the uptake of electric vehicles that don’t require the usage of fuel is actually going to see a reduction in the revenue gained from a regional fuel tax. And we haven’t seen that taken into account in the figures at all. So I’d be interested to hear from the Minister in the chair what his perspective is on the potential reduction in revenue obtained as a result of the significant increase in electric vehicle uptakes as promoted under the last Government.

Also, what we’re seeing is these electric vehicles are typically owned by New Zealanders who have a little bit more spare cash. They’re able to afford to take up this new technology. That means that lower-income New Zealanders are going to be the ones stuck capturing—or, I guess, incurring—the bulk of the cost around this regional fuel tax. And what we’ve heard already from one assessment is that could be up to three times more cost incurred by low-income families, because they might be driving less efficient vehicles, than by other Aucklanders who are able to have more efficient vehicles, or, indeed, those who have electric vehicles and pay nothing at all—so a significant discrepancy here.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill in committee stage.

I would like to ask the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, a number of questions. These questions relate to Subpart 3, new section 65E, inserted by clause 5, “Proposal for RFT scheme: content requirements”. Now, this new section here is to do with a council which wants to put in place a regional fuel tax (RFT), and the requirements that they have to undertake in order to be able to put one together. And I’ve got a number of questions in relation to this, because there are a large number of terms which, I think, require some defining by the Minister.

The first question comes under paragraph (c)(iii). It says, “explain why the regional council believes the project provides value for money;”. I guess my first question is what does “value for money” mean? I think that’s quite a broad term. Is that a benefit-cost ratio? Is that a benefit-cost ratio which the Minister has any guidance over, what value for money would be? I know that the Minister has criticised certain projects for their value for money in the past, and I wonder if the Minister has any guidance as to what regional councils should be taking into account as so-called value for money.

The second question comes under the next subparagraph, subparagraph (iv), which states, “set out its proposed completion date;”. Now, if there’s a completion date, is that when it is proposed to be completed? Is there a contingency in that time frame? Is it something which can be moved? What kind of parameters does that allow for the regional council to be able to put in place?

The next subparagraph, subparagraph (v), says, “state the amount of capital expenditure expected to be required from regional fuel tax;”. Now, does that take into account cost blowouts? I mean, we know that a large number of particularly light-rail projects have cost blowouts, as we’ve seen from around the world, and I was wondering whether the Minister thinks that the regional councils should be making a contingency for these so-called cost blowouts.

A little further down, under paragraph (e), it says, “set out the rate or rates of regional fuel tax and the period during which each rate is to apply;”. I guess my question there is why the reference to “rate” and “rates”? I notice earlier in the legislation—in new section 65C(3)—it says that “The maximum rate of [a] regional fuel tax under an RFT scheme is $0.10 per litre.”—and, of course, that’s plus GST; as we know on this side of the House, you have to add that on as well. But, I guess, my question is does that allow a regional council to put in place one regional fuel tax for 10c a litre, and then another one for another 10c a litre and then make it more and more, or does that mean that you can have three regional fuel taxes of 3c per litre? I guess there’s a wide range of different questions that I’ve got around how that subsection operates. “Rate or rates” does seem to be quite a broad definition, and whether that should only be referring to “rate” may be an improvement that we could assist the Minister on from this side of the House. I’m happy to provide a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect, to improve that paragraph (e), if the Minister is interested in my assistance.

Under new section 65E(fa), it says, “set out the forecast expenses of administering the scheme, including RFT rebate processing;”. I guess my question on this is what advice has the Minister received? I’m glad to see the Minister taking note there of these questions. How much will it cost, the admin? What advice has he received around the costs of this administration? How much will it cost? I assume that some regional fuel taxes may cost more than others; I’m not sure. I would’ve thought that the cost of running these schemes would be reasonably standard across the country—maybe it’s not. It’d be helpful for the House to know what advice he has received around that.

A little bit later, in new section 65E(fc), it says, “state to what extent the regional council expects the RFT scheme to change fuel-buying behaviour by the public, any likely consequences from such changes, and how such anticipated changes have been taken into account in the revenue forecast;”. Now, I guess my question in this is—that’s quite a lot of research, quite a lot of work for a regional council to put in place, putting this scheme together. I do expect that they should do this work if they’re going to get the money. However, I would have also thought that this is something on which there would be some advice already put forward by the Ministry of Transport. Has there been some advice on what this is going to cost? Has there been any modelling? I think the question that my colleague Tim van de Molen mentioned earlier was quite relevant—[Time expired]

Madam Chair, thank you for that inspired choice. Earlier, one of the National Party members, Chris Penk—I’m not sure. I think it was King Lear—he invoked the name of King Lear.

💬 Hon Member: That’s right.

OK. Of course, the great saying from King Lear, Madam Chair, if you will enable me to respond—as he challenged whether or not anyone on this side of the Chamber knew what he was talking about. What he needs to remember is “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is the thankless child.” Both that speech and the speech just given by the member Simeon Brown, who’s resumed his seat, were juvenile, empty, shouting, irrelevant—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! The second two might be in order but the Standing Orders are quite clear that you can’t refer to the age of members. All members are honourable no matter their age.

Thank you very much for those words. Perhaps I read too much into what they were saying, but perhaps “vacuous” is the best description.

This bill enjoys total support on this side of the House. This bill is related to a number of projects that have been consulted upon, that were identified both during our time and floating around under the last regime, and those projects in Auckland will be funded. They will be funded through a mix of generic funding, but they will be turbocharged because this bill introduces a system where a regional fuel tax will pass and create a new opportunity for Mayor Goff and the planners, the architects, and the visionaries—not unlike my colleague Mr Twyford, sitting here, who actually want to see transportation issues in Auckland solved.

Now, in the last nine years, the other side of this House had their opportunity. Now, let’s just think what they did. They waited for the treasurer, Mr English, to leave the country before they breathed life into former Mayor Brown’s vision for the railway loop, because they as a party over the last nine years were deeply divided on these issues. They were prepared to dedicate funds out into building four-lane expressways in the mistaken belief that it was going to enhance the productivity of neglected regions and provinces, and they did that by purloining the dough out of those neglected regions, and this is getting motorists, fuel users, fuel purchasers to pay whilst they are adding to the congestion and the pressure in Auckland.

Now, it’s been said that the folk from Great Barrier or Waiheke—the member for Auckland Central doesn’t want the Waiheke people to actually pay their way in respect of this fuel tax. What does that member think Waiheke people do when they come over to Auckland? Does she think they are on a magic mat? Does she think that they walk on air? Does she think they are as airy-headed as some of the speakers on the other side of the Chamber? They have to actually contribute because they add to the congestion in Auckland.

Now, it might be said that this falls upon those who are of limited means—financial means. The best option for those families is to enhance the ability of the public sector transportation system to continue to absorb more numbers. That is not going to happen unless we have a deeper well of capital. This is a tried and true approach: create the legislative basis where regional councils, against the plan, with projects that are identified—not all these whimsical things that are being said about my colleague’s visionary scheme for light rail. Light rail will not receive one cent of the proceeds from this tax. It will be subject to a rigorous appraisal process, but, more importantly, it will attract, without a sliver of doubt, financial capital from other sources at some point in time. It will not receive one cent of this regional fuel tax, because the projects that will be supported have gone through a democratic process, a transparent process, and a very public declaration of where those projects are. For the first time, they will be funded, and this fuel tax will be a key ingredient.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What a pleasure it is to follow the gentleman with the King Lear delusions—Shane Jones. I’m tempted to quote more of the play too, particularly about all the titles that he’s given away, because he does seem to have this sort of Sir Les Patterson delusion about him. Anyway, let me get on with the bill.

He spoke about the benefits that this will supposedly bring to people around the country. Well, I have to say to that member: not in my patch. I speak as a Waikato member of Parliament for whom this Government—particularly in their transport policies—is a massive disappointment.

I was very proud as a candidate in 2008 who was subsequently given the privilege of being elected to this House to represent Hamilton West in November of that year, when the then about-to-become Prime Minister, John Key, announced our commitment to the Waikato Expressway, a massive project over 10 stages, which was, at $2.1 billion, one of the biggest roading projects this country has ever seen. And here we are, as you will know, 10 years later, proudly able to say that that is a project that is being delivered on time and within budget.

For those who currently use the roads heading north, they will be aware of the fact that there are disruptions on the road. No one’s going to pretend that for the short term it isn’t quite a pain at busy times, having to make your way currently through the road works in Te Kauwhata, but the point is the project is being delivered. For the sections that are now open, whether it’s Cambridge—and I had the privilege of being the Associate Minister of Transport last year and declaring a 110 kilometre speed limit for the Cambridge section, because it’s now one of the safest sections of roading in the country.

So when we look at regional fuel taxes, surely we should be looking at measures that are going to enhance that type of delivery of infrastructure to New Zealanders. But not a bit of it, with this particular measure, because not only is this regional fuel tax not going to be of any benefit to anybody in the areas well away from Auckland; what we are seeing is a Government that is moving away from commitments that the previous Government had made that would have delivered the real, tangible benefits to the regions that people right around the country were hoping for and were delighted to receive at the last election.

That’s why today so many of my colleagues have tabled petitions affirming their support for those projects which should be—which should be—the focus of the Government. And what is the really important point when we look at this particular bill?

💬 Simeon Brown: The voice of the people

The really important point—yes, it is the voice of the people, as the fine member for Pakuranga is pointing out. But the really important point was all of those projects were being delivered, or would have been delivered, without having to resort to a measure of this type. So, instead, what you’re getting is a Government that is determined to take more money out of the pockets of New Zealanders—and particularly those who travel through the Auckland region, but, make no mistake, they plan to go right around the country with this particular measure—but then failed to deliver.

Now, let me give you two examples. We also at the last election made a commitment to improving one of the most dangerous sections of road in my region, and that is the section that goes from Hamilton across to Tauranga, where the intersection at Piarere claims lives and causes massive disruption, and often I have seen cars backed up on the road, back towards Tauranga—30 or 40 back at busy times. The result is that by the time people finally inch their way to the head of the T-intersection, they start taking dangerous risks. So to have taken that project off the table, which this Minister and his Government have done, while at the same time saying “Oh, we need more money through regional fuel taxes.”, seems to me that they have completely lost the plot as to how to deliver the infrastructure that people really need.

Now, I just want to mention the amendment in my name, which, in clause 5, is to add an additional paragraph (f) to the definition of “exempt use” in new section 65A, the definitions section, which talks about exemptions, because I think the Government has really failed to acknowledge the important part that areas such as mine play in our nation’s agriculture. The Waikato region is the heart of dairy production in New Zealand, and so my amendment seeks for there to be an exemption for any use for commercial rural activities. But it might not just be dairy; it’s stock trucks right around the country. There are a whole lot of areas of this country that need to be able to deliver their goods.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to be taking a call this afternoon in the committee stage of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I’ll be joining the rest of my colleagues in speaking against the bill, but I did just want to run through, to start with, an amendment in my name setting out an amendment to new section 65D of the Act, set out in clause 5. New section 65D currently reads, “A regional council may prepare a proposal to establish or replace an RFT scheme for the region, or a part of the region, if the council, having regard to the views of the regional transport committee, considers that there are 1 or more capital projects that—”, and then my amendment adds new section 65D(c), which reads, “Must only fund projects that are certified by the New Zealand Transport Authority to have a positive benefit to cost ratio.”

I do that for a very specific reason, and that is that if we are going to have this new tax in Auckland—and probably in other parts of the country, frankly—then it should be spent well. So my first question to the Minister Phil Twyford is: will he support that amendment? The reason I ask him specifically is because as Labour’s transport spokesperson before the last election, he went on at length about a cost-benefit analysis for a number of roads that the former National Government proposed. So I ask him: will he support this amendment in my name being included in his bill?

I then want to come on to another part of clause 5, and this is in relation to new section 65A, “Definitions”. Part of “Definitions” lays out that a “ ‘region’ means a region as defined in section 5(1) of the Local Government Act 2002”. So my second question to the Minister is if this is for Auckland and if this is just for Auckland, then why doesn’t he amend that definition to be clear that “a region” shall mean Auckland, rather than “a region” could be any region in any part of New Zealand? I think the reason actually is pretty self-explanatory. It’s because this bill isn’t just for Auckland; it’s actually for other parts of the country as well. We’ve seen that with, I think, mayors from Hamilton, from Tauranga, from Wellington, and from Christchurch coming out and saying that they want to be included and have a regional fuel tax, and it will just be, as we know, at the whim of the Minister. It won’t require further legislation coming to this House. So I ask the Minister: if he’s suggesting it’s just for Auckland, then make it very clear—make it very clear to those other mayors around the country—that this won’t be available to them; this is just for Auckland, and just for Auckland in perpetuity.

I then want to come to just below that, in the “Definitions” again. It mentions “RFT region” and it says, “means a region, or part of a region, for which an RFT scheme has been established”. My colleague Nikki Kaye has, I think, put in a very good Supplementary Order Paper (SOP), SOP 27, which relates to part of her electorate, which is Great Barrier Island, where they already have petrol at $3.30 per litre—$3.30 per litre—without this additional fuel tax. I do hope that members opposite do choose to support that SOP, because it is a very good one and it will mean that petrol on Great Barrier Island will not be subject to this tax and pushed up even further.

But I would ask the Minister if he would consider, perhaps, that if we’re going to have region-specific amendments in that way, he also allows us, when there are new regions brought into this regional fuel tax, to bring legislation back to the House to give members here the opportunity to exempt other regions. The classic one that springs to mind for me is Stewart Island. Now, Stewart Island, part of the Southland district, has higher fuel prices there than on the mainland. They should be exempt as well, in the way that Great Barrier Island would be if my colleague Nikki Kaye’s SOP passes.

I now want to come to what we’re going to get for this money. My colleagues earlier in the debate have referred to price spreading. The unfortunate thing about this legislation is it doesn’t preclude price spreading from occurring. There’s nothing in the legislation at all that prevents price spreading. So we’re talking about, I think, a 10c per litre tax. Members over this side have been talking about the potential for that to be spread across the country, and that might be 3c or 4c all around New Zealand rather than just—[Time expired]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Apologies to the former speaker Andrew Falloon, who I’m sure was—his best points are still coming. So thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to refer to some submitters’ comments as they relate to, of course, Part 1, and I would start by just talking a bit about this particular submitter Sam Warburton from the New Zealand Initiative. Just a quick background—10 seconds on his background—to prove the point of what I’ll call the depth of what he referred to in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. He’s been an economist for 14 years, employed in the Ministry of Transport’s funding and infrastructure team. He’s helped and advised on three Government policy statements (GPS) coming through: 2015, the draft of 2018, when National was in Government, and, of course, the draft GPS for this Government. The submission of this particular submitter was his own views, but he is employed with the New Zealand Initiative.

He has referred to six particular points that we find in Part 1 of the bill that deserve some very close scrutiny and to which we here on this side of the House strongly object. The first is the overplaying in the regulatory impact statement, which this issue is now, of course, in Part 1 of the bill, of price spreading—so if you look at the overplay of evidence for price spreading that was in that impact statement and how it under-commits to activities that would mitigate that price spreading. If we look at the issue of price spreading, we are just quite simply unable to get past the fact that back in the 1990s, according to the ministry, price spreading occurred when a fuel tax was previously introduced back in the 1990s, and in 2009, it was the reason that was put forward for repealing the fuel tax legislation back then. So if we don’t think that these issues will occur again, I think we should look a little bit at history. We know that taxpayers around the country will be affected by this particular issue, and there’s evidence of it already happening in the South Island—that’s been widely reported.

The second point that the submitter raised and now finds itself in, and related to this particular bill, is the exaggeration of black markets forming. That’s something that we have paid particular close attention to. It’s part of the rationale for the bill. We strongly object to that particular, ludicrous exaggeration.

The other is underplaying the impact of fuel tax on low-income residents. This particular point was highlighted by Deborah Russell earlier when she referred to Councillor Josephine Bartley representing the Ōtāhuhu ward in Auckland Council, which happens to be my particular previous ward. She now succeeds me. That particular area is probably roughly 10 percent of the ward, yet she chooses to highlight that and omits Councillor Efeso Collins’ comments in regard to the impact on people. So here’s a couple of quotes from Councillor Efeso Collins, if she chooses to quote Councillor Josephine Bartley. One is: “These taxes hit the poorest the most.” The other is: “Families are already below zero. This will be food off tables.” So you can’t get any more—can you—clearer than that, but no one on the other side of the Chamber seems to want to quote Councillor Fa’anana Efeso Collins.

💬 Andrew Falloon: He’s a Labour councillor.

Yes, that’s right. Thank you, my colleague on this side. He is a Labour Party councillor.

The other point that I want to raise, and it’s related to Mr Sam Warburton’s submission, is the way that the impact statement is, in his opinion—but we agree—incomprehensible in key parts in the way that the analysis is set out and it wrongly assesses the merits of some options.

The last point is it fails to recommend other options which Parliament could have legislated for. Was this the only option on the table? No. Was the fuel tax in Auckland Council an interim? No.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a second call and to ask some more questions.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Again?

Yes, again, Mr Jones, because there’s so many questions to ask on this tax. This is just another “tax, tax, tax”, on the other side of the House, where they are trying to displace funding that we had put into these projects in Auckland so that they can build a tram up Dominion Road through the Prime Minister’s electorate.

Well, I want to talk about consultation, because this is one of the parts of the Act in which a regional council needs to consult its community. We’ve seen the consultation results come back from Auckland Council, and they’ve come back very strongly opposed to this fuel tax. They’ve come back consistently opposed to this fuel tax. In my electorate, in Pakuranga, with the Howick Local Board area, they have come back the most opposed to this particular fuel tax.

Now, my question is around the word “consultation”, which is in new section 65F(1) in clause 5. The regional council “(a) must carry out consultation in accordance with the principles set out in section 82 of the Local Government Act 2002;”. Well, what does “consultation” mean? That’s my question for the Minister in the chair, the Hon Phil Twyford. We’ve seen the consultation—we’ve seen the consistent feedback from ratepayers and residents in Auckland, and they’ve been ignored. They’ve been ignored over and over again, and now they’re about to be ignored by this Government, which thinks that they know best and they know how to spend people’s money better than ratepayers and taxpayers know themselves.

So does this consultation mean they can just put in place a regional fuel tax without listening? Does it mean they can just put out a document, rush it through, shorten the consultation process, not even listen, and then vote against what the people are saying? That’s what Aucklanders are feeling like at the moment—they’re feeling trampled by a Government and a council which is putting in place a tax which is being rushed through and where the council is not listening.

There was a Facebook poll, which was referred to by one of the members on this side. When it first went up on their website, they said, “This poll on Facebook will count as formal consultation for the regional fuel tax.” Then they looked at the results, and it was 60 percent, 65 percent, and it got up to 72 percent opposed. Then they said, “Well, it’ll just be indicative, and it will be informal feedback.”

So what does “consultation” mean? What actually counts, because there were thousands—there were thousands and thousands—of Aucklanders who engaged on social media. The principles of the Local Government Act allow that you can engage in a whole variety of different ways, but when the result became something which the council didn’t like, they decided they’d just call it informal feedback which will be taken into consideration. Well, I find that shameful, and I think this Government and the Minister need to clarify what consultation means and what expectation he is going to set on regional councils in terms of the consultation process that they are going to go through.

I find it absolutely shameful that you could put through this legislation, which gives powers to councils to put in place huge taxes and which will burden ratepayers and taxpayers and people who need to fill up their cars, take their kids to the school, and pay for groceries, and all the rest—and they don’t even have to listen. I think that’s shameful. There should be no taxation without representation, so where is the representation in this legislation? And I’d like the Minister in the chair to take a call and actually answer that question, because it’s about time we heard some answers to some of these significant questions which the people of Auckland are asking, asking, asking. And here I am in the Chamber, asking on behalf of my constituents in Pakuranga.

There’s a range of other questions that we’ve got on this bill, but I think consultation is one of the most significant, because we can’t, as a House, pass legislation which allows a council to go out there and not even listen. We can’t allow the council just to go out there and just do what they like when there are significant cost savings that they could also make. There are other ways that this could be funded. There are other ways that the council could make these decisions, but we’ve just given them carte blanche—they can go out there and put these taxes in place—and I find that absolutely shameful.

So, as I conclude, I once again ask the Minister: what does consultation mean? What expectations does he have on the council? What process is he expecting of them? If the feedback cuts consistently against the proposed proposal, will there be an expectation on the regional councils to vote these things down, or will he just let them go through? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to speak on proposals to establish and replace a regional fuel tax (RFT) scheme. But, before I do, I’d just like to respond to some of the comments that Dr Russell made in her contribution. Principally, I’d like to respond to her contribution because it was, in fact, the last cogent and coherent contribution we’ve had from the Government benches.

Dr Russell likes to throw the odd quotation around. Well, I’ve got one for her, given that those members have tried to talk up the good aspects and the positiveness of their stinging hard-working Kiwis in the back pocket through this additional tax, and that is one from Winston Churchill, who remarked that “Trying to tax oneself into prosperity is akin to standing in a bucket and trying to lift oneself up by the handle”. Dr Russell, you might do well to bear that in mind.

The other point Dr Russell made, or tried to make, was she claimed this tax is needed. Well, it’s not. It’s not needed at all. The Government has inherited such a strong economy that had it not set about frivolous and poorly targeted spending, such as, for instance, $2.8 billion on free fees to achieve 900 fewer forecast students—if it hadn’t made such frivolous and wasted spending, it had and would have had plenty of cash in the surpluses to undertake projects like those in Auckland. So it certainly isn’t needed, Dr Russell, for any reason other than the actions of this Government.

I do have a question for Minister Phil Twyford around the proposals to establish or replace RFT schemes, and that question is: why has the Minister chosen to put in legislation that encourages litigation around the formulation of the RFT scheme? I refer particularly to new section 65D(b) in clause 5: “cannot reasonably be fully funded from sources other than a regional fuel tax within the time frame desired by the council.” And there’s no guidance there. Other than the reasonable test under law, there is no guidance there as to what would be considered as could not be reasonably fully funded.

For instance, does the Minister or anyone have in mind a certain debt to income ratio that if the council or the regional council were already at that level, will be considered to have passed the reasonableness test? Or perhaps it could be a total annual interest payable amount against income? So there could be a number of measures, including also—because, through the readings in this House, using the Auckland example, it’s been charged that if Mayor Goff, for instance, had achieved the savings that he pledged when standing for the mayoralty, then the regional fuel tax would be completely unnecessary because those savings would bring in far more per year than the regional fuel tax will. And he’s not set about driving those savings.

So there’s no clear guidance here to determine when the “cannot reasonably be fully funded” criteria will be met. The only way that will be able to be proven is through the courts. So, if a regional council seeks to impose a levy which some active citizens oppose, they will be able to challenge the establishment of that proposal in court. They will even be able to go as far as a judicial review. That will be an enormous cost in time and money, which could be addressed if there was some clearer guidance as to when, and under what conditions, that particular criteria—or even by using a different set of criteria than just simply “cannot reasonably be fully funded”.

Also, in new section 65E in clause 5, is the “Proposal for RFT scheme: content requirements”. This is quite troubling because 65E(b)(iii), in particular, actually permits regional councils to put forward a proposal which doesn’t have to specifically meet any of the requirements of the general policy statement (GPS) for land transport. All it has to do is “explain how it is expected to contribute to”. There is no measure in there that says that they have to meet three of the criteria or that they have to meet any one of the criteria to a certain extent. There is no particular qualification on how the contribution to the objectives under the GPS will characterise and reach a level where the proposal could be deemed acceptable.

It gets worse, and I’m going to call out in just a few seconds as that clock climbs down, because there’s another limb to this as well, around the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Earlier, we were discussing, among other things, including the bill, the wonderful play of King Lear, and Mr Jones kindly replied in kind. I should’ve added at the end of the previous famous phrase that I quoted—“Nothing will come of nothing”—that it’s followed by the words “speak again”. So I thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to do just that. Perhaps it might also be apposite to note the quote from the same play, “Mend your speech a little, lest it mar your fortunes”—and good advice, I think, for the Government benches today.

I note, under the commentary document for the bill—and, indeed, the Minister, who I note is paying careful attention, I’m hoping will be able to assist me with a query in relation to the commentary as compared with the bill itself. So under the heading of “Providing the ability to exclude parts of a region”, the commentary says that “The bill as introduced would provide that a regional fuel tax implemented in a region must apply to fuel that is sold in the whole of its region.” So far so bad, but then it goes on to say—and I quote—“We recommend amending new section 65D to provide that councils can request that part of a region be exempt from the RFT in their proposals.” It goes on to give an example of how that might be the case.

In new section 65D in clause 5, there is no such exemption mechanism. In fact, what we have still, even with the insertions by the majority of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, is actually that “A regional council may prepare a proposal to establish or replace an RFT scheme for the region,” and so on. So, far from being an exemption for part of a region, what we have, in fact, is an ability for a council to provide a proposal to establish, therefore, a new regional fuel tax (RFT) scheme or replace—meaning, of course, a new scheme in replacement of an existing scheme. So, actually, what we have is not at all an exemption as promised in the commentary, but, in fact, an establishment or replacement mechanism. That seems to me somewhat wrong, and whether conspiracy or cock-up, I suppose it will be for the constituents of my electorate, all of Auckland, and, indeed, all of the country who may end up being affected by such legislation to decide.

I wondered if the answer to that question might be found in the surrounding sections—for example new section 65E in clause 5—but that merely sets out the things that must be in a proposal to establish or replace a RFT scheme, and it certainly does nothing to displace the clear wording of new section 65D that talks about such a proposal for a scheme to establish or replace an existing scheme. Similarly, new section 65G in clause 5 talks about how a proposal to vary an RFT scheme might be made. Again, however, we’re not talking about the exemption of part of a region from being in the regional fuel tax scheme. We’re talking about a variation to a scheme, not an exemption—again, as I say, a variation.

So unless the variation is to vary the amount of the tax from 10c plus GST, or whatever the case may be, to zero cents, whether plus or inclusive of GST, unless that is the case and unless there is a variation to have an amount of zero, then there’s no such exemption as promised in the commentary. So that’s a very serious question that I would ask the Minister to address, because it seems a big oversight. And, as I say, whether conspiracy or cock-up is unclear, but, either way, I think really it should be addressed, because otherwise the intent of the select committee and its at least potentially good-faith recommendation to make such a recommendation will not come to fruition.

Another point that I’d like to make, leading into a question that I hope will be addressed by the Minister, relates to the definition of “exempt use”. So an exempt use, talking about situations in which an RFT scheme would have exempt users, as opposed to a whole geographical area within a region, being exempt—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to be able to stand up and take a call on this really important bill, and important for all the wrong reasons, really. It’s important because of the cost that it’s going to add to Aucklanders in particular, and Aucklanders who actually voted for this Government in the belief that they would actually support them, that they would believe in them, and that they would make the cost of living go down. How disappointed they must be to be seeing this go through the House.

I stand here and I speak for those that live in South Auckland and that are going to be travelling to work at weird hours and can’t catch public transport, because they’re cleaning hotels. They’re the ones that actually get this extra cost put on them—the people that can least afford it. Let’s be quite honest: an extra 15 or 20 bucks a week may not affect the people that are sitting in this Chamber and debating this bill at the moment, but it damned well will affect those that can least afford it, and actually believed they were voting for a Government that would support them and not put unnecessary costs on them. I think that’s a crying shame for them.

So I do stand up and speak about an amendment that I would like to put forward in my name, and it’s a proposed amendment. It proposes, after new section 65L(2) in clause 5, inserting new subsection 65L(3): “The Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister must recommend such an order if it becomes clear at any point while an RFT”—the regional fuel tax—“is in place that the programme could be funded by alternative reasonable means.”

It seems incredible to me that we have over a hundred working groups, where everything possible, every rock is being unturned and everything’s being looked at, but they couldn’t actually set one up to see if there are actual expenses that could be taken and actually reduced so that poorer people do not have to pay this tax. I don’t think there’s been alternatives that have been looked at, and that’s what my amendment is actually requesting—that they look at alternative reasonable means and, at the very least, that we put into the bill the means for the Minister and the Minister of Finance to recommend that this actually could be dropped if there are alternative reasonable means that could be done. That’s what the amendment says, and I think that that’s quite common-sense.

You can’t feel that every rock has been unturned. You can’t feel that they’ve looked at all alternative means for funding of what they want to do, or that the council have truly looked at their expenses—where they’re at and what’s important to Aucklanders—and are actually able to look at what those alternative means might be for funding, and which would make this bill, at the very least, unnecessary. But if it’s going to pass, could we put in this amendment that could fundamentally mean there’s at least an out for the future?

Should it have been means-tested? Should it be actually a tax—if you’re going to put one in—that goes to those that are using the roads the most and not everybody and those people that are less fortunate? I feel for those older people that have looked at alternative reasonable means and know that neither the Government nor the council have looked at those as options for how they might fund it, and the people that are just living on their super and need as much help as they can possibly get.

Is there an amount that this will go to where the Government will look at backtracking, or the council might? Is $3 a litre—well, it sounds too much to me. There has to be an alternative means that we can look at that makes it affordable for people. It’s quite plain there are those that voted for Labour and New Zealand First and they did not do it in the belief that their costs would go up in just a few months and they would have extra tax. They did not believe that that would come from the so-called caring Government. They did not believe that this would be someone that would impose costs on them that they could least afford, and that it would just be thrown at them without the council actually truly looking at alternative means. And let’s be honest—let’s be really honest here—if a false promise of “I will not raise rates above the 2.5 percent.”—had not been made, then this is actually a council that could have rated differently, spent money differently, and made a huge difference so that we didn’t see renters and people that can’t afford it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now look, it’s a pleasure to take another call on this, and, actually, I’d like to address an amendment that has been put forward now in my name. It comes in under clause 5, in new section 65A, and is an additional inclusion after paragraph (e)—so section 65A(f), which would exempt the use of any recreational marine activities. When you consider Auckland—surrounded by water east and west—recreational marine activities are a huge part of everyday New Zealand interaction, activity, and general pastimes. Certainly, as a former scuba-diving instructor, I’ve spent plenty of time out and about on the water, enjoying our recreational opportunities around New Zealand.

In Auckland there are so many people that take up these opportunities on a daily basis, and they would be captured under this as well. Where’s the sense in that? What we’re seeing is capturing unexpected consequences—again, through ill-thought-out legislation from this Government—and it is yet another example where they have an idea, don’t think it through in detail, and capture a range of other users through unintended means. This would simply be inappropriate for what they’re looking to address. Recreational marine users—well, how does that impact on road usage? It doesn’t, and what we’re hearing is that this is currently included.

So I would encourage the Minister in the chair, the Hon Phil Twyford, to consider supporting this amendment. In fact, I’d like to invite the Minister to take a call, because we haven’t heard from him yet through this entire day’s proceedings, which, quite frankly, I think shows a level of disrespect to the people of Auckland who will be impacted by this particular proposed bill.

We also haven’t heard much from the Government in general, when you consider how active they were taking calls on any manner of other pieces of legislation that passed through their committee stage. We had the weapons brokering recently, for example, where there was call after call from the Government. Yes, great—an important area—and yet where are they today on this very important issue that affects so many Aucklanders? There’s absolute silence from the Government.

We’ve already heard these strong polls—four polls conducted in May—that actually show there is not support for this. Aucklanders oppose this and the Government can’t even get up and take a call on it. It’s disappointing to see, and I’d encourage the Minister to address the many questions that have been presented from this side of the committee throughout today’s debate—and we haven’t yet had a single answer on any of those—but, in particular, this amendment around the recreational marine activities being exempted from this. That’s something I think is really important for everyday Kiwis who love getting out and about when they’re not at work, making the most of their leisure time—to get out on the water, to take up those opportunities, and to not be stung with additional cost for participating in just that.

What we may see, actually, is that they may look to travel outside the region and bring in fuel. All you have to do is pop over the Bombay Hills into my electorate in the Waikato and you can get fuel 11.5c cheaper. So why wouldn’t they be doing that? And, actually, we may see that with a number of areas. So you look at truck depots, for example, transporting fuel back into their own yards where they are then able to store that fuel for their own purposes around the region. So I think we’ll see that happening, not only for recreational marine use but actually in a number of areas where they’re able to travel outside, secure a tanker-load of fuel, for example, and bring it back in much cheaper. There’s nothing stopping them doing that, actually, unless, of course, we see in the Waikato—like we have seen requests from a number of other areas—a new regional fuel tax being imposed there as well. We’ve already seen that being requested throughout numerous areas in the central North Island—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Democracy—democracy.

—and this legislation enables that to happen, and it’s disappointing to see that the alleged first citizen of the regions is not actually standing up to make a better stand to defend those regional areas of the country. All we hear is a lot of talk and not so much action. So I would really encourage the Minister to actually get up to give consideration for a serious issue around the recreational marine exemption under this regional fuel tax.

I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to stand and take a call on this, the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I’m very pleased that in the Chamber today is the Hon Phil Twyford, because I’m calling on him, when I’ve finished my call, to get up and to speak to the people of Rodney, because last week in the House, in response to questions asked by Jami-Lee Ross, he stood and he made some very clear commitments around Penlink. He linked the regional fuel tax directly to the delivery of Penlink.

Penlink, for those in the committee who don’t know, is a project that’s been around for a long time. It’s very important to my electorate of Rodney, and especially to the people on the Hibiscus Coast.

💬 Jamie Strange: But the National Party never funded it. You guys never funded it. You promised it.

Basically, it’s a road that would have linked Whangaparāoa on the Hibiscus Coast back into the main State highway. And that’s very true—that’s very true that when I came into office in 2011 it was a priority for me. There were two big infrastructure priorities. One was the delivery of the Pūhoi to Warkworth road, which is now under construction and being built. Unfortunately, your Government, Mr Strange, has now cancelled the Warkworth to Te Hana road, which is also, fundamentally, very important to the people of Rodney and the people of Northland.

The other project was Penlink. Penlink was a tough one because Penlink was originally seen as a local road, so it was Auckland Transport’s responsibility and the council’s responsibility, and then, eventually, the Government became involved and we said, “Yes, let’s look at trying to do this as a partnership.” Eventually, before the 2017 election, I finally got support from the Minister of Transport, the Hon Simon Bridges, and he said, “Let’s go to the campaign. Let’s say that we will go from four lanes to two lanes, but we will build it in the next term. We will create a Crown agency, we’ll raise the capital, we’ll do a public-private partnership, and we’ll deliver the project in the next term.” And I said, “Thank you very much.”, because the big thing about Penlink is this: the community is deeply fatigued with hollow promises over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of what’s going to happen with it. So you have to be very careful in terms of how you treat it, not overpromise, and actually manage the expectations realistically.

You’ve got to remember that in Rodney we are pretty heavily tolled. When you look at the roading network, currently we have two tolls, and Penlink will give us three. We’re deeply cynical about what’s actually happening at local government level, because if you look at the satisfaction surveys, in Rodney and Pukekohe, on the fringes of the super-city, we feel like we’re missing out and we’re not getting the investment that we need.

When the Penlink announcement was made, I celebrated that. I said great, because we needed it. But what I want the Minister to do—because I am very worried about this project. That’s why I’d like him to get up and outlay for us—because he keeps talking about Penlink and he keeps linking it back to the regional fuel tax—when work on Penlink is going to begin. I want to know when this project is going to begin, because we were very clear as a Government. I campaigned on this. I’m on record as saying, “We will start Penlink in our next term. We will start the project.”

Penlink is one of the few projects in Auckland that’s ready to go. There are no delays on it. The consenting’s done; the route is confirmed. In fact, one part of the Penlink, from the Weiti development, is already under way. I went and visited it about three weeks ago. The private part of the road is actually already started. But what I want the Minister to do, when I sit down, is to take a call and clearly outline for the people of Rodney and explain to them when we can expect to see a start date and a beginning on Penlink. I would be very pleased if he could get up and make that commitment and say that Penlink will start this term: “We will deliver Penlink for the people of Rodney, for the people of the Hibiscus Coast, this term.”

It’s a critically important piece of infrastructure, and I want him to reassure all of us that you’re not playing politics on this, that you are committed to it, and that the regional fuel tax is going to deliver Penlink. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I give in. I can’t resist any more the loquacious charms of Mark Mitchell. He is the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I feel compelled to respond to his impassioned entreaties about Penlink.

I feel really sad that we never got to see the fourth term of the last National Government, because they were going to do so much. The fourth-term National Government—they were going to build Penlink, they were going to solve the housing crisis, they were going to do so much. They were going to do so much and, sadly—sadly—we’ll never get to see all the wonderful things that were going to happen.

In fact, Penlink is a very, very good example of this, what I would call, “fourth-term National-itis”, because after nine years—nine years of talking about Penlink, of promising that they were going to build Penlink—we never saw a scrap of action.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Not a scrap.

Not a scrap. Not a skerrick of action on Penlink after nine years in Government. In fact, the same applies to Mill Road, another roading project that the National Government loved to wax lyrical about. But in nine years, did we see any action on Mill Road? Not a skerrick of action on Mill Road, and yet, now they’re in Opposition, they continue to warble on about these roading projects.

But, Mr Mitchell, Mill Road and Penlink are listed in the schedule of projects that Auckland Council has provided that is required under this bill. Under this regional fuel tax bill, Auckland Council has to come up with a list of projects. They have to come up with capital projects that are designated in a list of projects that are named specifically. Auckland Council just can’t take the money that’s generated by this regional fuel tax and say, “Oh, we’re going to spend it on some vague list of initiatives.” No, they have to come up with a precise list of named projects, and Mill Road and Penlink are included in this.

So this Government in nine months has done more on Mill Road and Penlink than the former Government did in nine years. We’ve actually come up with a fully funded plan—a $28 billion fully funded plan—that includes the projects that they talked about for nine years. So, Mr Mitchell, that’s our plan. Our plan is to build Penlink and Mill Road, and we have fully funded it—something that you had nine years to do, and never did.

I also want to correct the numerous claims that were made by Opposition members about light rail. They love to pejoratively describe it as a tram set. They love to say that it’s a trolley set. Not a cent of the regional fuel tax money will be spent on the light rail projects, but that didn’t stop them. That didn’t stop them with their campaign of misinformation.

I also want to reply to the Parliament’s great devotee of King Lear—Chris Penk of Helensville—who claimed there was no guarantee of specific projects. Au contraire, this legislation requires a specific register of projects. He’s absolutely wrong.

💬 Chris Penk: What’s our project?

He’s absolutely wrong, and, in fact, if that member will just hold his breath, his electorate will be a massive beneficiary of the $28 billion transport plan. It’s fully funded, not like the transport plan that the former Government put up, that they left with a $9 billion hole—a fiscal hole of $9 billion.

Now, Mr Penk, that’s not an invented fiscal hole. That’s not a fiscal hole invented for electoral purposes, like the one that we saw from the former National Government. It’s a real fiscal hole—$9 billion. Watch my lips: $9 billion. This Government, within seven months of taking office, landed for the first time in history a 10-year, fully funded $28 billion plan, thank you very much.

I want to mention the question of rebates, which one or two Opposition members have mentioned. I wanted to say to the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, who discussed the question of rebates for people who, for example, are not using the fuel that’s purchased that’s covered by the regional fuel tax on-road in Auckland—our position on this is that the bill should reflect the rebate mechanisms that are currently in play for the fuel excise duty. But we did listen to the submissions that were made by a number of people who came along to the select committee, including Auckland Council, who argued for a more expansive and a fairer system for dealing with rebates in relation to the regional fuel tax.

I’m happy to let the members on both sides of the House know that I’ve commissioned some work by the Ministry of Transport on how we can reform the rebate system, not only for the regional fuel tax but for the fuel excise duty. My intention is that we’ll have that work done. We acknowledge that the current rebate system is not fair. It’s archaic, it was put in place many decades ago and it’s time to reform it. We will bring back reforms to this House, not only for the fuel excise duty, but also for the regional fuel tax.

I want to comment on the crocodile tears that were being shed by the bucket by the Hon Paula Bennett, who was expressing great emotion for people who would be disadvantaged by this regional fuel tax. We have never denied that the regional fuel tax is a regressive tax—it is—but, actually, the effects of congestion on low-income people are far more regressive and far more damaging to their standard of living.

This is a Government that is determined, finally—after nine years of neglect and drift, our Government is committed to doing something about the parlous state of Auckland’s transport system. It’s fine for the Opposition members to be chipping away, but they had nine years while congestion got worse every single year—every single year—to the point at which Auckland is losing $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. The drift and neglect from that Government over nine years has held back the prosperity and the growth of our country’s biggest city. That’s why we’re committed to doing something about it. That’s why we’ve landed a $28 billion transport plan.

This regional fuel tax will contribute $1.5 billion in revenue directly into that $28 billion plan. It will free up another approximately $3 billion in subsidies. It will leverage, in total, nearly $4.5 billion for this transport plan.

I want to be very clear about this: we take seriously the regressive nature of this tax. It will cost the average household, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, along with the projected increase of three consecutive increases of 3c on fuel excise duty—the fuel excise duty and the regional fuel tax will cost the average household approximately $5 a week. This Government has already, through our Families Package, put $75 a week—$75 a week—into the budgets of 384,000 low and middle income households. So $5 a week from petrol excise and fuel in the regional fuel tax; $75 a week through the Families Package for low and middle income families—consider the scale difference in those two things.

Finally, I want to comment about Nikki Kaye’s Supplementary Order Paper 27, which aims to exempt both Great Barrier Island and Waiheke from the regional fuel tax—that’s her proposal. But we’ve considered that. The select committee considered it, we heard submitters on it, and we’ve given this issue very serious consideration.

Look, I’m very pleased to take another call. Firstly, can I just say it is very difficult to get a lecture around fiscal holes when we hear from people like Chris Hipkins—and I will relate it to transport—that their definition of a fiscal hole is paying for the rest of the Canterbury schools rebuild or accounting for growth. We know that just like in education, in the area of transport this is a very manipulative Government in terms of the figures.

I want to give the Minister a little bit of a history lesson. If we actually look at the overall figures in terms of the last National Government and transport, it puts this issue into perspective. We are talking about a tax for Aucklanders of $150 million. Under National, we put through the Auckland governance reform because people like myself in central Auckland couldn’t even get a bus route across the city, and that was opposed by the Labour Government at the time. In the time that we were in Government, the kinds of infrastructure projects that were progressed in the area of transport included $1 billion in terms of the electrification of rail, $340 million in terms of Victoria Park Tunnel, and billions of dollars into the central rail link. So to get a lecture in this committee about transport investment, given the fact that we were retrofitting Auckland for generations in areas like Waterview, the Victoria Park Tunnel, the central rail link, and the electrification of rail, is a little bit rich. Anyone who is across the numbers in terms of Auckland transport knows the scale of the projects that we invested and knows that this pales in comparison.

The second point I want to make is actually the same point that a number of members across this committee have continually made: do we accept that there is a gap in terms of Auckland transport funding? But what is the best way to bridge that gap? Well, figures that we’ve got in our minority view indicate that if the Auckland Council bothered to run a fine ruler over their expenditure at the moment, with a 4 percent saving—which is minimal in the scheme of what every other community provider and private sector organisation is able to do—then they would be able to find that $150 million. So not only do we oppose it on the grounds that this pales in comparison in the scale of investment that central government and local government provide in transport but also the Auckland Council has not done the work to be able to provide what is a small level of saving to be able to deliver these transport projects.

The next reason why we oppose it is that it does hurt some of our most disadvantaged Aucklanders, but also it’s coming to a town near you—2021, in this bill. They could—because the legislation will be enacted—bring it in earlier. But what it means—and Sam Warburton, I understand, presented at the Finance and Expenditure Committee around its impact in terms of solo parents and Māori—is it will have an impact on disadvantaged New Zealanders because of the cost of living in terms of food and in terms of fuel.

So we know that this is a bad bill. We on this side of the House don’t support it, for multiple reasons, because the Auckland Council hasn’t done their work. We have a very good track record, in the billions in terms of transport. But also let’s be clear: the Prime Minister went into this election with a very firm commitment to no new taxes. We now know that like many other things in this Government, whatever they go out and say, the spin is twice as bad. So when they talked about no new taxes, what they actually meant was there will be additional taxes but no new ones that you haven’t thought of. What we know is that between the fuel tax, the tourism tax, and cutting our tax cuts that we’d already put in place—as the leader has already highlighted today—there are huge additional costs of living as a result of this Labour Government.

If members opposite think that they are going to get away with that, because as I walk through airports, as I go through communities in Auckland, and as I now got through communities across New Zealand, the cost of living already, within a six-month period of this Labour Government—I want to make a prediction. If they are out in 2020, they should remember this legislation, because it is ultimately the bread and butter things that affect people. Fuel in Auckland is having a terrible effect already with some of the increases, like in communities—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chairman. We’re hearing a lot of repetition from the Opposition benches, but in the remaining moments of this debate, there’s a few extra points that I think deserve a response. Nikki Kaye’s rhetorical points from the St Cuthbert’s high school debating society—the claim, I think, that—

💬 Hon Nikki Kaye: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I’d just like the Minister to clarify that. Why is he associating me with a particular school?

Did I get the school wrong?

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): OK, let’s all calm down. A couple of things. Just to the Minister, the Chair is the sole judge on relevancy and on when I’m going to accept a closure motion. The other issue is that members should refer to other members by their correct title and name, and if we want to have a good debate, that should be referred to.

So the rhetorical claim from the member Nikki Kaye that this is a broken promise in terms of no new taxes, we campaigned—Labour campaigned—on the regional fuel tax. We are keeping our promise. We are keeping our promise by bringing this bill to the House. I’ll tell you the other promise we’re keeping: we are going to fix Auckland’s transport problems—something that the National Government had nine years to do, and presided over a steady decline.

So I want to come back to Nikki Kaye’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 27 to exclude Great Barrier Island and Waiheke Island. We are not going to support that SOP, and the reason is this: we’ve already heard from Auckland Council their proposal—actually within the terms of this bill—to align the benefits of the people who are going to get the benefit of this bill with the people who are going to contribute through the regional fuel tax, and Auckland Council proposes to exclude the people of Great Barrier Island.

They do not propose to exclude the people of Waiheke Island, and the reason is this: a significant number of people from Waiheke Island travel to the city with some regularity, and not only do they use the ferry service—including the ferry terminal that will be upgraded and expanded with funding generated through the regional fuel tax—but when they commute to Auckland City, they use the transport system in Auckland City. So we’re not proposing to support Nikki Kaye’s SOP on this point, and we think it’s much better, in fact, to have a system where, basically, the council makes its own decision on the geographical scope of any exclusion, not one that’s done through the primary legislation, which would be a blunt instrument.

A number of members from the Opposition side have argued that road pricing would be a better way to raise revenue than a regional fuel tax. We agree. We agree with that point. We agree with Sam Warburton when he makes that argument. But, actually, all of the informed analysis is that a serious system of road pricing in Auckland, such as variable price tolling on the motorway network and congestion charging, is a number of years away—at least six or seven or eight years away, or possibly even a decade.

Now road pricing will actually offer us significant benefits in terms of demand management and it’s also potentially a source of revenue to make further investments in the transport system, and those are powerful reasons why we need road pricing. The work is under way—in fact, it started under the Hon Simon Bridges when he was the transport Minister. We’re continuing it, but it’s not ready yet, and we are not prepared to sit around and wait for six, seven years, or even a decade while that work on road pricing reaches its conclusion.

We have to make serious investments now in Auckland’s transport system, and the fact that none of the Opposition members have acknowledged today is that it is only fair for Aucklanders to pay a little bit of extra for the investment that’s needed to get ahead of very high rates of growth in Auckland. Unless we have something like the regional fuel tax, people all around regional New Zealand—in Palmerston North and Balclutha; you name it—will end up paying the full costs of Auckland’s growth, and that’s not fair to them. So while the National Party are going around the country like Johnny Appleseed promising new expressway projects, and then they come to this House and promise to repeal the regional fuel tax, they have to answer the question: how are they going to pay for the transport projects that they’ve promised? They’re asking regional New Zealand to pay more for Auckland’s transport needs, and yet they claim to be the great defenders of regional New Zealand.

I also want to reply to the point that’s been made on several occasions so far—the idea that Auckland Council should be asked to tighten its belt to cut costs, and that if Auckland Council were to do that, then, somehow, this regional fuel tax wouldn’t be needed. Well, the folly of that argument is so easily exposed by the fact that the increase in Auckland Council’s administration expenditure is approximately 2 percent per year over the last decade. The increase in capital expenditure for infrastructure, principally transport infrastructure, has increased by an average of 7 percent per year over the last decade. The increase in Auckland Council’s spending is because they’re spending more on transport infrastructure. The National Party want Auckland Council to cut spending on transport so they can spend more on transport. It is an absolutely absurd argument, and if the members on the Opposition benches stopped for a moment and thought about it, they would stop making that argument.

Will it spread to other regions? This is the other bit of kind of scaremongering that we’ve seen—that the regional fuel tax that this bill requires can only be used to allow Auckland Council to put in place a regional fuel tax between now and January 2021. The fear is that this will somehow spread like a virus to other parts of New Zealand. Well, how lacking in trust the National Party are for communities all around this country. How lacking in faith they are in the democratic process, because they don’t want communities around New Zealand to have the choice to say “We want to invest extra in our region for reasons of economic development, to give our people access to the things that they need like employment and education.” to make up for the years of drift and neglect under the former National Government. They don’t trust the people of New Zealand, the communities, or the democratically elected representatives, so they don’t want people to have the opportunity to opt for a bit of extra revenue so that they can exercise some local autonomy in their communities. That is how little faith the National Party has in local communities around this country.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m glad I get to respond to Phil Twyford, because Phil Twyford, the man who has single-handedly seen support for the regional fuel tax plummet in his time as Minister of Transport, is standing up in this House trying to defend the indefensible. I’ve heard Labour members opposite saying that there’s all this overwhelming support for a regional fuel tax. Well, when Phil Twyford first had the Auckland Council do a poll on a regional fuel tax, there was 52 percent support for the regional fuel tax. What’s it at now? The same company, Colmar Brunton, has done a poll. There’s 58 percent opposed to a regional fuel tax. Far from selling this issue to the public, he’s actually lost support and is losing support for the ideas he’s putting forward.

I just want to say the Hon Nikki Kaye has done the right thing in putting forward Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 27 to try and exempt the part of Auckland that is paying overwhelmingly higher fuel taxes and fuel prices already. She’s a member of Parliament that cares about her local area and is trying to find a way to help them through.

Phil Twyford says, “Rely on us—rely on us. We have got these regulation-making powers.” Phil Twyford thinks we should just leave everything to him to exempt areas and ensure that they don’t have to pay a regional fuel tax because he’ll do it by way of regulation. He also thinks it should be left to the councils to decide in which part of the areas regional fuel taxes should be paid.

The very reason why Nikki Kaye has put forward that SOP is because on Waiheke, on Great Barrier Island, they’re probably going to see the least benefit from a regional fuel tax in Auckland, but their taxes and their prices are already higher than anyone else in the country. Of course people on Waiheke and Great Barrier Island have been asking her, as a member of Parliament, to ensure they’re exempt. That’s why this House should be supporting that SOP, and not leaving it to Phil Twyford and regulation-making powers.

But if we come to regulation-making powers—and I do note that Chris Penk has an amendment on one of the regulation-making powers—Phil Twyford takes exception to us saying that they have broken promises on this. Sure, they might have campaigned on a regional fuel tax. They also campaigned on no new taxes. What they didn’t campaign on was Phil Twyford and this Government, through Ministers, having regulation-making powers under the legislation to put up regional fuel taxes as high as they want. That’s something that’s a broken promise.

They may have set a regional fuel tax of 10c a litre, but under new section 65ZD, “Change to maximum rate of regional fuel tax”, in clause 5, it says right there that by Order in Council, the Governor-General—recommended by Phil Twyford—can put a regional fuel tax as high as he wants. It turns out that that’s a legislative instrument. It can come back to the House.

We say that should come back to the House on an annual basis, because the very problem with regulation-making powers and the very problem with allowing things to be decided, such as the maximum rate of taxation, is that we essentially will have a situation where a Minister of the Crown, on his own volition—all by himself—will be able to go in and implement a higher set of taxation than was already in the legislation. It’s a “Henry VIII” power. It means Phil Twyford—who, I am sure, is embarrassed that this was exposed in this bill—will have the power to put up taxes around the country at his own behest whenever he wants, without any sort of parliamentary review that we’d normally have.

If we were to have taxes around the country, normal income taxes to be increased—when the Government comes back with their Tax Working Group and they come up with a whole lot of new taxes, that’ll come before the Parliament. That’ll be voted on.

This is a dangerous power. It’s a power that gives the Minister the ability to put up tax rates all by himself—no parliamentary scrutiny, no ability to for a select committee look at it, and no ability for New Zealanders to submit on it. All by himself—the power to put up taxes can go ahead. I say that’s a power that shouldn’t be in this bill, but I’ve also said that if there are powers in this bill that are going to go through, we’re going to try and blunt those dangerous instruments, and Chris Penk has that particular type of change in front of him.

There’s also a range of other areas that I think we should be legislating for. The Minister and his officials have said in the select committee that they’re going to be coming back with a whole range of regulations that’ll exempt certain areas. Well, we’ve got a whole range of amendments that put in place actual legislative exemptions for those areas.

We had submissions, for example, from people in the agricultural area and in the horticultural area. We had submissions from people—and there’s an amendment in my name, an amendment that I’ve put forward because we had submissions about recreational aircraft use. The way it currently sits in the legislation is that if there is an aircraft that uses fuel that does not have gas—not Jet A-1. If it uses fuel that is the normal type of fuel that goes into motor vehicles—[Time expired]

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s been a number of quotes from King Lear, and here’s one of my favourite ones “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools”, and that’s where we’ve come to. It is a great stage of fools, where it is foolishness of all the things that have been talked about around the regional fuel tax (RFT).

But we’re here in this debate to talk about the things that are important, and, Mr Chair, as you rightly said, you are the sole adjudicator about issues of the debate. I want to introduce a new issue of debate. It’s in this part, in Part 1, and, in particular, in regards to Part 1, new section 65L, which talks about the early termination of RFT schemes. In particular, this portion of the bill talks about the fact that when the RFT scheme has been applied for and when an implementation is being initiated, are there moments in which there should be, by Order in Council, an early termination. It talks about the fact that in section 65L(1) the proposal of a regional fuel tax, under the Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister—those are the two Ministers that are to be responsible. So what I’m proposing in my amendment to clause 5 is to include “After new section 65L(2) insert new 65L(3) The Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister must recommend such an order if average fuel prices in the country reach $3 a litre.”—$3 a litre. It’s a pragmatic and it’s a practical sense of this.

There was a time when no one even thought that it would get to a point where fuel prices would even reach $2.20 or $2.30, and yet now we’ve reached that. It’s at the point where people have said that the highest fuel prices that we have seen now for 91 octane fuel is actually at the price of $2.20 or $2.30. In fact, in my local gas station, which I’m pretty sure the Minister of Transport goes past—mind you, he’s often probably in a ministerial vehicle. But I wonder whether he knows what the cost of the price at the Z Energy station on Te Atatū Road is? He may not know, because he probably doesn’t look at that. It’s actually $2.14 is what it is at present. It’s one of the cheapest ones in Auckland, but it’s still at a point where people are still struggling in our communities.

So when we say in this clause why is it that $3 would make a difference to the impact on our community—why is it that it should be included in new section 65L as an early termination clause for the power of an Order in Council? Well, let’s take some of the comments that come from people like Ken Shirley, who’s the Road Transport Forum CEO. Here’s what he said: “I hate to be a merchant of doom, but it is not inconceivable that we could reach $3 a litre”. If we do, here is the impact on our communities: it’s our regional and our rural communities, it’s our public transport, but, more importantly, it will be the impact on our low-income families.

I put this in because this is critically important for us to consider why $3 should be a threshold in which an Order in Council should then enact itself for an early termination, because it’s the only area in which there are geopolitical conditions which we are not in charge of. There was a time when barrels of oil were down as low as $50 a barrel. It got up as high as $193 a barrel. We don’t know where that will go. There are instabilities offshore in areas like Iran and so forth, so we are not in control of that. But what we are in control of and what this Government can be in control of is an early termination to an RFT—a regional fuel tax scheme. What it can do within its power is to be able to terminate that scheme if the impact on that is to the communities in which it serves. Three dollars is at a point, in fact, we have to say, that does have an impact on our communities.

Let’s take this from the AA petrol prices’ spokesperson, Mark Stockdale, and here’s what he says: “The regional fuel tax, to councils looking to raise revenue while avoiding rates, is something that will appeal to them.” But, again, the impact that he and others are commenting on is that when it gets to a point when it is at $3 a litre, then the only way that it can be enacted in which there can be some relief to those communities is where there is an inclusion inside the bill, hence the reason why my amendment is a pragmatic and a practical application which I seek to introduce. I hope that the Minister will take time to reflect on this and think about this—hence the reason why the committee of the whole House is to look at areas like this.

So I submit this amendment. I think it’s a pragmatic and practical way of saying that when it gets to a threshold where it is unbearable for the communities whom we are wanting to serve, the Government has the means and a tool in order to relieve that suffering, that difficulty, and that struggle in our communities.

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill, and I specifically want to speak to the first part. I specifically want to speak to an amendment that I’ve tabled which seeks to amend the definitions in new section 65A, in clause 5, which is specifically around exemptions. While I acknowledge and thank the Minister of Transport for at least taking a couple of calls on this debate to highlight the fact that a lot of the exemptions in the current rules are not clear, I, particularly in my own role as National’s spokesperson on horticulture, wish to support my industry and the people who have made submissions around exemptions to the regional fuel tax.

While I acknowledge that the Minister has said that regional fuel taxes and the exemption process and the regional excise duty are all up for grabs, that is of very little comfort to the people I represent and the people that came to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. In fact, Horticulture New Zealand submitted that those elements of the bill that are yet to be described in Order in Council are particularly worrying for them, and by the comments of the Minister today, they have no actual extra support or understanding of what it has meant because it’s all going to be done by regulation, and for them that is cold comfort.

Horticulture New Zealand has proposed that the Ministry of Transport’s exempt use for agricultural vehicles be used across horticultural vehicles as well, and the bill as it’s written proposes that the rebate mechanism that’s already used for the fuel excise duty is used. But, as the Minister has acknowledged, it doesn’t actually work that well. It is notoriously complicated, and the horticultural industry is not satisfied with the concessions, if you like, from the Minister that have been given today or what was written in the bill.

There are exemptions for non - road-based uses under the road-user charges, and Horticulture New Zealand is simply asking that those same exemptions apply. The amendment simply says that after paragraph (e) there is a new paragraph (f) which says “any use for commercial horticultural activities”. If you think about vehicles, all around New Zealand, the horticultural use that goes between one orchard and another, between one farm and another—actually, those are not vehicles that should really be paying fuel excise tax, road-user tax, or certainly not a regional fuel tax that actually would support at the moment a regional fuel tax in Auckland.

I say this because while this bill is written to specifically deal with an issue in Auckland currently, it also allows other parts of New Zealand to deal with the same issues should they wish, and that is a significant imposition on cost and people, and in my humble opinion I’m not sure that’s been thoroughly worked out. So when an industry comes to me and has written emails to me and asks me to advocate on their behalf, I am of course going to do that because I completely support them. So while the Minister stood up in this Chamber and, in the first of his two or three comments this afternoon, said that they’re going to look at something, why would members of this Parliament, let alone New Zealand, say we’re going to come to it, and it will be right in the end?

The people I represent in my region did not hear the Labour Government—or the Labour Party at the time, in the election campaign—advocating for a new tax, a regional fuel tax, that would be able to be put in other parts of New Zealand. Sure, we heard about Auckland, and if the Government was true to its word, it would have simply allowed this bill to relate to Auckland. What I’m concerned about, and the people I represent, is that, actually, it’s allowed to go across the rest of New Zealand. For the Minister to give us some comfort that somehow we are going to look at fuel excise duties, road-user charges, and the regional fuel tax—because we acknowledge it’s not fair—is actually not good enough when this legislation has the ability to go right across New Zealand from 2021.

So, in the first instance, I think the Minister has short-changed the people of New Zealand in terms of the exemption process, and I ask him to consider a genuine desire and put in new paragraph (f), as listed in my amendment.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I did want to come down and take the first of a couple of calls on this piece of legislation. I want to start by commending Mr Lawrence Yule’s call—the speaker who’s just resumed his seat—because, like Mr Yule, the people in my electorate had no understanding, no advice, and no indication at all that the intention of this Government was to bring in place a regional fuel tax in Selwyn. Nowhere in the discussion in Canterbury or in Selwyn or in Rangitata, or in any of those parts of the country where I get out and about, did we hear once from any of the representatives of the three parties now making up the Government that there was going to be a regional fuel tax in Selwyn. Certainly, there wasn’t an indication that that would fund projects around the country but not benefiting, necessarily, Selwyn.

So I want to know from this Government, and I want to know from the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, why, when they committed—because here’s what they did say to the people of Selwyn—that there would be no new taxes in this turn of Government, they didn’t say, “Except there will be a regional fuel tax likely in place in Selwyn and in Canterbury that we’ll be legislating through within the first few months of our term.” It’s not something that’s come up unexpectedly. I do want to hear from the Minister in the chair how he can defend saying to the people of Selwyn that there will not be new taxes and then, within just a few months, be legislating in this piece of law a new regional fuel tax (RFT) which can very likely apply to the people of Selwyn once the conditions in the legislation are worked through. And I find it repugnant that we are debating this legislation, which was sold to the people of New Zealand as an Auckland fuel tax, as in fact being a wolf in sheep’s clothing intended to be, in fact, a tax across potentially every region of New Zealand.

Now, they’ll say, “Oh, well it’s not coming yet.” It doesn’t matter—we’re legislating for it today. Today we are legislating for it, and it is no comfort to the people of New Zealand that they will have to live under the sword of that oncoming tax for a couple more years while the Minister works out exactly how it’s going to work.

Now, there are two particular issues that I want to touch on in this call in respect to the bill itself. The first of these is in relation to the proposed new section 65XA in clause 5 of the bill—and I am going to ask the Minister to talk us through this, because this is a matter that as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC), I was certainly interested in—and that is this process via which a regional tax taxpayer can have a decision of the Transport Agency for tax reviewed. Actually, members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee are well used to dealing with taxation legislation, and it’s a very important principle of tax legislation that not only is it very clear what a taxpayer’s obligations will be but there are clear processes for them to have an assessment reviewed if that is the case.

Now, originally, the bill said, “Well, they can go to court.” Actually, anyone who’s been in the position that I’ve been in of having to advise clients on the reality of taking something to court knows that that’s, frankly, a nonsense. No taxpayer is going to go to the District Court to challenge an assessment of regional fuel tax unless, frankly, they have money to burn and nothing better to do with their time. And, even then, with the uncertainty, they’re unworkable. So the committee was very interested in how we could in fact set up a proper review process for those decisions that was something far short of going to court, and the result is new section 65XA in Part 1 of the bill. That certainly sets out a process for internal review, but what I want to ask the Minister is how taxpayers can have any confidence that that will be a fulsome, independent, and genuine review and not simply the person at the next desk rubber-stamping the decision of their colleague in the agency.

There is nothing in new section 65XA that talks to or gives taxpayers any assurance whatsoever that a review of their taxation obligations will be anything more than a tick-through by the person at the next desk: “Hey, mate. Someone’s complaining about this assessment I made. Can you sign it off?”, “Yep, I’ve reviewed it.”, “That’s good.” That’s not what FEC was talking about. That is not the sort of review process the taxpayers of New Zealand have come to expect—and I think rightly so. I would like to hear from the Minister how new section 65XA will work, because there is nothing in that clause—as I read it, Mr Twyford—that in any way sets up any assurance other than to say “Someone else in the agency will look at it, and if they’re happy then that’s fine. And then, by the way, you can go back to court.”, and that isn’t right.

Now, I want to turn to the amendment in my name on the Table, which is suggesting an amendment to clause 5 of the bill, again, in Part 1, and again, of course, in clause 5, making amendments to the Land Transport Management Act, and in this case inserting new section 65E. Now, new section 65E, of course, goes through and sets out the matters that must be contained in a proposal for a regional fuel tax and goes through a list of some of what is required. The particular change that I am recommending to this committee is in paragraph (b) of new section 65E and asks that the bill inserts very clearly in a proposal for a new RFT exactly what the projections are for the likely benefits on congestion.

Now, this is pretty important, actually. I’m sort of surprised it’s not in the bill, because the bill has been sold to New Zealand—somewhat badly, and somewhat late after the election, but none the less—as being important because we need to reduce congestion. Now, actually, I don’t think there’s a member in this committee, and certainly not a member from Auckland, who doesn’t understand that congestion is a real issue, and we certainly need to be thinking creatively about how we do that but also how we fund it. I would suggest to this Government that just banging on a new tax isn’t the answer to everything, and it’s very rarely that that’s the best answer. But congestion is important.

Certainly, the Government has made a big focus in selling this bill about how this is important because we need to address congestion. Well, OK. If that’s the case, Mr Twyford, why is it that in the proposal for an RFT scheme, in paragraph (b) of new section 65E, it doesn’t require the proposer to state the projections of the likely benefit of the scheme on congestion? I would’ve thought it would be reasonably sensible to say that if this is all about, in fact, managing congestion and is not just a tax grab for councils that, frankly, will always take a new tax if offered to them, then you would actually require the proposal for an RFT to state pretty clearly how it’s going to help congestion.

Now, I can imagine the reason that the officials and the councils won’t be keen on that, because, of course, that would have to make them accountable. And when Mr Goff rocks along with his regional fuel tax proposal and says to Auckland that he simply has to have it to reduce congestion, I think this House should expect Mr Goff and the Auckland Council, and, subsequently, other mayors around the country, that if they’re going to claim that this is a congestion-relieving mechanism, to put their money where their mouth is and tell us exactly how much congestion it’s likely to address. And I bet you they won’t want to. They’ll talk a big game when they get the new tax in, and they’ll sort of talk in loose terms about reducing congestion and “Won’t this be a wonderful thing and it’s all about freeing up our arteries.”, but actually ask them to put a line in the sand about how much congestion—New Zealand is paying another 11.5c a litre on top of the other taxes and petrol price increases—is actually going to be reduced by these proposals.

Nowhere in this bill—and in paragraph (b) of new section 65E—does it require them to actually project the amount of congestion that will be alleviated. How can that be the case? If this is all about congestion, if it’s all about alleviating congestion, why is the one thing they’re not required to state a projection of the congestion impacts of having a regional fuel tax scheme?

So I don’t think it is a big ask at all for this Government and for Mr Twyford, if he’s true to his word and if he’s going to show us and show New Zealand that his walk matches up to the talk and that this is about congestion—I don’t see why there would be any resistance at all in adding a very simple requirement in new section 65E, in paragraph (b), a new subparagraph (v) saying that as part of making a regional fuel tax proposal the proposal should and will and, in fact, must include very clear information on the likely benefits of the proposal on congestion.

Without that, surely, you’d have to suggest that all of that talk is a nonsense, all of that talk is smoke and mirrors, and the real benefit of this is simply another tax grab from the party that only knows how to tax and spend. If this is about congestion, my challenge to the Government is a very simple one: show us that you mean what you say, and show us that breaking your word to New Zealand about having this only applying in Auckland is as far as the deception will go. This is going to be about congestion, and you’re going to require a congestion assessment as part of the regional fuel tax proposal.

So that is the amendment in my name. I don’t like the bill—let me be very clear: I don’t think the bill is keeping faith with New Zealand. But if we’re going to have it—if the Government is going to ram it through without widespread support, against the opposition of Aucklanders, against the opposition of New Zealanders—they should at least be honest.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m going to focus on new section 65D in a minute, but, before I do that, I’d like to ask the Minister Phil Twyford a question. He talked about the Auckland regional tax being for the region—and I appreciate that—so, again, I ask him: why does he allow the inclusion of other regions to follow? That’s point one. He’s partially addressed it, but I don’t think he has.

The second point is that there will be not one penny spent of this tax on the light rail programme, apparently—not one penny spent on the light rail. Where does it say that in the bill? We know that the Government has talked about road taxes being able to be used for rail projects, but where in this bill does it explicitly say that this regional tax is not able to be spent on the light rail? I was quite confused, because the Minister did say that this regional fuel tax will be contributing to an upgrade of the Waiheke Island ferry terminal. So if the regional fuel tax can be used to upgrade the Waiheke Island ferry terminal—and, as I say, the Waiheke Island ferry terminal is not excluded—what’s to stop the money from being spent on the light rail project, when, as the Minister said earlier, it could and will be spent to help fund the Waiheke Island terminal upgrade?

The second point is that he said that it will be about a $5 increase on the average family. So given that this is going to be approximately a 10 percent increase in fuel—about 20 percent including the other taxes—that means that the average family is spending about 50 bucks a week on fuel. Well, I don’t know about you, but I just find that an absolutely ridiculous assertion. Fifty bucks hardly gets you from A to B, let alone to and from schools in the regions, to and from the workplace, to and from rugby practice, when you’ve got to do 30, 40 kilometres each way to do your supermarkets in regional New Zealand.

Now, I do acknowledge that there is an exemption in the select committee report. It does say that there is an ability for part of the region to be exempt from the regional fuel tax, but, I tell you what, I couldn’t find it anywhere. How is that exemption going to take place? How will the lines be drawn? Will it be on a district council basis? Will it be town by town? Will it be a certain number of kilometres away from a regional boundary? It’s very unclear to me how the Wairarapa, for example, will be exempt from the regional fuel tax. Could it be all of the Wairarapa, or just part of the Wairarapa, given the distances and the regressive nature that the Minister points out and acknowledges? So there are a couple of questions for the Minister—and then why regions and not districts? Why not allow the district councils—because I’ve got five district councils in my electorate—to collect the tax? Has there been any thought put into that?

But coming to new section 65D in clause 5, the regional tax has to be one or more capital projects—and it doesn’t say “roading projects”; it just says “capital projects”, hence the Waiheke Island terminal example—that “would benefit the region [but] cannot reasonably be fully funded from sources other than a regional … tax”. Well, come on, we can find borrowing—we can fund these things without any of these projects. We can go to anywhere and not require a regional fuel tax.

The savings from Auckland Council are one source of funds that would disallow the need for a regional fuel tax. You can find efficiencies, you can go to other sources, you can borrow, you can go to general taxation, or you can go to general road-user charges, so I’m not sure how the bar has been set that they cannot reasonably be fully funded from sources other than a regional fuel tax. I’m interested to hear from the Minister how that bar is set, how that standard is set, to fulfil the funding for the capital projects.

I move, That the question be now put.

I really want to address, obviously, a few comments that have been made by members across the Chamber, but also I do want to really crystallise in people’s minds the impact of this bill on some isolated islands in the Hauraki Gulf for the reason that we know that in 2021, this bill could be bringing in a whole lot of other areas in New Zealand. Listen up, rural New Zealand: it is important that the rural communities in this country understand that this little old set of islands in the middle of the Hauraki Gulf is about to be paying for light rail down Dominion Road. So if you’re someone who lives on Waiheke Island, you already pay ferry fares currently that are not subsidised by the Government, and you’re about to be paying for light rail down Dominion Road.

I want to address some of the issues that have already come before the committee. The first point I want to make, which is in response to the Minister’s comments: 4 percent at the Auckland Council in savings—because we’re talking about $150 million here—is reasonable. We know that they spend a huge amount on consultants. We know that there is fat in terms of staffing. So it is reasonable to ask them to look at those savings before you start racking up fuel taxes in Auckland.

The second point I want to make is that it is good that the Minister has said to the people of Great Barrier that it looks like the Government is going to exempt Great Barrier, but the reality is that it is not as of right. So if Phil Twyford loses his job, who knows what could happen in terms of a future Minister. That’s why my amendment is superior for the people of Great Barrier, because they get that certainty.

But in terms of Waiheke, this is what “Planet Labour” looks like. Under “Planet Labour”—and this is a real scenario—you’ll now be having tourists that will land at Auckland Airport. Before they get there, they’ll be paying a tourist tax. They’re going to now get in a car and fuel is going to be higher. So those tourists are going to pay the tourism tax, they’re going to get in the car with the extra costs of fuel, they’re going to arrive at the Downtown ferry terminal, which the Minister talks about being delivered as a result of this fuel tax. Well, I have a question for the Minister. Did he read the ferry development plan of 2014? They’ve been talking about this Downtown ferry terminal upgrade for a very long time, and it’s very convenient that it’s ended up on the list of regional fuel tax projects. But, under this situation, that same tourist, who’s had to pay a tax before they’ve even landed at Auckland Airport, has paid additional money in fuel taxes to get across to Waiheke, then gets on a ferry, has to pay the ferry costs, then has to get on the island, has to pay additional costs for paying for the Dominion Road light rail, and then they go and sit in a restaurant on Waiheke Island and they’re already paying additional cost in terms of food, and now they’re paying more costs as a result of these fuel taxes.

I’m just saying to the Minister, when you’ve got a situation on Great Barrier before these fuel taxes even come in, where they’re at $3.30 a litre, and now they’re going to go up to over $3.50 unless he exempts them, and then on Waiheke you’re already paying 25c a litre and you are then also paying ferry costs—and this is not about upgrading the Downtown ferry terminal, because that has been in the works for a very long time. The same argument, in terms of “Some of those people will commute and be in Auckland.”, applies to Great Barrier, so it’s not a principled argument to say that, somehow, they should now be paying because they also use transport in Auckland. The reality is that this tax is going to affect disadvantaged people but it’s also going to choke the very small communities like the islands of Great Barrier and Waiheke.

The reality is that people in other parts of regional New Zealand should be scared because we have a date in this bill: 2021. We’re going to have regional taxes around the rest of New Zealand, and what this Government is demonstrating in this amendment—by voting down my amendment, which helps the small communities who are isolated islands who already have higher costs—is that they’re not prepared to accept that they already have a significant reason to not be benefiting from these fuel taxes. So it’s not just about these communities; it’s about the wider principle. And the reality is that people can’t afford a Labour Government.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. In my previous contribution, I was talking about the proposals to establish a regional fuel tax (RFT) and how our regional councils have to have some narrative around the objectives under the general policy statement for land transport but there’s no clear criteria as to what level they have to show that they’ll meet those objectives in order to get a successful proposal over the line.

Actually, that’s a real problem, because one of the objectives—and, I’d argue, the very most important of them—is the value-for-money criteria or objective. Now, that is the most important because, after all, a Government is simply stewarding the taxpayers’ money. So hard-working Kiwis, through their taxes—the Government has a job to make sure that they get the very best return on that spend. Well, this bill will allow a regional council to apply for a regional fuel tax. It only has to have a narrative around how it supports that and other objectives; it doesn’t have to meet a certain threshold.

This is a shame, because in the Estimates hearing, the Minister confirmed that he would meet the commitment in that objective in the draft Government policy statement (GPS) where the New Zealand Transport Agency have said that even for out-of-scope proposals—so it’s the ones with lower benefits—they would still expect that even for one that wouldn’t normally be prioritised, the benefit to cost ratio would still be greater than one. Well, this legislation, in the way it’s written, means that wouldn’t have to be the case if a council put a proposal up for regional fuel tax money.

And it’s even worse, because in new section 65J in clause 5, “Decisions of Minister of Finance and responsible Minister concerning proposed RFT scheme”, theirs is an absolute discretion, a complete discretion, and they don’t have to make any reference to the GPS for land transport in making that decision. So the Minister of Finance and the responsible Minister can agree to a regional fuel tax that doesn’t meet any of the objectives of the GPS, and that is absolutely wrong. I call upon the Minister and officials to put up a Supplementary Order Paper quickly to actually make sure that anything that’s going to be funded or part-funded through an RFT will have to meet those objectives and in a way that is objectively measured and can be relied upon, not some subjective whim.

There’s an amendment in my name, which is around changing the definition of “fuel” under this bill. The change I would have is to amend new section 65A to replace the definition of “fuel” with “Fuel means specified engine fuel as defined in section 181(1) of the Local Government Act 1974, but without regard for paragraph (B) of that definition and diesel and biofuel.” Now, despite us being opposed to this bill, the intention of my amendment is not to exclude diesel or biofuel from the extra taxation burden to help fund the trams on Dominion Road, although they shouldn’t do that. But if we just assume that the bill may pass, instead of diesel users paying their additional burden via a per-litre tax at the pump, this is looking at paying it through an increased road-user charge, because that is currently the way those fuel users pay the equivalent of fuel excise today. They pay it on a per-kilometre basis, but it’s being calculated to be relative to what petrol motorists pay on a per-litre basis. So they already meet their fair share of fuel excise through a road-user charge today.

If there is going to be an increased regional fuel tax burden for petrol users, my argument is that diesel and biofuel users, instead of paying a per-litre price, should, for consistency, do that through an increased road-user charge. As I say, the calculations already exist today to do what is, in effect, a conversion from a per-litre price for a petrol user to a per-kilometre price for a diesel or biofuel user, and that would make it a lot easier and consistent for those owners of diesel- and biofuel-powered vehicles to meet their share of the additional burden, but to do so under the current mechanism they have and, that way, just have the one means of addressing it, which it is through their prepaying of kilometres through the road-user charge. I think that’s a fairer and more reasonable way for those motorists to pay their share, and I call upon the Minister and officials to accept it.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate the chance to take this call. I’d like to speak to the amendment in my name, which seeks to insert a clause to provide an analysis of what price-spreading behaviour could occur. Now several speakers have referred to this, but this is a request, a specific amendment. We’re bringing a solution here. Given that the entire process for this bill was truncated—very much shortened; in our opinion, found absolutely wanting and lacking for its due process—we would like to see certain clauses inserted, and here’s one: the analysis of what price-spreading behaviour could occur.

According to the ministry, and I said this earlier, price spreading occurred when fuel taxes were introduced in the 1990s, and it was one of the reasons a fuel tax was repealed back in 2009. So the Government’s been clear that this is supposedly just for Auckland, but consumers in other parts of New Zealand will clearly be affected by price spreading, and—how’s this, Mr Chair—eligible for rebates? No, they will not be eligible for rebates and to be able to claim it back. So there’s some real discrepancy here. There’s evidence that price spreading is already happening in the South Island. There’s a growth in the gap between Auckland and Wellington and it’s surged since March. That’s been very much reported on.

So what this amendment does is make it a requirement for price spreading to be included in the programme of projects provided for in this regional fuel tax proposal. Now if you think that’s just an idea that we’ve come up with—no. The bill in its current form already outlines a number of other things that need to be included in the proposal—for example, the duration of the projects, that needs to be included; the impact on fuel-buying behaviour, that needs to be included. So why not include the importance of price spreading—and the wording in this particular amendment is an “analysis” of what price-spreading behaviour could occur. If we’re going to have those other things, why not have this?

Implementing a regional fuel tax—stating the obvious here—is a very big decision and it comes with a lot of responsibility from councils, so they should have to consider the impacts that there will be on those outside of their respective regions, not just within. Also, if it’s in the proposal, it means that Ministers should have to seriously consider it. So this amendment requiring an analysis of what price-spreading behaviour could occur makes sense; it is a sensible way forward. Up until now, while this bill was being developed with so little consideration, price-spreading consideration by the Minister and the councils—look, heck, this amendment could be considered a consolation prize. If you’ve done little analysis up until this point today, here you go, here’s a consolation prize—an amendment that helps the Minister and the Government insert what should have been there in the first place—a requirement to consider the impact of price spreading.

I commend this particular amendment and I’m sure that some of my very learned and eloquent colleagues will back me up in the course of the debate here this afternoon and long into the hours tonight—

💬 Simeon Brown: “Eloquent” being the operative word.

“Eloquent” is the operative word. Thank you to the member for Pakuranga, and we’ll look forward to the Government accepting this amendment that requires an analysis of what price-spreading behaviour could occur. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve been waiting a little while for that, so thank you for finally noticing me. Look, I was pleased to see the Minister find his feet before and start responding to some of the issues that have been raised, and he himself raised a number of points which I’m sure members on this side on this Chamber will want to explore as the evening progresses.

This is my second call in the committee stage of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, and I want to raise a number of specific questions with the Minister in relation to the content of the bill. But before I do that, I just want to speak briefly on the second amendment that I have in my name, which is in relation to oversight. It would insert a new section 65L(3), which would require that “The Minister of Finance and responsible Minister must review a RFT Scheme annually to ensure that the regional council is carrying out the RFT scheme for their region.”

I would have thought that that was a perfectly reasonable amendment for the Government to accept. It doesn’t detract from the aims of the bill. All it does is require Ministers and the Government to have a look from time to time at the adequacy and the operation of the regional fuel tax (RFT) scheme that they are legislating for tonight. Once approved, the RFT scheme will be in place. It makes absolute sense that there is further democratic oversight beyond just the legislation passing through this House—that Ministers do continue to have a look, making sure that it is operating appropriately for that region.

I want to come now to three very specific questions I have for the Minister, and I hope that he continues to follow on with what he’s been doing, just briefly this evening, in responding to some of the issues that we’ve raised. The first one’s in relation to new section 65C(2).

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before the break, I had been speaking to my second amendment, which relates to ministerial oversight. So with that now completed, I’ll move on to the three specific queries I had for the Minister in the chair.

The first one of those relates to new section 65C(2), and that specifies that “The maximum duration of an RFT scheme is 10 years unless extended under section 65K(2).” When you turn to new section 65K(2), that outlines the Minister’s powers to extend the length of the RFT by Order in Council. My concern around that is that what it does is remove any further democratic oversight by this Parliament. It essentially allows the Minister and the council to go off and to keep extending the tax in perpetuity without it ever coming back to Parliament. So I’d like to ask the Minister in the chair if he’d consider changing that clause to something a bit more reasonable, so that it comes back to this House and we can consider it again rather than it keep being extended in perpetuity.

The second concern I have—and, again, I’d like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on this—is in relation to new section 65D(b). This is where it outlines that a tax is available where a project “cannot reasonably be fully funded from sources other than a regional fuel tax within the time frame desired by the council.” So I have a question for the Minister around that, which is what is reasonable? Who determines what is reasonable? Is it the council that determines what is reasonable? Is it the Minister that determines what is reasonable? Or is it the Government that determines what is reasonable? The reason I ask that is because it could lead quite conceivably to some pretty strange ideas coming forward from councils. The odd council does have some interesting ideas from time to time about what they might want to achieve without it having to go through the normal ratepayer process.

The second concern I have around that is around the incentive structure that operates in councils. Now, if they know that they can go off cap in hand to Government and ask them for a regional fuel tax, their incentive is going to be to spend up large so that they cannot conceivably fund that project without a tax. So what it’s going to do is incentivise councils to spend a lot of money and then come to the Government and say, “We can’t fund this vital piece of infrastructure in our region.”

The third concern I have—and, again, I’d like to hear from the Minister on this—relates to new section 65E(c)(ii), (iii), and (iv). They run through “describe its expected”—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

💬 Hon Member: Not again.

A pleasure to speak again, much to the delight, I’m sure, of fellow members of the committee—almost as much as my own—on the subject of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill.

I’d like to speak to a couple of amendments in my name, the first of which relates to clause 5 of the amendment bill, inserting new section 65ZD(3). Amended new section 65ZD(3) will, therefore, read as follows: “An order made under subsection (1) is a legislative instrument and a confirmable instrument for the purposes of the Legislation Act 2012 and must be presented to the House of Representatives annually under section 41 of that Act.” Now keen observers will have picked up that the word “annually” is thereby inserted with a particular and, I think, not insignificant effect such that the amendment will ensure that a change to the maximum rate of the regional fuel tax will receive regular parliamentary scrutiny.

So looking at the effect that that will have in practice when this amendment is accepted—as I have absolutely no doubt that it will be—there are three headings, essentially, under which I would like to make comment on that. The first is the notion of scrutiny being appropriate for legislation in general but, in particular, tax legislation, and, in particular further still, tax legislation that is, effectively, going to be changed over time by the mechanism of regulation. We’re all familiar with and, I hope, cognisant of in a very diligent way the phrase “No taxation without representation”. Of course, while this initial piece of legislation is receiving some excellent scrutiny by way of representation right now as we speak, the concern would be that in the future if the fuel tax rates were to rise—as indeed seems likely; perhaps even inevitable—then parliamentary scrutiny of that would be very appropriate, indeed essential.

The second point relates to the timing of the proposed scrutiny that I’ve already mentioned. The timing that I have proposed is annual because it seems to me that an annual review is a good, regular basis on which all financial matters should be reviewed. That’s consistent with the practices of most, or perhaps all, businesses, and many families and households too. To be able to undertake a regular review, perhaps even to make something of a fixture of this review—I expect that it would be looked forward to eagerly by young children in the same way that Christmas and other regular annual events are. “How many sleeps until the review under the Land Transport Management Amendment Act, consistent with the Legislation Act 2012, Mummy or Daddy?”, I can easily imagine young children up and down this country saying.

So that brings me to the third and final point, which is that it’s appropriate that such scrutiny as encouraged by my amendment be conducted in Parliament, because it is Parliament, or the House of Representatives as recorded in the wording of the amendment—albeit that wording is already in the Act with the addition, of course, of the word “annually”—that would be scrutinising that. That would be applying that representation by way of this House being the representatives of the people of New Zealand in a way that the Governor-General—with all due respect to him or her in that role—does not provide. So too we might observe that a Minister, however diligent he or she may be, cannot be expected to provide the representation that is necessary to provide the scrutiny on behalf of the people of New Zealand, who would be subject to this tax, or, indeed, the people of Auckland, if it is, indeed, to remain confined to Aucklanders, as we suspect that it will very likely not be. So it is appropriate that it’s in this House of Representatives that debates can take place, just as they are now. Something for us all to look forward to, no doubt—that this ongoing scrutiny can take place so that further changes do not take place without that proper democratic mandate.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate that because this is only the second call that I’ve been able to take, and, unfortunately, because it’s been quite a busy period before and after the adjournment, it hasn’t been possible for me to be here for the whole of the debate. I was very concerned before I left the Chamber earlier this evening that at that point, the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, hadn’t taken any calls, although I understand he has done so. The reason I was concerned was because there were not only a huge number of questions being put to him but also some very significant amendments being suggested, including one in my name, and I hope it’s had adequate discussion in my absence.

I am putting forward another amendment, and I think it comes down to the crux of one of the most important matters. There’s that old saying about “No taxation without representation”, and in the context of this debate, I think what we are really looking at is a tax that is being proposed not only without adequate consultation but definitely which is not representative of the wishes of the electorate. There is ample evidence now from right around the country—not just in the Auckland region, that is most directly affected in the immediate future by this particular tax—of the fact that this is not a tax that enjoys popular support.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I’m just conscious of the fact that we are in the committee stage and, apparently, I have even longer to go in this particular call than I had at the start, which is very pleasant.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s all right. Mine says four minutes.

Yours says four? Well, Madam Chair, I’ll just take my lead from you and assume, therefore, that the clock is—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): There we go. Look at that, now it’s three.

I’m very happy to get on with it, but it is of course—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Filibustering.

No, not filibustering at all, but it is discombobulating when one is looking at the clock and trying to work out—ah, the clock has just miraculously changed.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I do apologise. I was not discombobulated.

No, that’s fine. Thank you, Madam Chair. I shall resume.

The point I was making is a serious one—that there is ample evidence from right around the country now that this is a particular measure that is deeply resented by many, and, in particular, in areas that Labour MPs claim to represent and claim that they have their greatest support. There’s no doubt at all that this is a tax that will fall disproportionately and most unfairly on those on low and modest incomes, and in my own electorate I have many people who fit into that category. What is becoming clear is that while it may not be applying down in Hamilton and the Waikato region just now, nevertheless, it is clearly envisaged by the Government that the breadth of this legislation would be extended were the country unfortunate enough to see them get a second term. I want to implore the Government to look at the impact on not only those people who they claim to represent but the public at large, who will not benefit from this tax but who will certainly pay quite a slice of it.

I had the opportunity to do some campaigning up in Northcote during the recent by-election, and it was very obvious as I spoke to people, as I knocked on their doors and out on the streets, that they were saying, “We don’t want to pay this tax. It’s not going to be of benefit to us and yet we’re going to have to pay a large chunk of it.” I don’t think that it is adequate for the Government to say “Well, there are some projects that will benefit from this.” when, by the same token, they are ignoring the fact that in the previous Government’s tenure we had made very significant commitments to extra infrastructure spending, particularly in roading but also with the City Rail Link in Auckland, huge investment into KiwiRail, and huge investment into different forms of public transport.

It is not appropriate for the Government to say “Well, we’ve just got to go on taking more and more money.” when our commitments were funded out of the existing budgetary measures. And here not only have we got a Government that is saying “Well, we need more money for these few projects” but, in fact, they’re saying, “A whole lot of things that the previous Government was able to fund are now disappearing.” Well, will the public get their money back? Who representing their electorate expects that their constituents are suddenly going to see a refund from the Government because the taxes that they were spending on previous projects will no longer go ahead? I am absolutely distraught that in my Waikato region, the Cambridge to Piarere—or, in fact, the Cambridge right to the foot of the Kaimai Ranges proposal is no longer going to go ahead, because that is a project that would have not only saved huge time, reduced congestion, and made transport much more efficient; it would’ve saved lives. The same was true of the extension of the road to Tīrau.

So my point is that without consulting the public about this, the Government is intending to take far more in tax than they ever let on beforehand, reduce the number of projects on which that tax will be spent, confine it to some very narrow areas, and ignore the overwhelming body of public opinion that says, “This isn’t necessary and we shouldn’t be doing this.” We can be funding our infrastructure through the provisions that the previous Government has made, and bear in mind that this Government inherited a very strong economy, whereas its predecessor inherited a very weak one. This is just the wrong way of going about this whole particular issue.

There are a hundred million reasons why the people of Nelson and Tasman are concerned about the impact of Part 1 of this bill, because this bill would give the power to take an extra $100 million out of my community at the same time the Government is saying it’s going to invest less in the transport needs of the communities of Nelson and Tasman.

💬 Mark Patterson: Rubbish.

Now, I hear the New Zealand First MP interjecting. I would suggest to him: has he read the speeches from Winston Peters on what he called highway robbery? What Winston Peters said was that to impose an excise tax and to put GST on top of it was nothing short of highway robbery, and yet that is exactly what this part of this bill does.

The regional petrol tax that’s proposed in this part is at the same time as the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, is proposing to reduce investment in State highways by 70 percent. So let’s not be cute. This part says to a community like mine “Pay more, get less”—pay more, get less—and that is why members on this side of the House will fight this bill, this part, every step of the way.

I’m looking forward to any member—any member—on the Government benches explaining to the public the integrity of saying to voters, only nine months ago, “No new taxes”, and then a bill and this part that proposes exactly that—introducing new taxes on constituents. It’s all the worse for the fact that the analysis shows that those that will be most adversely affected are actually those lower-income earners that actually voted—many of them mistakenly—for members opposite.

The further point I want to make is the flaws in regional petrol tax policy. If we read the analysis by Treasury and if we read the analysis by the Ministry of Transport, for a little country of 4.7 million people, the idea that you can somehow impose a tax just in some regions is a nonsense. I was stunned when Jami-Lee Ross challenged the Minister, when the Auckland petrol tax comes into effect a bit more than a week away, and asked for a reassurance that people in regional New Zealand—like Nelson—would not be paying it, and the Minister could give no assurance at all, basically undermining the very tenet that somehow a regional petrol tax will only be paid by that region.

In my area, the current petrol tax amounts to $100 million a year. That is more than what many of my constituents pay each year in rates, and that is why I have tabled an amendment that specifically exempts my communities of Nelson and Tasman from the extra costs. I say to the members opposite, that’s because your Government is saying to my high-growth area, “You can expect no new investment.”

Now, I’m proud of the Ruby Bay Bypass and the many other major transport projects that have been built in my area. But it is morally reprehensible—morally reprehensible—that members opposite want to impose costs on my constituents at the same time they are saying to them they’re going to reduce by 70 percent the funding on our transport infrastructure, and that is why I urge support for my amendment.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

There’s disappointment that I’ve been called above others, but look, I’m very pleased to take what I hope is the first of several calls. I’m sure the whip Kieran McAnulty is thrilled to have myself, along with Chris Penk, standing here again on this one to discuss the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, and in particular a tabled amendment in my name most recently.

Look, this is Part 1—this is the meat of the bill—and I don’t intend to, in effect, go into the wider issues. It will be no surprise to this committee—and certainly to my own constituents—that I’m opposed this bill in its whole, but I want to turn my attention, in effect, to how the tax scheme will affect the Auckland region, and in particular a suggestion in my tabled amendment of how that may impact and affect the good people of Tāmaki, whom I represent.

As context, the people of Tāmaki pay, in effect, the highest amount of rates in Auckland already. Now, I know this is a Government bill, but the context is important. They already pay an enormous amount of rates. Strangely enough—although not completely misunderstood, particularly with a left-wing council—they get, basically, very little of that money back. We also have a council, of course, that have then gone and put fuel taxes on, along with other levies to come, and so that is the context, then, as we have this Government bill seeking to put even more—even more—taxes on to the good and hard-working people of Tāmaki. In a recent survey done, granted, by council, but around fuel taxes—and in many ways the people of Tāmaki, as, I’m sure, those of Auckland and all of New Zealand, are not too fussed if it’s the Government or the council putting the levy or the tax on; it’s just an added cost to their life—the good people of Tāmaki spoke with a very strong voice that they did not want more fuel taxes. They do not want the Government’s regional fuel tax. They do not want the council’s fuel tax.

So as I was preparing a tabled amendment, my first suggestion was going to be around clause 5, inserting a section around section 65—probably new section 65E—asking that actually Tāmaki, as a geographical region, be exempt. I thought that was a good idea. In fact, you know, it often pops up in this House that different groups try to make exemptions for their area. Well, Tāmaki’s a very well-defined area, and I just thought we could be exempt. In fact, I’d like to go further. We’d like to be exempt from a whole lot of things, actually—mainly, the Government in general. We can’t do that. Actually, four people in my electorate—Labour voters—were keen to remain within Government. I’m not so—but I didn’t think that was constructive.

💬 Hon Member: He exaggerates.

It might be an exaggeration—I might have been mixed up with some New Zealand First.

But, as I say, the first thought I had was to actually ask that the regional fuel tax not apply to the people of Tāmaki. I decided to not go down that route. I thought I would attempt to be constructive. I do have some respect for the Minister in the chair, Phil Twyford, and so it is in a spirit of concord and assistance that instead I changed the tabled amendment so that if this regional fuel tax goes ahead—God forbid—actually, some of that money will be put aside to fund a comprehensive upgrade of Tāmaki Drive. Now, members here will know—certainly my constituents know—for the last few years I have been pushing incredibly hard, through a petition and otherwise, for an upgrade, a comprehensive upgrade, of Tāmaki Drive. Many in this House, I’m sure, have come up. It’s the best road—well, the road itself is pretty appalling, but in terms of the view from the road it’s quite remarkable. It’s absolutely stunning. In fact, I might throw just a quick line in to Auckland Transport: please don’t use Tāmaki Drive as a bus park.

But I thought in the spirit of cooperation, I would suggest to the Minister that he may just receive some support from the good, hard-working voters of Tāmaki for this further imposed regional fuel tax scheme if he commits tonight to fund a comprehensive upgrade of Tāmaki Drive. The Minister will be delighted—I’m sure he is just beside himself with joy at the moment—to know that there is a very good plan in place for Tāmaki Drive. The implementation of the regional fuel tax would be relatively easy. This is not unplanned. It is uncosted, but I’m relatively confident, with the huge amount of money that this regional fuel tax is going to draw in, that in fact Tāmaki Drive will be well upgraded for all people who use it, from the buses to the rowers, to the cyclists, to the walkers, and to the mums with perambulators and those who wish to go for a pericombobulation at this time of the day—“pericombobulation”, for Hansard. It’s a way forward, Minister. I hope you would consider it. Look, the people of Tāmaki are generally not friends of the Labour Party, but you might just buy one extra vote in Tāmaki by supporting this tabled amendment.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, it’s my first call in this—I hope I get a number more on this particular bill. But I have an amendment in my name to exclude the area of the Marlborough District Council from this legislation, and the reason I do that is for the concern of my constituents. In the Marlborough Sounds, people who live on D’Urville Island face not just a boat trip but a car trip to buy their groceries. They’ll be driving for 2½ hours and they’ll have to go across French Pass in order to get in the car and drive into the fine town of Blenheim to get their groceries, and that’s a huge extra cost that they will have to pay. It’s a cost that they have to bear and, unfortunately, there isn’t a tram or a trolley, and I’m unaware of any plans to put a trolley or a tram out to D’Urville Island.

💬 Hon Tim Macindoe: Don’t they matter?

Well, you would wonder. The member raises a very good point that, actually, people who live in regional New Zealand, they matter. Actually, they are the ones that are the buttresses for our economy, and they ensure that the rest of us have a standard of living that we all are able to strive for and we expect in this country.

Fortunately, on this side of the House, we stand for regional New Zealand and we understand regional New Zealand. It’s a great pity—it’s a great pity—that “Matua Shane”, he needs to come out to regional New Zealand and actually learn something about it, because there’s a lot that makes regional New Zealand tick that he does not understand. I’m surprised there, Mark Patterson, that you haven’t actually helped him out with that, but never mind. I will endeavour to help educate him tonight, because the costs are disproportionate on people who live hours away from a shopping centre to do their weekly shop. They can’t do it daily because of the time it would cost and the fuel costs that this bill would impose on top of people’s day-to-day living costs. It’s simply inequitable.

But it’s more than the Marlborough Sounds, as important as they are. If we go up the Awatere Valley, for example, it’s another two-hour drive to get your groceries, going in the other direction. Those people all worthy New Zealanders who deserve to have a fair standard of living, and you’re taking it away from them—that’s what you’re doing. You’re adding costs on to people—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I’m not.

Not the chair, Madam Chair—of course not you.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Amateur.

Well, that’s right—it is an amateur bill. I totally agree with you, Kieran McAnulty. It is amateur hour in the Government, and it’s quite obvious to see. I mean, question time today was bad enough, but this is just ridiculous, this bill, I’d have to say. And when we see the costs that would be disproportionately pushed on to these hard-working New Zealanders, it is just ridiculous. I think it’s a very regressive tax anyway, and I would have thought those people living in South Auckland would have been the ones that that party across the way would have been most concerned about, but it doesn’t appear to be the case.

Can I say also, in the farming sector this fuel cost will be borne on them, and they operate in a world commodity market and are unable to pass those costs down the line. It’s simply taking a little bit more out of their bottom line every time they fill they tractor and every time they fill the truck or the car or the farm quad. That is just simply not an equitable tax, and I can’t believe that one of the parties across that way who purports to support regional New Zealand doesn’t understand that very simple fact.

Then if we turn to the small fishing businesses and aquaculture, who are also totally reliant on fuel in their boats to go out and put food on the family table and to supply fish in the markets for all of New Zealand and the benefit of all New Zealanders, they are paying a very heavy price because of this misguided—and I can’t really understand why they have thought about this, because councils could actually cut that amount of money out of their expenditure if they simply focused on it. Businesses do know how to cut costs because they have competition. Councils are not a business. They are not actually able to focus on how to get fat out of a system and be more efficient. They’re certainly not noted for being the most efficient entities in this country.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I rise to give my very first of, no doubt, many contributions in this extraordinary debate this afternoon. It absolutely does need comprehensive consideration and discussion. I can see the members on the other side shaking their heads. Well, this is a very flawed piece of legislation—very flawed. Quite frankly, I’ve heard it on a couple of occasions, in terms of the contributions so far this evening. If you knew how to run an economy as a Government, you wouldn’t need to be able to put a bill like this saying that we need to tax New Zealand to be able to fund roads in Auckland, and what’s worse—as my colleague Nick Smith has expressed from his constituents’ perspective, tax the regions to fund the roads in Auckland.

It’s very, very poor legislation, but I accept that if you look across and listen to the arguments of the Government, it is likely that across their very, very slim coalition of three parties they may well have the numbers to get this poor piece of legislation through. So it’s incumbent on us to look for opportunities to take a very poor piece of legislation and improve it.

So in that spirit of goodwill, I suggest an amendment in my name, which is affecting clause 5, and specifically relates to a new section 65EA, which makes it categorically clear that any regional fuel tax proposal that seeks to establish a regional fuel tax in the Bay of Plenty region must propose to fund the roading of our particular region. This is a very, very critical point, because the region of the Bay of Plenty—and in particular my community of Tauranga—has an absolute expectation that the road from Katikati all the way through to Tauranga will have a road of national significance, and has an expectation that if a regional fuel tax does get passed, then we have the opportunity, in time, to be able to ensure that any regional taxation from our community gets spent on that road, and my goodness me, does that road and that infrastructure need investment.

In fact, the previous Government had the first quarter of that road, called the Tauranga Northern Link, already at the tender stage.

💬 Hon David Bennett: What happened?

Quite remarkably, that has been stopped. It is an absolute disgrace. There are accidents every week on that stretch of road—650 accidents in the last seven years. It was at the tender stage, and because of the incompetence, I would argue, of the policy setting of this Government, this has not been able to be progressed.

So it is absolutely critical that if this flawed legislation passes, legislation that is going to tax New Zealanders and tax the regions, then certainly I have an expectation that the region of the Bay of Plenty, through this, I think, well-thought-through amendment to insert new section 65EA—and I commend it to the Government side. They seem quite distracted at the moment, looking at the ceiling. It’ll be an opportunity for reflect on the good thinking that underpins this particular amendment that enables my region to be able to get access to this funding and to be able to build a road that will change people’s lives from the moment that it gets built.

I can see the smiles on the other side, but this actually counts. In actual regional New Zealand, this counts. It actually means something to stand behind a commitment and say, “If we’re going to build it, we build it.” We said that we would build this road. You guys come along and say, “You know what? We’re not going to build it, and we’re going to spend the money up in Auckland. And”—what’s worse—“we’re going to put the capacity to charge the regions to fund the Auckland roads.” And then you have the audacity to shout across the Chamber and say this is the way we should run infrastructure funding in New Zealand.

It is flawed. It is absolutely flawed and, in my opinion, it does not pass the smell test of a Government that’s done the thinking. It’s been rushed, and what’s worse, Madam Chair, is that the good Minister to your right, the Hon Phil Twyford, hasn’t had the respect to be able to come down and see this road with his own eyes, despite being asked specifically by me to attend.

I move, That the question be now put.

I call Erica Stanford.

💬 Hon Members: It’s Denise Lee.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Oh, sorry. I beg your pardon.

That’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. I’m 10 years Erica Stanford’s senior, so I’m happy with that, thanks very much.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): My apologies.

💬 Hon Member: That’s a good amendment.

Ha! That is a good amendment.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I need to put my glasses on.

Madam Chair, thank you so much for allowing me to take the call. I want to speak to an amendment in my name, and I’m very, very happy to have this amendment tabled. It is amending new section 65A in clause 5. There are a number of amendments tonight that are tabling exemptions to new section 65A. Some of those are the commercial farming operations—so exemptions for farming operations undertaken commercially—commercial tourism operations that occur off road, and also commercial horticultural activities. So they’re all amendments for exemptions under some of my colleagues’ names, but I’m incredibly proud tonight to have a particular amendment to new section 65A for an exemption for any vehicle that is primarily operated by members of, and for the purposes of, a registered charity.

As we might know and imagine tonight here, volunteering is an essential element of our society, of a civil society. We need volunteers to turn New Zealand around and keep the cogs turning. All New Zealanders at one stage in their lives, they’re going to volunteer somehow, in some way, shape, or form. We’re all the beneficiaries—aren’t we—and have experienced volunteerism in the assistance and aid into our own lives. Sometimes they’re families, sometimes they’re friends—direct or indirect, we’re beneficiaries.

New Zealand has 97,000 non-profit organisations contributing 2.6 percent to our GDP, so the case for and the basis for honouring our volunteers is incredibly strong. It increases that contribution to GDP to 4.9 percent, if you take into account the volunteer labour contribution, which is equivalent to the entire construction sector. So this is the volume and the importance of what volunteers do, and who are they are for New Zealand, and need I underscore that this week is National Volunteer Week,

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

Yes it is. There are more than 1.2 million volunteers, who give more than 270 million hours of unpaid labour to the sector—1.2 million volunteers. Let’s isolate it now, for the purposes of this bill, to Auckland. Auckland would have a huge, substantial chunk of those volunteers operating and volunteering and giving their amazing efforts and energy, heart, and care into Auckland.

The voluntary sector for New Zealand often competes for reducing pools of volunteers. Unfortunately, that’s where society is going. It’s tough yards out there to get volunteers, and as a result they’re having to rely on being more creative to garner those volunteers. So wouldn’t it be good if the Minister accepted my amendment, which asks for something quite straightforward, quite simple, and that is to allow any vehicle primarily operated by members of, and for the purposes of, a registered charity to be locked and loaded for—and volunteers that we honour and that we want to have still engaged in Auckland. Of course, we all know that this fuel tax is going wider to the country, so we’re also talking about volunteers all around the country.

The Government has so far not been willing to admit how hard this fuel tax will hit low-income earners. Perhaps they’ll be willing to admit that this amendment would be of assistance to volunteers. They will be hit. Now, I ran a charitable organisation—in fact, I co-founded one myself—so I know full well, in Auckland, what it takes to get around, to be stuck in traffic, and to need to take up some of those precious resources that voluntary organisations have. So this small measure, which would go a huge way to support volunteers in this National Volunteer Week, is something that we implore the Minister and the Government to pick up tonight. When it comes time to vote, do the right thing and support volunteer organisations. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on this bill. This is my first opportunity, and I hope to actually speak in this debate. Considering the fact that I have never done this before—table an amendment in my name—I hope I don’t completely cock it up. I haven’t actually felt so passionate about other bills as I have about this.

Do you know, one of the things was that I was actually sitting when other members have talked about it, and I have to say that the member who just sat down is my sister from another mother—Denise Lee. You know, I agree with her in terms of the exemption, and my amendment is also to clause 5. It is to amend the definition of “exempt use” in new section 65A, and it will add paragraph (f) to the definition. What it basically does is—apart from the volunteers, as my learned colleague Denise Lee has said, I would like to include emergency services like the New Zealand Police, the fire service, the St John’s Ambulance service, and the Wellington Free Ambulance service as well, because they have such a little pot of money.

Recently, I was at a fund-raiser for the St John’s Ambulance service that the ethnic communities do—actually, it is a Taiwanese businesswomen’s association that does a fund-raising event for them. Every so often, they do this fund-raising dinner and they raise enough money—just enough money—to deliver them a rapid-response vehicle for the St John’s Ambulance. Because St John’s Ambulance is not completely funded, they rely on donations and on the goodness of the community to actually deliver for them, and to slap another tax on these people—the police, the fire service, St John’s Ambulance, the Wellington Free Ambulance service—is shameful. It is an absolute shame that this Government wants to tax these services that do an amazing job for New Zealanders.

I mean, what I think should actually happen is that the current Mayor of Auckland should not be spending almost a million dollars deciding whether there is actually feasibility in moving Eden Park to downtown Auckland—spending almost a million dollars in consulting to decide whether Eden Park should go to downtown Auckland. Instead, now he actually wants to tax—this Government wants to tax ordinary New Zealanders for their petrol, including these emergency services, who do an amazing job.

I believe that the emergency services should be excluded from the tax that this Government is trying to put on all of New Zealand. The police service—you know, having actually talked about the police and praised them before, they do an absolutely amazing job. They are there when people need them. Every single emergency worker puts—

💬 Matt King: They catch the crims and lock ’em up.

—their life on the line. Actually, the police—they do. They have done that. You know, I have been a victim of crime—I have actually said that in this House before—when I had a home invasion in my house, and I was ringing the emergency services. They were there so fast, and were having to calm me down to make sure that I wasn’t actually going irrational and that I was talking to them. I think they should not be taxed extra fuel tax for the great work that they do. I mean, considering the fact that there are thousands of vehicles operating—whether it’s the fire trucks or the police cars or the ambulances, there are so many cars on our roads that do amazing work for these organisations, and I do not believe that they should be taxed.

So I’d like to table my amendment in my name in the committee stage to amend new section 65A, to add a new paragraph (f) under the definition of “exempt use”, to make sure that all of the emergency services such as the fire service, the New Zealand Police, the St John’s Ambulance service, and the Wellington Free Ambulance services—and any others that I haven’t actually thought about, hopefully—are exempt from this tax.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A very timely call, because my proposed amendment in my name actually follows on quite nicely from what we have just heard from Melissa Lee. I am proposing a further amendment under new section 65A in clause 5 to incorporate any vehicle or equipment that is primarily operated for the purposes of and in the course of operations for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). Having been a member of the New Zealand Defence Force for a number of years, I can certainly understand and appreciate the need for an exemption in this space.

Firstly, I’d like to start by acknowledging the fantastic work that all members of our New Zealand Defence Force conduct, both onshore and offshore, in their roles and their service for New Zealand. Further to that, I think it’s appropriate to acknowledge that to be operationally ready, which the New Zealand Defence Force always aims to be, it takes significant ongoing training to maintain, develop, and enhance those skills.

Now any aspect of that training, typically, will incorporate some form of vehicle. Logistics is a huge part of any defence operation. Without logistics, you don’t have a firm base to shift you around to get where you need to be to achieve what you want to get done. So that is a major part of any operation, and when we conduct training exercises, there’s a detailed budget that is worked through at the officer level to determine what the costings are for any specific training exercise. Of course, fuel comes into that as well, and so in this particular instance, I think it’s really important to acknowledge the need to exempt the New Zealand Defence Force from this regional fuel tax, because otherwise we’re just going to see an additional cost burden on them that, actually, they have no further income to offset, and to enable them to continue to provide the expected level of training and competencies that they are tasked to achieve.

Now if you consider the Auckland region covered by this fuel tax, there are, of course, a number of bases operating within that region, and also a number of other training areas that are utilised by the NZDF for a range of different tasks and operations. So it’s really important that we have the ability to exempt them so that they can conduct training per their expected level of competence to make sure that they maintain that operational readiness, not simply for deployments offshore but, of course, to make sure that we’re able to respond in any civil defence emergencies as well. Actually, it was disappointing to note in the Budget that we had recently that there was not a significant increase for the New Zealand Defence Force, despite what we had heard from the Minister of Defence, Ron Mark, earlier on.

Look, I would just note that having this additional burden placed on their budgets from a training perspective in terms of the additional fuel costs would make it significantly harder to actually achieve their desired outcomes from a training perspective, and that’s really important when we look at what budget is set within the NZDF structure for specific training exercises, etc. So that would be one area that I’d really encourage Minister Phil Twyford to consider exempting, and I would welcome any feedback he has on that, if he is to take another call.

Now, another amendment I had under my name was with regard to the same clause 5, new section 65A, another exemption that I think is appropriate—in this case, to exempt any vehicles used in the course of commercial tourism operations that occur off-road. So we’re talking here about four-wheel drive tours, quad bike tours, two-wheel motorbike tours, etc. There’s a number of operators around the Auckland region that would fall under this category: places like Scenic Off-Road 4x4 Tours, Trackwise 4WD, the Waiheke BBQ Tour, Waiheke Safaris, 4 Track Adventures—all these tourism operators, who contribute significantly to the overall tourism income that we as New Zealand enjoy, and who would be captured by this tax as well. So I think it’s important to exempt them, given that they are not using our roading network for any of their specific tours or operating aspects of their business conduct. So that would be another area that I would ask the Minister to consider exempting as well.

Just on that aspect, from the tourism side, of course, we’ve just heard a recent announcement around including now a tourism tax for people coming into the country, and now we’re talking about—if these operators were not exempted—having an additional cost to operating their business, which would most likely be passed on to the end user. So we’ve got tourists coming in and being hit with a new tax and hit with an increased cost as well. So I’d encourage exemption for that amendment as well.

I move, That the question be now put.

I just ask members to bear with me while we go through the voting. We will take it slowly to make sure that every amendment is addressed.

💬 Hon Member: Fair call. Don’t want to confuse them.

Or me.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 43 in the name of the Hon Phil Twyford to clause 5 be agreed to.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. Under Speaker’s ruling 117/2—a ruling made by Speaker Smith back in 2010—where the committee has negatived a number of amendments that have substantially the same effect, the Chair can, effectively, rule further amendments to do the same thing out of order. The committee has now voted down a series of amendments, all, effectively, doing the same thing but with a slightly different effect in that they exempt a different group of people—[Interruption]

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Points of order are heard in silence.

Therefore, I’ll put it to you, Madam Chair, that you would now consider—in the spirit of the wider ruling that goes with this ruling that Speaker Smith made at the time, which was to stop the committee having to contend for hours on end with dealing with very similar amendments—ruling the remaining amendments out of order.

I notice that the Leader of the House has just suggested that all of the amendments have been similar in nature, but, in fact, the amendment that we are voting on at the moment in my name refers to commercial rural purposes, which is substantially different from the horticultural amendments that we have voted on previously. If we were to say that all of those should be conflated in that way, then there really wouldn’t be any point in considering amendments at all. Yet my colleagues have tonight put forward a vast array of amendments across a substantially wide range of topics, and I would suggest to you that it’s a cute attempt by the Leader of the House, but it certainly doesn’t apply to these amendments.

I thank the members. The question of the number of different amendments that have been put and whether they have all had the same effect is actually for the Chair to decide, and, in fairness, to compare it with the ruling that Speaker Smith gave, when we were considering 30,000 as against less than a dozen, is hardly a fair comparison. However, I do take the point, and I did consider it and decided that the exemptions requested were different enough that it was worthwhile proceeding.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tim Macindoe to clause 5 be agreed to:

in the definition of exempt use in new section 65A, insert after paragraph (e) the following paragraph:

(f) any use for commercial rural activities.