Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I sense you’re about to put the House back into committee. I wish to move an instruction. Would this be an appropriate time to do so?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, I’m prepared to hear it.

I move, That it be an instruction to the committee of the whole House on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill that all members wishing to speak that have already spoken in Part 2 have the ability to have a full four calls reset to zero so each member is able to restart their speaking number.

I move this instruction because I think it’s important, given the House has just—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, this is a point of order.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: No, he’s moved on to debating it, I assume.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I still understand he’s taking a point of order. I will allow the member to speak to the point of order, of course.

Well, Madam Chair, when one takes a point of order to let the member speaking—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker—it’s been a long night. That’s why the Government’s taking urgency. When a member moves an instruction, a member does so by way of point of order, and I’m continuing with that. I have the ability, once I’ve moved an instruction, to debate that. I now wish to do so.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That is clearly out of order, as it’s an instruction to the presiding officers.

Point of order.

Are you speaking to the point of order or is this a different point of order? I had a point of order from the Hon Chris Hipkins. Are you speaking to that?

I’m speaking to that. The House has the ability to issue an instruction to the committee on how it should consider speeches and how it should consider the debate. My instruction says to the committee that it is instructed, and the presiding officer within a committee is required to be bound by an instruction from the House as well. My instruction says that the committee should consider this bill as if members have a fresh opportunity to debate that and have their call number reset to zero. That is quite within the House’s right to do so.

I’ve heard enough. I’m just going to get some advice. Under Standing Order 176, “(1) An instruction may be given to a committee of the whole House extending or restricting its powers in regard to consideration of the bill or other matter referred to it”, so the motion is in order. I will accept that motion. That is now debatable.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I debate this instruction, and I move this instruction very seriously. I do so because we’re in an extraordinary situation where the House has just resumed because the Minister in the chair moved that the progress be reported. Once progress was reported, the House was then put into urgency. That is the right of the Government, but when the House takes urgency, and when the Government takes such an extraordinary step as to—midway through a debate; midway through the consideration of a committee stage—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I was incorrect, and you are correct. However, Standing Order 176(6) states that where an instruction only relates to increasing the number of questions the committee is to debate, there is no debate on that motion.

Speaking to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You have already ruled. You ruled that I am able to debate this. You ruled that this is a debatable motion. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr Hipkins has belatedly found something in the Standing Orders, you’ve made a ruling now. You have the right to make that ruling. I have the right to debate it because you’ve made that ruling.

In fact, that is correct. I have made a ruling, and it is debatable, and the debate will continue.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you questioning my ruling or is this a fresh point of order?

It’s in relation to the ability to debate. The clock hadn’t started, so I wasn’t sure how long the member was going to be able to debate for—whether it was five minutes or 10 minutes.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, it is 10 minutes.

Thank you. I think this is the third attempt now to take this, and I think that just highlights for the members around that’ll be making a decision on how they wish to vote on this instruction that we have such an extraordinary night. I say it’s an extraordinary night, and it’s extraordinary move for me to move this instruction because we do have such an extraordinary situation.

The extraordinary situation we have, where we’ve just had the Government put the House into urgency, means that we are now in a position where we are having to take urgency on a matter that is to do with taxation, a matter that we weren’t expecting we would be in urgency under, and a situation where we, quite legitimately, as the Opposition, were using our ability to put up amendments, our ability to put up arguments, our ability to delay the passage of a piece of legislation that we believe is dangerous. We should now have more of an opportunity to put forward arguments, put forward amendments, and put forward very valid reasons why this bill should not progress—because the House has taken urgency, because midway through the process, because midway through the consideration of this bill, the Government’s had a complete change of tack and the Government’s had a complete change in situation, where they’re having to now take urgency on this. It wasn’t expected. They are in a position where they’re now embarrassed. They are in a position where they’ve had to do something that I haven’t seen in the seven years I’ve been here. We should have had the opportunity to have our calls reset to zero.

The reason I suggest this is because there’s an important principle in play when the House considers something in urgency, or when the committee considers something in urgency, because the normal rules around tight speeches, the normal rules around ensuring members are kept very tightly to the debating points, the rules around ensuring that our amendments are considered and not too broad—those rules get moved out quite a lot when we go into urgency. There’s very clear precedent that when the committee’s considering a bill under urgency, the parameters broaden considerably. The parameters broaden in such a way that the Opposition has more opportunity to put forward amendments, the Opposition has more opportunity to test in the committee whether or not we should be putting forward new parts, and the Opposition has the ability to try and go even further to delay the legislation, because the House has taken an extraordinary move to take urgency.

So if the Opposition has the ability to, under an urgent situation, broaden its parameters, broaden its debate, broaden the amendments that we may put forward, it’s only fair and reasonable that we have our call number reduced back to zero, because the situation we were operating under for many, many hours—and I accept we worked hard on that, and I accept the Government didn’t like it, and I accept we sent them into a position where they had to take urgency. But the fact that we were able to do that and the fact that we now have a situation where the House is in urgency, about to put the House into committee stage, we should have a fresh go.

We should have a fresh go because the rules of engagement have changed. We should have a fresh go because the way in which the committee now has to consider the bill and the way in which we all operate as members of Parliament—the playing field’s changed. So if the playing field’s changed, if the Government’s now in a position where they’ve been embarrassed into taking urgency because the opposition to a regional fuel tax is so strong that the Opposition has utilised its full might and muscle to delay the legislation and they’re now having to take urgency, we deserve a good, proper go to do so under urgency in those circumstances.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you were listening to the debate a lot, both in your office and when you were presiding as the Chair in the committee. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we were working hard to ensure we kept our debate tight, and we were working hard to ensure we had new amendments that were legitimate. You know that we were working exceptionally hard to debate this properly. We were doing what Oppositions do.

Oppositions have the right in the Parliament to delay legislation. Oppositions have the right in the Parliament to stand up and express a view on behalf of New Zealanders about why a dangerous piece of legislation shouldn’t proceed. Oppositions have long held the ability to delay a Government and to impede their legislative programme. That’s what we’ve done. That’s what we’ve managed to do. That’s what we’ve managed to force the Government into—an embarrassing situation. But because they’ve taken an extraordinary step—and I say it’s an extraordinary step because we didn’t expect it. I say it’s an extraordinary step because it was never signalled. I say it’s an extraordinary step because the Government—the Leader of the House has never at any point in time that I’ve seen in the media said, “Hey, we’re going to be taking urgency on this piece of legislation.” We deserve a full go. We deserve the full set of calls.

So I ask that the House give serious consideration to this instruction. I ask that the Government, in fact, allow us a full go. OK, they’ve taken urgency now. They’re going to lose their select committees tomorrow. I don’t know if there’s any—

💬 Chris Bishop: Kelvin Davis?

—oh, Kelvin Davis is on tomorrow. I don’t know if there are any committees that are going to be doing Estimates hearings, but those opportunities have been lost, and I know the Government wouldn’t do that unless they felt strongly that this has to happen. So I say to the House: if this is such an issue where the Government feels so strongly that it wants to take urgency.

💬 Hon Member: Repetition.

I’m allowed to be repetitious. They have just put the House into urgency. It’s an extraordinary step, and it wasn’t expected. So I say: if this is going to proceed, then the House needs to give consideration to this instruction so that we get a fair whack at it, so we get a fair opportunity to speak to the bill afresh, so we can put new amendments up, and so we can ensure that this gets a full debate.

I move, That the motion be amended to delete all the words after “That” and replace them with “That it be an instruction to the committee that the remaining questions on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be put without further debate.”

It is an interesting approach for the Opposition to take to put this motion before the House. It does suggest that the majority of the House be empowered to instruct the Chair as to how they should exercise their discretion. That has been ruled within order, and therefore it is within order for the House to instruct the Chair not to take any further calls on that matter, which, of course, will bring the debate to a much faster conclusion, and it will be a much more satisfactory outcome from the Government’s perspective.

I’d encourage the Opposition to consider, when they decide to encourage the rules of the House to be changed, the ultimate precedent value that that creates and where that may well land up, because, ultimately, the power will remain with the majority in the House in those situations. So I welcome the fact that the House is now being given the opportunity to instruct the committee as to how many speeches there should be on the remaining stages of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, and I believe that this is a very sound amendment that will ensure that the integrity of the House is preserved.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. What an extraordinary time we are in. I just want to be clear, for members in the House, newer members—well, they’re not here, but newer members from New Zealand First and from the Greens—and for the members of the public who are interested. I know in Auckland they’re particularly interested in this debate. I just want to be clear for the House about what the Leader of the House has moved. What he has moved: firstly, that the House will go into urgency on two taxation bills—and we’ll come to that point because it’s very important—but the amendment to the motion means that the debate on the committee stage of the bill will be completely cut off.

This is an extraordinary abuse of Government power and, frankly, I am surprised that the Leader of the House has resorted to something like this. I actually am genuinely surprised, because I was a staffer and an MP in Parliament when Chris Hipkins railed against the use of urgency—it was despotic, it was dictatorial, and it was the Government using its majority to override the minority and free and fair debate. So I am just staggered that we are in here in the House tonight debating an urgency motion, essentially, on the cusp of the lifting of the House at 10 o’clock at night on a Wednesday, and we’re going to start again tomorrow morning because the Government is so incompetent that they can’t organise their Order Paper properly.

I want to make three points about why my good colleague Jami-Lee Ross’ motion should be supported, and, of course, the point of the motion is to allow members who have spoken already to continue to speak on the committee stages of the regional fuel tax legislation. The first point I want to make is that these are bills dealing with taxation. I make that point very seriously. The whole structure of our constitution rests on the idea that the Government governs with the consent of Parliament, and the appropriate mechanism for testing whether or not the Government enjoys the confidence of the House is confidence motions. Now, obviously, the Speech from the Throne—that’s the very first test of whether or not a Government enjoys the confidence of the House. The Governor-General stands up and reads out what the Government’s written—what the Prime Minister’s written, or a staffer for the Prime Minister.

So that’s the first test. But then the secondary test is what happens when we have the Budgets, the imprest supply bills, the Supplementary Estimates bills, and, of course, the appropriation bills, like we’ve just finished—I think we’re still actually debating that at the moment—and, of course, those are confidence motions. What that means is the Government is able to tax money, take money from New Zealanders, and spend it on their behalf in the way that the Government decides to do—that’s the whole point. The Government lays out the reams of documents—and members on this side have enjoyed going through those over the last few weeks—and they put it before the House and the Minister of Finance goes around and hands out the Budget documents. Then the Parliament and the select committees—and the Finance and Expenditure Committee lead this—go through and make sure that the Government is actually spending the money on the right things. They test that.

So taxation is of critical constitutional importance. These are not ordinary bills. These are not bills that are just everyday, run-of-the-mill legislation bills—the Military Justice Legislation Amendment Bill, which I think’s meant to be on the Order Paper for tomorrow, which I was looking forward to debating, but it turns out it’ll probably be debated in a couple of weeks’ time, once we’ve finally finished the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. But taxation bills have a special place in our constitutional and legislative framework because it is the biggest power the State enjoys—or one of the biggest powers the State enjoys. The power to lock someone up and the power to prosecute and charge is an important one, but the power to, with the barrel of a gun, expropriate money from people in what would otherwise be theft—right? In the ordinary course of events, taking money from someone is theft, but we legislate to legalise that, to allow that to happen—and no one’s arguing taxation is theft. I’m not making that point, but I’m making the point that in our constitutional framework the power to tax is exceptional and important.

We are dealing—I mean, it’s not just the regional fuel tax. This was the Taxation (Neutralising Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Bill. Taking one look at it—there’s a large number of sections to it. I remember when this was first introduced to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, that I sit on. This deals with extraordinarily important matters to do with multinational companies, to do with the way that they organise their financial affairs, and what the Leader of the House has essentially done is said, not just in relation to the regional fuel tax bill, but the Taxation (Neutralising Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Bill—“No more debate.” In fact, we haven’t even started the debate on that.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: No, that’s not what the amendment was.

Oh, you’re not amending that. OK, it’s just the regional fuel tax. Well, the point still remains that this will be going through under urgency and the first point is that taxation is extremely important for the House to pay cognisance to, and therefore it’s important that we have a wider debate.

The second point I want to make as to why this motion should be supported is that we on this side of the House have organised ourselves around the idea of no urgency. This was never advised by the Government until now. This has been sprung on us, literally on the cusp of the House rising on a Wednesday night. There are members not here and members who will be here next week who have organised themselves around speaking on this bill, and they will have their opportunity to speak on the regional fuel tax bill cut off by what the Government is doing.

Look, frankly, there are members around the country who want a chance to come down here and move amendments and speak on the bill. This is not a bill that’s just limited to Auckland, as has been widely canvassed. There are regional councils lining up around the country. In fact, it’d be easier to completely rename it, because there’s not a council in the country that doesn’t want the opportunity—or it seems like there’s not a council in the country—to levy more taxation on the hard-working members of those regional councils. So the point is that members here have organised ourselves to give ourselves the ability to speak at a particular time, and the Government, by the stint of this extraordinarily arrogant and contemptuous action, has turned up—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: It’s vindictive.

It’s vindictive. My colleague Jami-Lee Ross says it’s vindictive. It is completely vindictive. Through sheer ineptitude, through sheer incompetence, and through an arrogance that is worryingly frequent and common for this Government, we find ourselves at the dead of night, basically, stuck into urgency. No more select committees tomorrow. We had Kelvin Davis up tomorrow morning. I mean, frankly, we were really looking forward to having Kelvin Davis up for the Estimates, but now we will no longer. So that’s the second point.

The third point is that committees of the whole have traditionally had a wider scope when considering bills under urgency.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)