Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When this Government came to office, we discovered that my predecessor as transport Minister, Simon Bridges, had left a multibillion-dollar hole in his Auckland transport plan—not a hole that had been concocted for political purposes but an actual fiscal hole that had been reported earlier last year as around $5 billion but, as we found out when we took office, it was in fact $9 billion. That meant that important transport projects that the former National Government had promised could not be funded nor built. They would have remained just promises on paper.

The regional fuel tax contained in this Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill fixes that fiscal hole. It will mean that $4.3 billion of extra funding for Auckland transport over the next decade will be available, only $1.5 billion of which comes from the regional fuel tax itself. That means that we have been able to present a fully funded 10-year plan for Auckland Transport—a record investment in the transport system of our country’s biggest city.

We’ve just been through a nine-year experiment in underfunding Auckland transport, and the results are there for everyone to see. Road deaths and serious injuries have risen sharply, way beyond the increase in population or the number of vehicles on the roads. The roads are clogged, and congestion is costing Auckland $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Our public transport system is under strain and needs urgent upgrading.

Auckland is not the only region where there is a critical and urgent need for greater investment in transport infrastructure. The previous Government cut transport funding in regions right across New Zealand, and I hear the calls from other councils around this country for greater investment, but for this term of the Parliament the regional fuel tax will be limited to Auckland alone. That is what we campaigned on, and that’s what this Government will deliver. Other regions will benefit from our increased funding for regional and local roads and a much greater, new focus on safety.

For Auckland, only the regional fuel tax can deliver the level of investment needed to fund the infrastructure that the city so desperately needs. The Leader of the Opposition claims that we should fund this investment out of Government surpluses instead. When he was asked how he would fill the gap that would be left in Auckland’s transport plan by a hypothetical National Government cancelling the regional fuel tax, he said, “We would fund it from growth.” Well, there are a couple of big problems with that. The first is that it goes against this Government’s principle that Auckland should contribute its fair share to transport investment—not by putting the whole cost on the rest of the country. Secondly, smaller surpluses mean more debt, and the same person demanding that we spend more with no extra revenue is also demanding that we run less debt.

In contradiction to Simon Bridges, Jami-Lee Ross says that I should lean on Auckland Council to make them cut $150 million a year from their spending to replace the regional fuel tax revenue. Of course, I did discuss this with Mayor Phil Goff, but here’s the reality: most of any increase in Auckland Council spending in recent years has been on infrastructure—mostly transport and mostly roads. What road projects would National cancel in order to fund their transport plan, and what kind of a silly money-go-round would that policy be?

The reality is simple. If we’re to have less revenue to pay for transport, we would have to run more debt, cancel projects, or both. The Opposition is asking us to simultaneously have less revenue, less debt, and spend more. The maths don’t add up, and National needs to come clean and tell us which projects they would cut. Would they cut Penlink—would they cut Penlink? Would they cut Mill Road? Would they cut eight different park-and-rides that will be funded by the regional fuel tax?

Here’s a list of the $4.3 billion of projects that the regional fuel tax will fund: $898 million in roading improvements and new roads to meet population growth; $753 million for the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative busway, which will deliver a massive transport improvement in Botany, after nine years of no investment in that electorate; and $708 million for Mill Road and Penlink, two vital roading projects that National talked about but did nothing about for nine long years and then spread fake news that our Government was going to cancel those projects. There’s $552 million for road safety—targeted safety improvements in Auckland’s roading network, which are forecast to lead to a 60 percent drop in deaths and serious injuries. There’s $396 million for electric trains, including 20 more trains to keep up with surging demand; $342 million for walking and cycling, including 125 kilometres of new cycleways; $334 million for bus improvements and airport access, including 200 kilometres of bus priority improvements; and $299 million for public transport infrastructure, including more park-and-rides and ferry wharf development. This is a massive list of transport projects, none of which would happen without the regional fuel tax.

What the National Party doesn’t seem to understand is that there is no magic money tree to pay for these transport projects, and you’d think they’d know that, because they left a $9 billion hole in their transport plan that they had no explanation for.

Let’s be clear that Auckland Council will be accountable for how it uses this money. It’s important that Auckland Council doesn’t just start projects but it completes them, on time and on budget. For that reason, this bill provides for appropriate Crown oversight of any revenue raised, tight controls on the use of that revenue, a ministerial review procedure, and ongoing public reporting to provide transparency to the public. But let’s be clear about one more thing: take this regional fuel tax away, and Auckland would be back in the position of having empty promises of projects and no money to pay for them.

This Government could have followed in the path of the former National Government. We could have promised transport projects and never built them. We could have forced the rest of New Zealand to pay the full costs of Auckland’s growth. I could have copied Simon Bridges and presented an Auckland transport plan with a multibillion-dollar hole in the heart of it, and it would be easy to talk big with no money to pay for it and to put the vital infrastructure investments on hold, as the last Government did for nine years, holding back the growth and prosperity of our country’s biggest city. But I wanted to be honest with the public. This Government wants to actually build the infrastructure that our country’s biggest city needs. That costs money. It has to come from somewhere, and we are already paying the price of doing nothing in congestion, lost productivity, and lives.

Aucklanders want this problem fixed. They want a Government that will get on and fix the gridlock. They know that it can’t be done for free. They know the price of the last nine years of under-investment, because they pay it every day in the traffic. This regional fuel tax allows us to undertake the most ambitious transport construction plan in New Zealand history. It’s time to get on with it, time to stop talking about it—let’s do this.

We know from Minister Twyford’s interjection, or explanation, a short time ago that we can’t actually believe much of what he says, and I think, looking back and listening to that speech from the Minister, I don’t believe much of what he says, either. The primary reason why this legislation is before the House—and I acknowledge we’re at the end of the road now, after a long, tortuous process where the Minister has actually ended up killing public support for fuel taxes. At the end of the road here, the reason why this House is passing this piece of legislation is because it lets the Auckland Council off the hook.

Phil Goff seems to think it’s bad for this side of the House to expect the Auckland Council to find savings. It was his own former colleague that went into an election saying that he would find 3 percent to 6 percent savings within the Auckland Council’s budget. It was his own colleague that said after the election, to the media, that that’s what would be happening. But it turns out that’s not possible, according to Phil Goff and the Auckland Council, and so Phil Twyford rode into town and said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s go and tax people more, up to 11.5c a litre.”

But it doesn’t stop at that. It goes even further than that, because the reason why Phil Twyford has killed support for petrol taxes is because, on top of his 11.5c a litre for a regional fuel tax, he’s also proposing nationwide fuel tax increases. The total cumulative effect of what Phil Twyford has put on the table for Aucklanders and people around the country to pay is up to 25c a litre, and that’s why, when Auckland Council polled this issue of a regional fuel tax, they actually found a bit of support—52 percent were in support—but, since then, support’s been dropping. Since the Minister has been out there failing to promote and promise and do a good job of promoting his fuel taxes, now we see 58 percent of people are opposed to the regional fuel tax—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: 58 percent?

—58 percent opposed, from a poll from the very same company.

The fact of the matter too is that there is no single existence of there being public consultation where there’s been support for this regional fuel tax. The Auckland Council held a public consultation: more people opposed than in support. They held a second public consultation: a majority of people opposed. When the Finance and Expenditure Committee held a consultation on the bill, 89 percent of submissions were opposed to this.

That’s because the country does not want this Labour Government to tax people more when it’s not necessary. I say that the Government should hold the Auckland Council to account—do what we were doing and say to Auckland Council, “We’re not going to give you the ability to tax people more at the petrol pump until you get your own house in order.”

And we cannot believe what the Minister’s saying about roading projects. It’s laughable for him to come to this House and talk about Mill Road and Penlink. Our side of the House went into an election promising not only to bring those projects forward; we were going to designate Mill Road as a State highway and complete it. We also were ready to go on Penlink. Where’s Penlink sitting now? Mark Mitchell was ready to get out his diggers and get out his shovels in a year or so’s time. Penlink’s been pushed to the end of the decade. Marja Lubeck likes to go on about how they’re delivering Penlink. It’s at the end of the decade—she won’t even be here by that time.

This fuel tax does not have the support of Aucklanders, and the Minister cannot come into this House and claim that they’ve got some grand plan for Auckland that’s going to solve everything. The only real difference between what we were doing and what they’re proposing is they’re proposing $6 billion worth of trams that we wouldn’t fund because we don’t believe that they’re necessary or that they would deliver much in the way of benefits, and they’re cancelling the East-West Link. On top of that, they’re taxing people more.

The very reason why the Minister is talking about projects—“What would National kill? What would National get rid of?” Well, I tell you, the difference between our projects is very simple: we won’t be putting $6 billion into Auckland trams that are not necessary and don’t go down the corridors that actually are seeing growth. We would deliver a sensible transport plan that we’d already agreed with the council, that was already in place, and that he has, effectively, picked up—just, the difference is we won’t tax people more and we won’t be funding those trams.

We went into the election with nine years of track record of delivering projects for Auckland. The Waterview Connection: open because we were working on it. We had Steven Joyce, who ensured the tunnel was in place and was properly funded. We delivered Waterview Connection. The Victoria Park Tunnel—that went through under us. Motorway widening—that went through under us and was happening. [Interruption]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Shh! Order!

We were seeing projects around Auckland going through because the National-led Government was delivering on it.

But the Labour Party didn’t have a policy before the election; they gave that to Generation Zero—they contracted, effectively, Generation Zero to put in place their transport policy. They couldn’t come up with their own ideas. They uplifted Generation Zero’s plan, which is solely and ideologically focused on trams—yesterday’s technology—when he had advice that buses would be a far more effective way of delivering projects for Auckland and delivering congestion benefits. Phil Twyford should not be listened to on the issues of transport, and I don’t believe that he should be the one out there promoting new taxes for the Government, because he’s wholly failed to find support for this regional fuel tax.

It’s not just an Auckland issue, either. I think we need to be more honest in this House about what this bill actually would do. It’s not an Auckland regional fuel tax; the Minister is passing a bill that would allow fuel taxes to go up, as regional fuel taxes, around the rest of the country. There’s a caveat that it’s only for Auckland now, but if it was only for Auckland, why does this bill contain clauses that would allow regional fuel taxes around the rest of the country? It’s because that’s what their plan is. It’s because that’s what they want, and I think when the rest of the country sees what is happening to Auckland, they will be even more afraid of allowing Phil Twyford to continue with his transport plans.

The other thing about this bill which I find wholly inappropriate is the fact that inserted into the bill is regulation-making power that would allow the Minister, without any reference to Parliament and without any reference to the public, to increase regional fuel taxes as high as he wants. There is no upper limit, there is no maximum—it’s simply a regulation-making power that allows the Minister to increase regional fuel taxes as high as he desires. It’s not capped at 10c a litre in the bill; it’s not capped at 20c or 30c a litre in the bill. In fact, there is no legislative maximum in this bill as to how high regional fuel taxes can go. Using a “Henry VIII” clause, the regional fuel taxes can go as high as the Minister wants under a regulation-making power. No checks, no balances, and no reference back to Parliament; it’s simply there for the Minister to do at his own whim. I find a clause like that to be wholly inappropriate. I think that when it comes to a taxation-making power, there should be greater reference back to the Parliament and we should not have those clauses in there.

I’m also appalled that the Minister—and he admitted this in answers to select committee—has done no work on the issue of price spreading; no work on the issue of how an Auckland regional fuel tax would affect the rest of the country. We already know that other parts of the country are seeing fuel companies increasing the price of fuel in anticipation of the regional fuel tax. We know, through Ministry of Transport commentary, that there is an expectation that there will be price spreading. He did no analysis on it, though—didn’t ask any questions. And when I asked in the House whether he had read formal modelling, he said he had; when I asked whether it existed, he said it had; but when he fronted up to select committee and provided written answers to the select committee, his officials advised him to give the answer—which I believe was probably the accurate one—“No formal modelling existed.” So Phil Twyford’s putting in place a tax that he does not understand the impacts of, that isn’t necessary, and that he’s seen no formal modelling on—he can’t have seen it, because it doesn’t exist.

He hasn’t properly considered the impact on low-income New Zealanders, either. There were a few lines in select committee reports and a few lines in some advice, but the reality is that these taxes are regressive. They will ensure and see that the lowest-income New Zealanders living in South Auckland, Māori and Pacific families that they claim and purport to represent, will be the ones hit the hardest by this regional fuel tax. They also won’t see any benefits. They won’t see any trams going past their doors. They won’t see anything in the way of transport efficiency that the Minister claims is necessary and will exist.

This regional fuel tax is unnecessary and will be repealed in a few short years’ time. This regional fuel tax isn’t one that should exist, because the Mayor of Auckland should be held to his promises, and we don’t support regressive taxes where no real research has been done into their impacts, and we don’t support something that does not have any support from Aucklanders—in fact, a majority of people, time after time after time, have told Parliament and the council they don’t support it. The Labour Party should front up and do the right thing by New Zealanders and not support this bill. This side certainly won’t be.

Well, that was a very, very negative speech, I feel, from the member for Botany. In my comments, I want to focus more on the positive pro-growth vision that this Government has for Auckland’s transport system and the plan and the funding that we are delivering through this very important piece of legislation—something that the former Government failed to do in its nine years of Government.

Just before moving on to that, I do want to reflect on the member for Botany’s comment that the previous National Government had a nine-year track record of delivering for transport in Auckland. I reflected on this a little bit and I thought, “Well, let’s see what the National Party’s friends thought of that. That’s always an interesting place to go—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d really rather that the member focused on the bill. Third readings are—

I’m about to launch into defining the problems that the bill is attempting to solve, and that’s by talking about the serious congestion that Auckland faces. I’m doing that by way of reference to a report that the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) commissioned last year—an independent report produced by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research which assessed the congestion crisis that Auckland faces. Here’s what it said. It said that 24 percent of the arterial network in Auckland was congested in the December 2016 quarter, up from 18 percent in the same period two years ago. Kim Campbell, the Chief Executive of the EMA said, “What business is telling us and what we’re seeing in the numbers is that congestion has worsened exponentially in the past three to five years.” He noted that businesses had hired 20 percent more staff to carry out the same work and trucking firms were making fewer runs and taking longer to do so, creating a 30 percent productivity loss.

The Chief Executive of the National Road Carriers association, David Aitken, said that the number of cross-town trips possible for transport firms in a working day had halved in that period to only slightly more than three, over the previous three years from 2014 to 2017. In the report, he noted that the journey from Pakuranga to the CBD had increased by 21 minutes, or 45 percent, and “it’s going to get worse.”

In the same report, the average speeds on Auckland’s arterial roads were: Tristram Ave in the Northcote electorate, 13 kilometres an hour at peak hour; Khyber Pass in the Auckland Central electorate, 18 kilometres an hour; Tiverton-Wolverton and Maioro Street in the New Lynn electorate, 20 kilometres an hour. Auckland is a wonderful, growing city, but it is choking on its growth, because of a failure to invest in the transport infrastructure that we need, and this Government says we need to keep looking forward. We heard, in the previous speaker’s comments, a lot about the Waterview tunnel. That was a project that was supported by all sides of the House, and it’s great. It’s made an improvement, but that simply doesn’t solve Auckland’s transport problems. We’ve had recent media reports that say that, by November of last year, we were already back to the same congestion that we had before the Waterview tunnel.

This bill is about a vision for finally unlocking Auckland. It’s about putting forward a clear plan, and it’s about actually funding it. You need all three of those things if we finally want to get Auckland moving. The vision that we have, as I said, is a pro-growth vision to get Auckland moving by giving Aucklanders real transport choice. What we know at the moment is that too many Aucklanders simply don’t have that choice. The previous speaker, Mr Jami-Lee Ross, quite incorrectly stated that the proposed light-rail plan from the city centre of Auckland through to the airport apparently magically won’t go through South Auckland. Well, the news for him is that it actually does. There’s a big part of South Auckland between the city centre and the airport, and the people of Māngere Bridge and Māngere currently do not have access to modern, high-quality mass transit in our city.

It is this 10-year plan that the Government is delivering, through the agreement that we have with Auckland Council, that will actually deliver people those choices in every single part of our city; whether it’s those people in Māngere and Māngere Bridge who will have access to light rail; whether it’s the fast-growing north-west of Auckland—massive growth happening in that area: tens of thousands of new properties planned, and we’re going to deliver the modern, high-quality light rail to give those people real transport choices; whether it’s the eastern suburbs of Auckland, the electorates of Pakuranga and Botany, currently the worst-served areas for quality public transport in the whole of our region. The plans that this Government has will open up options for high-quality public transport through dedicated busways into those communities and give those people real choices about how they move around, and it will free up our roads for the people that need to drive and the freight that needs to use those roads.

The other key part of the vison that we have here is a vision of safe and vibrant communities. Over the past five years, the number of serious injuries and deaths on Auckland’s roads has skyrocketed by 60 percent. That is a scandal. That is real people losing their lives; real people being injured because the previous Government forgot to invest in the safety that we need in a growing city. This plan, specifically funded from the regional fuel tax, puts the investment in to make sure we have safer streets for our communities, to make sure that our kids have the options to walk and cycle safely to school, as many of us did, but it’s simply not safe to do so these days because of the congestion, because of the traffic on our roads.

The plan that we are delivering, supported by this bill, supported by the $4.3 billion of extra transport investment this bill leverages, will make Auckland’s roads safer, it will make our communities more vibrant, it will make our businesses more efficient, and it will finally deal with that issue of congestion—the sheer frustration that 1.5 million Aucklanders face every single day on our roads: 1.5 million Aucklanders are crying out for a Government to finally do something about this problem.

Most importantly, this plan funds those projects, because it’s all very well to get up in this House and talk about what you’re going to do, to put some ideas down on a piece of paper, but unless you front up with the funding, it don’t count for anything. That is the status of the projects that were tabled by the previous Government in its dying days, in August of last year. This project funds the Auckland Transport Alignment Project—a $28 billion package—by leveraging the regional fuel tax.

It is time for some vision for Auckland. It is time to unclog our roads. It is time to give people real transport choices. After nine years of drift, this Government is taking action, and this bill is at the centre of it. I commend it to the House. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. There’s no question that many Aucklanders are very concerned about traffic congestion. They’ve seen our city growing rapidly. It’s a dynamic, prosperous city, which is growing and becoming more and more like an international, first-class, multinational city, but, as a consequence of that, we have seen more congestion, and so everybody, I think, is conscious of the fact that we need more investment in transport right across the board, from roads through to public transport and also to cycling.

Now, the reasons for this are long standing. It never ceases to amaze me that people are surprised that there’s congestion on the Southern Motorway, when it was built with two lanes each way, in the late 1960s, and since then the population has probably quadrupled, even more in South Auckland, and yet there are parts where it’s still two lanes each way, and—surprise, surprise!—we have congestion. So, over many, many decades, we as a country have not kept up with the road investment that we needed to make.

The previous National Government, after a long period of neglect, really turned the taps on and started to do the work that needed to be done, as we saw with the Waterview tunnel, as we saw with the massive investment in, particularly, rail, public transport, the electrification of the trains, and the many roading projects—the Northern Busway; a whole lot of things that were done that have helped to alleviate the pressure, but the growing population has continued to add to it.

So I suppose the point I would be making is that, yes, this National Party agrees, and most Aucklanders would agree, that we need to continue to invest in transport infrastructure across Auckland to reflect the fast-growing nature of that city, which is something that, broadly speaking, we celebrate and that needs to be done. The question then is: how should it be paid for? I think the sense that most Aucklanders have is that they already pay enough taxes to deal with this issue, and if you look at the average litre of petrol that people buy at the pump, currently, there’s 66c of excise. Then, when you add the GST to that and then the GST to the whole thing, they’re getting close to $1—not far off $1—in taxes and excises, of the roughly $2 a litre that you’re paying already.

Now, this bill wants to crank even more on, and with this regional tax, in conjunction with the broader petrol taxes that are being proposed, we could be looking at an extra 25c a litre in terms of taxes. So, probably, at current prices, you’d be seeing that more than half of the cost of the petrol that goes into the pump is in taxes.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Scaremongering—scaremongering.

It’s not scaremongering; it’s the truth. So people are, naturally, concerned that this is just another way of getting more and more money out of their pockets, and there is a natural frustration given the fact that there are potential other sources of funding for the investment that’s required. The most obvious one that was referred to is that the $150 million that this extra regional fuel tax is supposed to bring in is about roughly the same amount that the Mayor of Auckland promised to find in savings in his rather bloated Auckland Council bureaucracy. He promised to do it; he hasn’t done it, and everybody who lives in Auckland and looks around at what Auckland Council is doing believes quite strongly that there is potential for significant savings there.

We are also frustrated by the ideological approach of this Government to not really looking at private-sector funding or co-funding or public-private partnerships in the roading network and being closed-minded to that in many respects—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: No, we’re very open to it—very open to it.

Well, let’s see—lots of talk, but we haven’t seen any evidence of it yet. And then there’s also a concern about the sort of ideological nature of the spending, and what we’ve seen is they’ve been very quick to shut down important roading projects such as the East-West Link, which was almost ready to go, and they’ve been replaced with—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Most expensive road in human history.

And we would’ve been very impressed if you could’ve found a more effective way to do it, but it’s been replaced by other projects, such as trams down Dominion Road, which may or may not take effect in five or six years’ time, once they’ve figured out what the route is and where it’s going to go and how it’s going to help. So you’re taking away things that were ready to go now and are replacing them with things that may be ready to go in five or six years’ time—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m not—I’m not.

Sorry; the Minister is. So people look at that and they wonder whether the Government is actually focused on them and their needs, which is the desire to reduce congestion. So there’s not a great deal of trust that’s emerging amongst the public, and particularly the people of Auckland, about the effectiveness with which this Government spends its money.

We’re also acutely aware that these extra petrol taxes will add to the cost of living, and Aucklanders in particular are nervous about that at an expensive time. They see their rents going up all the time because every week that passes, the Government passes some new way of putting up the price, making it more expensive for landlords to run their properties, and, eventually, that flows through to rents. Of course, all the other regions are looking at this and thinking, “Well, that’s nice to see Aucklanders paying more tax.”, but they worry, in the back of their minds, that it’ll be them next. Next, the knock on the door will happen to them, and they’ll be after their money as well. It all adds up, and it adds to the cost of business.

I suppose another aspect of this is that it is yet one more contributor to the plummeting or falling or collapsing—I don’t know what’s the best adjective—business confidence in this country, because we’ve seen survey after survey show that business confidence is falling in New Zealand, at a time when this economy should be growing rapidly. We’ve got high terms of trade, the global economy is picking up, we should be going gangbusters, and yet a crisis of confidence is starting to develop.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Fiction! Fiction!

Notwithstanding some Ministers saying they’re all junk. They’re not junk. Particularly where they relate to specific investment intentions of businesses over the next 12 months, they have actually proved to be very accurate over time. And one of the major concerns is the continual adding of costs to businesses. This petrol tax is one of them, and you can’t deny it. It’s going to be coming in in a few days’ time, and every courier pack, every truck, every concrete truck that’s delivering the concrete that’s needed to grow the houses—all these things—every gallon of milk that’s carried to the supermarket, everything that is transported physically has to be paid for in extra fuel prices, and that all adds to the cost of business. When you add that to all the uncertainty around industrial relations, around oil and gas, and around the general attitude of this Government towards business, the general attitude of them, which is to say—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Oh, what a lot of scaremongering.

As the Minister’s colleague Mr Lees-Galloway said to businesses, if you don’t like it, well maybe you’re not resilient enough to be in business and maybe you should go and do something else. That sort of attitude is something that’s not helping.

So, yes, we agree absolutely with the Minister that we want to see more investment in transport infrastructure in Auckland. And we would hold hands and celebrate with him every advance he makes towards that goal if he made sensible and practical suggestions. But what we are questioning, and what we are not at all convinced by, and what most Aucklanders are not convinced by, is the fact that we need to dig even deeper into the pockets of Aucklanders to pay for this when we’ve already got our hands so far in their pockets that we should be able to get enough money already. And we want to have some level of confidence that the money that they’re collecting already is being spent wisely. And there has been nothing to indicate so far that that is the case. And so we oppose this bill, and we want Aucklanders to have the investment in transport that they need, and we know that they are having enough taxes and excise collected from them already, right now, here today, to be able to get the job done if the Government does it effectively and efficiently.

Just before I call the next speaker, I was negligent—we don’t actually have a motion. So the question is that the motion be agreed to.

I just want listeners to be reminded that the name of this bill is the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2018, because what the House has been served up by the Opposition are a whole host of speeches that veer wildly into the territory of irrelevancy. Let’s just go back to basics. This is a Government that has striven to achieve sustainable growth and long-term investment in capital assets that will continue to generate public benefit, societal efficiency, and economic progress. But that cannot be done in the absence of access to capital.

Now, we can have all of the fables and the fairy stories from the other side of the House, but the deep reality is that this is a bill that enables the people of Auckland, now, to watch a pipeline of projects come into being. Let’s also remind ourselves about some of the arithmetic and not these fictitious stories about Manurewa and South Auckland—strange and alien territory to the other side of the House—not these fictitious stories about how this will disappear on pet projects. This contributes to the $28 billion which is an amalgam of funding between Auckland Council and central Government. It also enables Auckland’s projects to be expedited. In actual fact, the origins of the Waterview tunnel go a long way back before Steven Joyce. That was the subject of great debate. In fact, I think my ministerial colleague Mr Twyford would recall it was an item driven by a certain politician who had her office in Sandringham: her name was Helen Clark. She was unable, however, to secure any endorsement during that period of bleak history when Don Brash, for a mercifully short period of time, spread his baleful influence upon New Zealand society. Those days have long now since disappeared. The $28 billion—$150 million per year—enables the council to drive through projects that have followed an open, democratic, transparent process. Of course, my lament is that we need to see a similar level of lucidity in other regions around New Zealand, but I’ve been assured by the senior transport Minister such pleasure awaits us.

Let’s carry on, because it’s important that listeners realise we must not fall victim to scaremongering or half-baked truths. There is no way that Auckland can unlock its potential unless it can move goods and services and people around. As the projects grow in terms of public service transport, more people—indeed, like my good self for a period of time. When I wasn’t in the tropics, I was in Auckland. I was a regular user of the train service, and I abandoned the car. We need to see more of that. I mean, if it’s good enough for a 58-year-old Dalmatian Māori from Kaitāia to catch the train, I spread the pleasure, but that pleasure is not accessible in the absence of pūtea to actually fund these issues.

Now, let’s just continue. There have been some concerns amongst my friends out in Pukekohe, the market gardens, and my fellow hunters and gatherers of Tangaroa, the fishing industry both recreational and commercial, that the rebate system inside this proposed piece of legislation is not fit for task. That’s why we thoroughly endorse what the Minister said during the second stage when the House considered this bill. He is bringing forward, in short order, a body of work that will enable the inefficiencies and the areas that have to be refined in terms of a broad rebate system. It will deal to not only the challenges of implementing this particular impost but also the entirety of the country. So I say to the potato-growers and onion-growers that not only will I look forward to defending your elite soils, destroyed by Nick Smith under the last regime, but there will be an efficient process to ensure that people who feel that too much of the fuel that they’re purchasing with this impost they cannot claim back through a robust rebate system. So the bill does deal with that, and the Minister is going to go on to make further announcements.

Other specious remarks that have been made about this are that it’ll spread like some sort of uncontrollable weed, some sort of fiscal wisteria from Spirits Bay to Foveaux Strait. In actual fact, that is never going to happen in the short term, and there is a robust process before this regional impost can be spread into other regions, but this bill allows that decision to be made by the people of that region. What is wrong with that local democracy? What is wrong with that participatory democracy? I’ve no doubt that a whole host of members on the other side of the House—because they’re quietly telling business, as business goes to see them, “Can you give us your perspective?”—are already saying, “Oh, these changes that are being implemented by the Jacinda Ardern - led coalition Government, we’re not going to be able to unravel all of them, but we say the opposite in the House.” They’re saying that in Kaikohe, Whangarei, Eketahuna already—we know these things. So it is wrong for the myth to be perpetuated that this is an impost that will travel indiscriminately around the regions. There is a robust process for the current impost to be spread, and so it should be. It should be tested.

Let’s think about some of the projects that the Minister has identified that will capture the attention of the allocators of this pūtea. Number one, they have to be publicly acknowledged. They have to go through a robust process, and the process is going to test whether it is a quality and a quantity of development that would not already have happened—so that’s additionality. This is taking the way in which we fund and the way we can afford these additional developments in Auckland to another level, and that’s a hallmark of how transportation issues are being thought about by this Government. It’s a Government that’s willing, through this bill, to take a risk and make a bold decision—sure, and be socked on the chin once or thrice as a consequence of misinformation, but that’s politics. But no one will be able to say, come 2020, that this was not a Government that stood up, allocated a substantial amount of money out of the central government fund, augmented by local government funding in Auckland, and added, as a topping on top of this fine Betty Crocker cake recipe otherwise known as Auckland transport planning, this additional funding. It’s something worth fighting for.

This bill is going to be substantially supported by our party. We are a party that also wants to see the benefits spread to the more provincial aspects of the broader super-city region. Every time that I have been invited to speak about this, I have reminded not only my colleagues in the House but the leaders of local government in that area that you have areas such as Wellsford, Warkworth, right down into Tainui country. And I’ve absolute confidence that Mr Goff, as he wanders around planting his million trees in those areas—with some modest assistance from my good self, not exclusively rhetorical—will actually plant some of the fiscal seeds to improve bus services and to improve other services so that those areas feel connected to Auckland.

In the absence of pūtea, you don’t get connectivity. In the absence of pūtea, you can’t put down the transportation infrastructure to allow people to move into new areas around Auckland and enjoy the experience of owning an affordable property, because those properties cannot exist in the absence of up-to-date, extensive infrastructure. And this is a Government that is ambitious for infrastructure. This is a Government that is willing to boldly move into this territory. It was originally promoted by one of our finest parliamentarians: Michael Cullen. And then, in a spirit and an act of mean-spiritedness, it was struck down arbitrarily by a former transport Minister who was possessed of a vision that the country needed to be covered in four-lane tarmac. That man is gone. We have a new Minister. We support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill at its third reading. I think this bill is best characterised by the Hon Phil Twyford as opening up the floodgates for every council around the country to put this new tax in place and impose this new tax on everyone in New Zealand. But, of course, we know that, initially, it’s designated for only Auckland, which was, by the way, the original promise, but now has been granted, in the bill, as it’s worked its way through the Finance and Expenditure Committee, to give every council in New Zealand the right to be able to take this and put it in place in 2021. I think that is the first point to note: that this is a broken promise in the sense of its scope.

The other aspect I just want to talk about a little bit is that I think we just missed the context. The National Government, when it was in power, had set out and spent a lot of time with the Auckland Council agreeing what was called the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP), which was about setting out a 30-year vision for new infrastructure spend in Auckland. It covered all the types of different spending. It covered roads, it covered rail, it covered buses, it covered cycleways—the whole gambit. And the only aspect that was missing in that $28 billion was $4 billion of funding—i.e., $24 billion of it was funded and agreed how it was going to be funded and when it was going to be spent, and all the priority around it. So what we’re talking about is a $4 billion spend over a 30-year period. And what originally happened, and what mostly happened, and what was increasingly happening, was that our Government—the National Government—was stepping in and helping the Auckland Council to take over major roads of significance and consent them and put them in place much, much quicker than any council can ever do, because we had made changes to the Resource Management Act which meant that if a road was of national significance, it could be consented within a maximum of nine months and then built. And we saw some of those roads come to pass. In fact, the recent Ōtaki motorway that opened late last year was a prime example of that.

So the question is: how should we go about funding that $4 billion? And the best answer that Mr Twyford could come up with was, in agreement with Auckland Transport, the imposition of a regional fuel tax. And, of course, we’ve all heard that regional fuel taxes have been in place previously—they were in the 1990s—but, largely, have been discarded because they’re a fairly inefficient way to fund infrastructure spend.

So then there was the big focus around congestion charging, and I’ve spoken about this previously—that the deputy mayor and a whole group have been over to places like Singapore. Congestion charging: I think, if you had a clean slate, you would always—everyone in this House, and even the council—agree that congestion charging is the way to go. And, in fact, that should be the way to go, and that should be the incentive to go. And, in fact, any structure that is put in place as a temporary measure should actually still have that as its objective. But the worst thing about this bill that’s come to the House is that it’s been given a 10-year time frame and, at the 10-year time frame, Auckland Council may, after going through a little bit of deliberation, agree to extend it. And so there is no incentive to actually put in place some congestion charging, which is the ideal form.

There were other mechanisms that Mr Twyford could have considered, and, of course, we never heard any of these. There were ones about just making the system simpler. At the moment, what the system is about means that the distributor—for instance, if you get fuel at the Tauranga port—picks it up from the port and distributes it. Whether it’s to a farmer or whether it’s to a fishing company or whether it is to a fuel company, they are the ones who are now going to have to account for where it’s distributed and also, in effect, for collecting some of that tax, in terms of making sure the administration around that is right. And there are much clearer and easier ways to do it. And if you are going to do New Zealand’s system, which is what the intent of the bill is now, why wouldn’t you just put a tax on any petrol or diesel coming into New Zealand at the port, and it would be done and dusted and it would be very clear and no administration charge for anyone.

A couple of speakers—and Mr Twyford talked about it right at the beginning—said it was to put pressure on Auckland Council. And he said he’d had a bit of a conversation with the mayor. Well, the issue is that the mayor said that he was going to achieve 3 to 4 percent savings on a budget of, roughly, $3.2 billion of rates that the council take. They take in another billion dollars of income. And if Mr Twyford had actually sat down and worked out some of the numbers, if the mayor had actually achieved his objective—what he said to the constituency when he got voted in as mayor—he would, actually, more than offset this $150 million that’s going to come from this regional fuel tax.

And the last way—and probably the best way, in my view—was for the central government to take over key roading projects. Every new motorway, basically, costs a million dollars, and that’s why the National Government had committed, at the last election, that they were going to fund the entire Mill Road - Redoubt Road extension round from Manukau, round the back of Papakura, to Drury as one road, and we would consent it, which means we could have done it in nine months, and we would actually have had this thing built probably by the time Auckland Council is even starting to get to the stage where they might be calling for tenders. And I think that’s the travesty in it. So what I’m saying to you is that there are much, much simpler ways to go about this.

The one area I do want to think about—and I’ve just heard the very modest Hon Shane Jones speaking; a very modest man, the champion of New Zealand, the champion of the country, as I heard him talk about last week.

💬 Matt King: Provincial champion.

No, he’s moved from the champion of the regions to the champion of the country. That’s what he claimed. So what does it mean for the growers? And, of course, I represent Hunua, which includes the area of Pukekohe, which he was talking about—I’ve got to say to you that the onion-growers, the potato-growers, and the lettuce and the fresh vegetable - growers are all particularly concerned about this bill. It is an imposition on them and their operations. They are key to supplying food for not only Auckland but the rest of the country, and this fuel arrangement, in terms of how they have to account for it, is going to bedevil them in detail. We had one of the key growers from Pukekohe, Brendan Balle, come to the committee—did a great job—with Horticulture New Zealand Inc. They are implacably opposed to this because they know what this is going to mean for their operation.

They also know what it’s going to mean for the cost of food, because, sure as eggs, the price of food is going to go up because of the cost of the fuel—the 25.3c a litre for petrol that every person is going to be paying when they go to the pump from 1 July next week. Also, there’s a whole imposition around transport and everything that goes with it and what that will mean for inflationary pressures for New Zealand and also what it means for the poorer people of New Zealand, particularly people in parts of my area like Waiuku.

It’s interesting, looking at the regulatory impact statement. It states, and I’m quoting, “lower income households tend to live further away”—such as Waiuku, in my area, or Kawakawa Bay or Ōrere Point—“from the central city and have to travel further to get into the CBD or to the opposite side of the region … This results in higher fuel consumption by these households than those living closer to the centre.”, because in many cases not only do they live further away but they have older cars.

This is an incredibly regressive tax, and I am particularly concerned about people in my electorate. You say, “Well, they’re going to get all these benefits.”, and I’ll say to you: in the ATAP plan that’s now been announced, what are we going to get? Well, we’re not going to get Mill Road, which is, in my view, misleadingly described; we’re going to get Redoubt Road in the first part of that extension, from Manukau to Alfriston School—a road to nowhere. Secondly, we thought we were going to get a whole lot of ferry services; well, it’s silent on that, so people in Waiuku won’t be able to get there. We’re going to get some rail stations apparently—well, we’d committed to that. But I think, most of all, it just means that my people have to spend longer on the motorway without good access going up the Southern Motorway and with very, very little benefit. I therefore terribly and significantly oppose this bill.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s with great pleasure that I rise to take a call, on behalf of the Green Party, in the third reading of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2018.

This is the first step in tackling Auckland’s congestion crisis. Every time I go up to Auckland, which is quite often, I have a conversation with somebody who is complaining about the traffic—and it’s not me that initiates those conversations, might I say. People in Auckland are frustrated. They are spending so much of their lives stuck in cars. That’s time they could be spending with their families or out in nature or doing something that feeds their soul. That’s time and money that they could be using on other things. So the Greens welcome this bill as the first step to be able to return to those people their time and their money.

As we all know, Auckland is at a standstill, and we really get the frustration of the ratepayers and citizens who are spending all those hours stuck in traffic. The Aucklanders I talk to want action, and they want it quickly. Yes, they’ve been hearing for years the acknowledgment that there might be a problem, but they haven’t seen any action to solve that problem until this Government. This is one of those things that, in terms of congestion, affect so many things. We know that binding people to cars to get around has a really significant and negative impact on people’s health—their physical and their mental health. It contributes to air pollution, it ruins people’s work-life balance and family time, and it’s a significant drain on productivity, as well. So it could even be described as a handbrake on the New Zealand economy when it is so bad in our major city.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association, Auckland International Airport, Infrastructure New Zealand, Ports of Auckland Ltd, and the National Road Carriers association all got together to look at this, and they commissioned New Zealand Institute of Economic Research to conduct a report into the costs of congestion, to try and really make that case for Government to act. They found that congestion in the city, between 2015 and 2017, is estimated to have cost the economy $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. I’ll just repeat that again: $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. It’s a lot of money. If Auckland traffic could move, on average, from 50.5 and 56.8 kilometres an hour during weekdays, it would benefit the Auckland economy by nearly $3.5 million a day. If we can get our largest city moving, there is very, very real return for all of us in doing that.

We just can’t afford to continue to waste this amount of money each and every year. The cost of doing nothing has been incurred for too long. This bill is a down payment on our Government’s commitment to building a modern transport system and backing it with funding. I’ve heard discussion from the other side of the House, in these speeches this evening, about “But what about the roads? What about the roads?” I really just want to say that that is the 1950s solution to congestion. The contemporary solution is public transport, walking, and cycling, and that is what this Government has as a vision and that this bill is part of enabling.

One of the biggest challenges our country faces is to help our high-growth cities, particularly Auckland, to be able to deal with the increased population. Without much greater investment in good forms of transport, which help drive the form of a city, we will never reduce the crippling effects of chronic congestion. When I heard from those other speakers, “But the roads, but the roads, but the roads …”, I did want to call to them the saying, “Build it and they will come.” That is what tends to happen, and we want those people to come on to the public transport and on to their bikes and on to their feet in a safe way. We don’t want them to come in more numbers in their cars on to our roads—and that is the typical pattern: you build the roads and people come, and those roads congest all over again. We’ve surely, surely learnt that lesson from years of experience.

Now is the time for a modern vision that encompasses well-being and health, and strong communities, and time with families, and improved productivity—the vision supported by public transport, walking, and cycling. We know that we can’t invest at the level needed if we’re going to rely on this year’s tax take through the National Land Transport Programme; there isn’t enough money in the fund. Even if there were, there wouldn’t be anything left over for the rest of the country. So, while there are benefits for the whole country, the primary benefit is to Auckland, and it does seem appropriate for that to be funded through a regional fuel tax.

We need to lift our level of ambition and invest in transport infrastructure to get ahead, and this bill enables a region or unitary council to seek funding for specific transport-related capital projects. The Government has indicated that, at this stage, only Auckland will be able to apply to set a regional fuel tax, and Aucklanders know they must contribute and pay their fair share if we’re to tackle this problem.

I would also just like to touch on some of the arguments that I’ve heard from the other side, about this being regressive and being really tough for people with the lowest incomes. Well, congestion costs are also regressive, and we know that people in the south and in the west are spending a lot of time in their cars, and that the best way to deal with the regressive cost of congestion is to invest in rapid transit. And this regional fuel tax will fund those projects across Auckland, enabling people on low incomes to get around faster and quicker and in a more affordable way. So we’re committed to striking the balance between affordability and taking urgent action on the transport infrastructure deficit that we’ve inherited.

The combined effect of the Auckland regional fuel tax and the proposed increases for the fuel excise duty will cost the average family about $5 a week. That’s more than supported by the, on average, $75 a week that most low-income families are going to get as part of the Families Package. So it’s not like we’re adding a cost and not ensuring that people get the money to be able to fund that cost. But we have to recognise that people, in the way that the transport system is set up in Auckland at the moment, are vulnerable. There have been studies done that show that areas without public transport are the most likely to have mortgagee sales. People’s funding and house costs and ability to pay their rent and their mortgage are too reliant on the cost of petrol at the moment. We have to provide people with an alternative to be able to easily budget to be able to get around, and that needs public transport. Making people car dependent actually builds the precariousness of their situation, and we want to support security and health and well-being for all of our communities in Auckland, so the Green Party supports this bill wholeheartedly as the first step to getting people, communities, and Auckland moving.

It’s been a short journey and a short battle and, unfortunately, we’ve gotten to the point where here we are at the third and final reading before this looks likely to pass and we head into an activation this Sunday—today’s Tuesday; this Sunday, 1 July. It’ll be D-Day. There’s something very ironic, is there not, and almost poetic about how this bill has gone through its final stages in Parliament, because it’s the perfect representation of the shoddy process that has surrounded this tax throughout its development and throughout its life here in the halls of Parliament. Last week, we had the committee stage. It was incredibly vigorous. As you’ll know on the other side of the House, it was vigorous because we were all up on our feet on this side of the House. In fact, at one point, Madam Assistant Speaker, I was up on my feet for 2½ hours trying to get a call and didn’t get one—next time, next time.

It’s the perfect representation of what we’ve had going on, because we tried to scrutinise it part by part in that committee stage; but what actually happened in that committee stage? We found so many flaws, so many amendments to put forward, that it wasn’t just about the principle of the tax and it wasn’t just about technically how it could be implemented and the flaws around that; it was just that the Government wanted to pass it—the Government voted for urgency so that they could pass it really quickly. It’s very representative of how shoddy this whole process has been. We had to go into urgency last week and then, on top of that, they tried to block any more debate on it—unheard of, unprecedented moves—and this is why we have some serious issues about its passage and where we find ourselves late this afternoon.

The Government is putting in so much effort—an incredible amount of effort—and is willing to sacrifice some of those democratic processes and responsibilities that we have as a Parliament, so that they can give the Mayor of Auckland what he wants: a new tax by this Sunday. Either that, or possibly the shortened process is because Phil Twyford had enough of sitting in the chair in front of the committee for nearly 10 hours while we had to debate what the flaws were, and he was possibly just desperate to get out of the chair; hence the shortened process. I’m not sure.

As I said, this has been a perfect representation of the entire process that this fuel tax has been through. Since it was first proposed, both the council and the Government have arrogantly pushed it through step by step. They’ve forgone convention, forgone process, and the public consultation itself, of course, was shortened. The select committee process was shortened. Each new round showed that the majority of public opposition was strengthening; it was building. As people began to understand what was happening, that opposition strengthened and it built. The only poll that was used as a mandate by both the Government and the council to ram this through was a poll—this is so ironic—that was used before we knew what the national tax fuel increases would be. They used a poll from before everyone knew what the extra excise nationwide taxes would be on top of this. We know that it seems, and it appears to us, that the two Phils know best. But there are some things that they don’t know, or maybe they’ve just decided to deliberately ignore, and one is, of course—and it was raised by many speakers on our side of the House—the cost of living. This is a significant issue and one which members of the Government’s own team back in council-land have raised. It’s obviously not a priority, because the bill’s being pushed through despite these concerns being highlighted.

The Ministry of Transport itself had very little time and capacity to do research on what the impact of this particular new tax would be. We heard submission after submission in select committee—the shortened select committee process—that highlighted the concerns around this very issue. It seems to me that this should be counter to general Labour Party policy—that you could ram through a tax that impacts those who are struggling in Auckland and not pay any attention to it, not have any regard for those who are struggling in society. I saw an article yesterday from the manager of Gull, where he said he expects he’ll be seeing queues at the petrol stations this Saturday before what he described as, and I’m quoting here, “one helluva tax”. It starts on Sunday and he said that Gull would pass the entire 11.5c per litre on to consumers. BP have also confirmed the same thing: that they’ll pass on the cost come 1 July. And I expect it will be standard practice around the country. But it’s not just at the pump, as I was saying before, where people and families will be paying; it’s the increased expenditure to other parts of households and the impact that they will face.

Now, a colleague on the other side of the House, Michael Wood, from Mt Roskill, quoted a friend of the National Party. He referred to the Employers and Manufacturers Association and a quote that he had come across. How about the other side of the House quoting their own party representatives—not just friends of the Labour Party; members of the Labour Party? And I refer, of course, to Labour Party councillor Fa’anana Efeso Collins. He was one of four councillors from the old Manukau City Council ward—so, South Auckland councillors—who voted against the fuel tax. Not for it; against it. And I quote from Efeso: “This tax is taking food off people’s tables.” You can’t get any more straightforward than that. “Our people,” he said, “have been paying our rates and they never, never push back. Well, it’s time to push back.”

Unfortunately, that memo didn’t pass over to his colleagues here in the halls of Parliament. Alf Filipaina said, even though he voted for the tax, that his people were unanimous in their opposition to the tax. That’s incredibly telling. Both councillors know that, in the last few rate rounds in South Auckland, South Aucklanders have been hit hard. Capital values have gone up and rates have gone up in South Auckland; so they’re very aware of the impact of this particular bill. I seriously question whether Government MPs would vote for this and back this if it wasn’t for their colleagues, the two Phils, saying that, from their perspectives, from their desks, this is what they need to do, because this seems to me very counterintuitive to what we’d expect from standard Labour Party policy.

The last think I want to touch on is what, I think, is a deliberate skewing of what the debate is and what the debate should be about from the very get-go. What I really strongly object to is the idea that the debate is about “This or that?” The debate is: do this, do the tax, or you won’t get the solutions. “Do the tax. You won’t get the projects fixed.” Phil Goff used the term “Our city will grind to a halt.” He also said, “If you don’t have this, it won’t even be business as usual.” Really? The idea that you install a tax or you get no projects? The idea that the Government says “Pay this or live with congestion.”? That is not what the issue is, and we all know it. We all know it. The Government has turned this into a debate about projects—which ones are in, which ones are out—but it’s not that; it’s a funding debate. We had the Auckland Transport Alignment Project projects listed, and so does the Government. So this is not about whether you have the projects or whether you don’t. I heard from the Minister earlier on the list of all the projects that are in and that are out. We have some questions around that. For instance, we’d love to know when Penlink starts. We’re hearing now that it’s in about 10 years, a decade; not tomorrow, like the inference that has been made. So if it is a funding debate and not a debate about projects, then why is it that they’ve just gone for the easy “tax, tax, tax” option? Well, it’s because that’s the standard Labour Party knee-jerk reaction: let’s get to the “tax, tax, tax” option.

In my final seconds, as I did when I last spoke on this, if you’re looking for solutions and you’re looking for solutions on funding, which is what this should be about, not an erroneous “tax or have no project” debate, if you’re looking for solutions—and the Green Party member before I spoke said, “Let’s help our largest city deal with congestion.”—let’s help them by bringing on staffing, procurement—

Order! I apologise to the member. Your time has expired. Marja Lubeck, I understand this is a split call.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker, and thank you. I am very happy to take a call on this Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. It’s a much-needed bill, and it’s the first step in tackling the congestion—that we need to address—that Auckland is facing. Most arguments on why it’s so desperately needed have been put very eloquently by members of this side of the House, so I’ll keep mine fairly short.

I’d just like to point out that it seems very clear that both sides of the House are actually both convinced, and we agree that we need to get Auckland moving again. The difference here is that this Government has a plan that’s fully funded. The other side of the House has talked about their wish list of projects that they announced prior to the election, and that’s exactly what it was—it was a wish list without funding allocated to it. A $9 billion hole, so those projects would never have seen the light of day. So ours are fully funded.

Basically, what is going to happen is that we’re going to get this legislation in place, get the money in place, and finally—

💬 Simeon Brown: Is Penlink fully funded?

—put our money where our mouth is. Yes, and I will talk about Penlink. Mr Mitchell and I have been having a bit of social media banter on Penlink. After he spoke in the House, for the first time I believe since his maiden speech, he spoke about this local project called Penlink. I had the privilege, only a few months into my new role, to talk for the people of Rodney about this local project. What confuses me is that Mr Mitchell is voting against this bill, because it means that Penlink would never be built. It would basically mean that Penlink would go back to the promise it was back in 2006, when National said, “We promise to build Penlink within 10 years of becoming Government.”—2006. But they never did.

Now what I will want to ask the Minister, because I am disappointed with the initial time line put on this project—I’d like to add my support to the local boards who have strongly advocated for Penlink to be brought forward, and I urge the Minister to do what he can to get Penlink brought forward from the initial time line, prove that member of Botany wrong, and get that spade into the ground and get Penlink going. Thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on this piece of legislation. It’s a sad day down here in the House where we’re passing—well, this Government wants to pass another tax for New Zealanders. We’ve just heard from one of the members of the Government, and we had a simple question for her, which is: when is Penlink going to start. Well, Penlink is a wish list under this project. It’s a wish list because they don’t have a public-private partnership partner, and here’s what’s news, for the people of Rodney who are listening—they’re going to have to pay three times: one, through their petrol excise; two, through this fuel tax; and three, through a toll road which they’ll be putting on board. That’s something which I’m sure they will be not very happy about.

This new tax which is getting put on all Aucklanders is not just for Aucklanders. That’s the first point I’d like to make this afternoon. This fuel tax is not a regional fuel tax; it is a fuel tax which will be applied to Auckland from this Sunday, and it is a fuel tax which will be able to be applied by all councils from 2021. We’ve already seen reports of 11 other councils lining up—can’t wait to get their hands on some of this cash. This fuel tax is not regional.

The second point is that this tax will hurt all New Zealanders through the increased costs that it will impose, because this fuel tax will have a huge impact on not just the back pockets of people who fill up their cars to take their kids to school, to go and pick up the groceries, but it will have a flow-on effect into the cost of literally everything that is purchased. The fruit and veges, taking children to school, going to the shops—everything will increase in cost. I’m not sure what the Green Party’s thinking today, but they’re even increasing the fuel on all the vegetables which they want people to eat. This is a “vegetable tax”, and they’re supporting that to go through.

This tax is also a tax which isn’t wanted. Aucklanders have had a truncated process of consultation imposed upon them. Isn’t it shameful that here in this House the democratic process gets truncated when it comes to this tax. Yes, they signalled it as a tax they were going to be putting through if they came into Government, but they have truncated the process and they have ignored the people who have been part of the consultation. The best support they can find for their tax is a poll which came out before the details were released—before the fact that 12c extra was going to be imposed upon people, and increase excise levies as well.

The shameful fact is that ever since this legislation has come to the House, consultation has been consistently opposed to this tax. Over 50 percent of Aucklanders said no. Over 80 percent of those who submitted to Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee said no. This Government is ignoring the people of Auckland and the people of this country at their peril. As my good friend and colleague Denise Lee said, they will feel the pain this Sunday. They will feel the pain as Aucklanders go down and fill up their car, and then the cost of everything will go up.

This is also a tax which isn’t needed. We’ve heard lots of arguments around why the Government’s decided to impose this tax against the will of people up and down this country. They’ve talked about all these great projects. Yes, there’s a great project out in my part of Auckland called the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative Eastern Busway. That project was already funded under the previous regional land transport plan. That was fully funded by the previous National Government. Guess what, Madam Assistant Speaker and everyone listening at home—that project was funded without the need of an additional fuel tax.

The real reason why Phil Goff and Phil Twyford want this tax is so they can build a tram up through the Prime Minister’s electorate, up through Dominion Road, down to the airport—I’m still waiting to know what the benefit-cost ratio of that project is going to be. What’s the commercial viability of that project? When is it going to be delivered? This is about letting the council off the hook, letting the Government off the hook so they can build a tramline up through the Prime Minister’s electorate and not invest in the projects which we had already funded. They’re getting Aucklanders to pay twice, with the benefit being taken away.

This tax is not needed. This tax is not wanted. This tax is not regional. On this side of the House we are proud to vote against this tax, and we will repeal this legislation if we come into power in 2020. Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker.

What an extraordinary time to be in the House and have this really odd debate, because it does appear that the Opposition is, (a), factually incorrect about—the last member who spoke was just factually incorrect about a range of different matters in regard to the bill. I might step through a couple of those issues shortly. But it’s almost like the Opposition is, (a), anti-Auckland, and, (b), anti-progress, because the only reason that we’re having this debate right now is that Auckland City is at a standstill.

It’s at a standstill because the previous Government failed year upon year upon year upon year to invest in the necessary infrastructure to enable New Zealand’s largest city to get ahead. Now, I find myself in this really odd position where I’m flabbergasted because I don’t understand the principal proposition of the Opposition to this very hard-fought bill, that the Hon Phil Twyford has been going like the clappers to try and find cash for the much-needed infrastructure in Auckland City.

Now, I have listened for hours upon hours through the committee stage and now again reiterated in this third reading—the Opposition seems to be very concerned about the fact that “Democracy has gone awry in New Zealand.” They call it “the peril of New Zealand” and so on and so forth. But I actually want to talk about the collegiality that the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee had with members of the Opposition to come to a point where we could have a rational debate about this tax. Now, it was at the request of the Hon Amy Adams, who, rightly, raised the issue: “Actually, you know what, there’s going to be some concern from constituents in Auckland. I think we should take the select committee up there, have a debate, and enable participants from up in Auckland, who will be the most impacted by this regional fuel proposal, to have that debate up in Auckland.” So what did we do? We sat around and we found time and said, “Yep. Anywhere you guys want to take this, let’s do it.” Because we, on this side of the House, are genuinely concerned about how to tackle the hard issues of how you, (a), enable people just to engage with us. We’re not trying to, like, ram home taxes that nobody wants.

Now, I know the member opposite, old Matty King, he mentioned a Facebook poll—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Order!

Matthew King, from Northland, mentioned a Facebook poll which said heaps of people were opposed to the tax. But the reality is that Aucklanders actually want solutions for the standstill that they’re in. Now, the reality is that there’s a $1.3 billion deficit—per annum—as a result of the congestion issues up in Auckland. I don’t understand the Opposition’s opposition to this very pragmatic solution, and I want to commend this bill to the House and commend the work of the Hon Phil Twyford for coming up with a plan and coming up with solutions, which is something the Opposition failed to do for nine long years.

Madam Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. My theme of these remarks will be opposites, because we oppose this bill vigorously. A series of opposites, I will explore, including the following: pragmatism versus ideology, legislation versus regulation, promise versus reality, long-term planning versus a rushed process, dollars versus kilometres, and Auckland versus other regions.

The first of those is pragmatism versus ideology. On this side of the House, we ask ourselves what is the best and quickest and fairest way to get things done, but on the other side of the House—on the Government benches, as they now are—they believe, simply, in taxation. And so it is that they are able to reach into the tool bag and find the very first—and, indeed, only—tool available at their disposal that they are prepared to pick up, and it is taxation. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can achieve so much. If we were in Government now—and when we are in Government in the future—we would be much more willing to reach into a tool bag that includes a vast array of different tools, of which public-private partnerships, or PPPs, will be one.

So too, on the ideology front: this current obsession with light rail, as distinct, even, from heavy rail, despite much having been said about that during the election campaign up and down this country, including in my own electorate of Helensville, where a rail line available for passenger rail lies disused beyond the Swanson rail station, not to Huapai-Kūmeu, let alone further afield—again, despite numerous promises and much noise having been made in the election campaign on that.

My next distinction—my next set of opposites—is regulation versus legislation. Of course, by definition, this House is passing legislation, but we’re doing something else: we’re also providing a regulatory framework such that taxes under this bill can be increased in the future, and that goes in two directions. The direction is across—so it’s across from Auckland to other regions—and it’s also up, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the direction of travel for these taxes will not be down. Previous speakers on my side of the House have noted that there is nothing to stop higher rates of tax that are currently envisaged—a tax on a tax, I might note in parenthesis—“Henry VIII” provisions, so called. Henry VIII would be turning in his grave right now if he knew what the New Zealand Parliament was about to do, and the founding fathers of America, who brought about the phrase “taxation without representation”, would also be turning in their respective graves.

My third set of opposites is promise versus reality—promise versus reality. The Government came in and claimed to be a Government of promise. In fact, they are merely a Government of promises. My favourite syllogism—and I’m conscious that some members opposite may not even have a favourite syllogism—“We must do something. This is something, therefore we must do it.” That seems to be the extent of the logic being applied to this, and to hear the Minister of Transport saying that this is something that we’ve simply got to crack on with because there is no choice, there is no other way, is simply untrue, because, as I have explained, there is more than one way to skin the funding cat, including, for example, public-private partnerships. The lack of imagination on the other side—the lack of imagination as well as education on the other side—is woeful and dangerous for New Zealand.

I’m reminded of Voltaire’s famous rebuke to the Holy Roman Empire that it was neither holy nor Roman nor empire when I reflect on the failure to deliver, of the Government, in relation to another policy matter—and I will speak only briefly on that, for the purposes of relevance. The KiwiBuild policy is neither Kiwi nor build, nor is it a policy that’s coherent. So that brings me to my next set of opposites, which is the difference between promise and reality.

If the Government side could be trusted to deliver on the promises that they’re making in relation to the things that they say will be able to be funded by the fuel tax, if the New Zealand public had confidence that they would be able to deliver on such promises, they might be more willing to accept the tax that will be coming their way to fund them. However, a certain scepticism that has been building ever since that Government was sworn in is relevant to note in this debate, because the appetite of Aucklanders and, indeed, the whole country, in due course, to pay for that which they will not receive any time soon and perhaps not at all—the patience on that score will surely wear thin very, very soon. And so we hear about pipelines. We hear from the Hon Shane Jones that there is a pipeline of projects. But I think a pipe dream of projects is a more relevant way to characterise the promises that we have heard opposite us today.

My next set of opposites is the difference between long-term planning and a rushed process. We hear that the long-term needs of Auckland, and, indeed, again, I say, the whole country, are dictating this measure. A necessary evil, they tell us, although for them it’s not so much an evil as a good; an opportunity, not a challenge of taxation—an opportunity to reach into the pockets of Aucklanders and all New Zealanders. They talk about the long-term needs of Auckland and beyond, but it’s a rushed process that has brought in this new taxation, a point underlined by the fact that it will be later this week—this week—that the effect of the pernicious legislation will be felt. Barely will the ink have dried on the legislation—the Royal assent will barely have been scrawled on the legislative documents—that the pump will be flowing and the dollars will be flowing even more.

And so, with my remaining time, I’d like to focus on a couple more opposites. One is dollars versus kilometres. Much of the discussion opposite has been about the need to pay a bit more to get some things done. Well, I’ve already talked, and my various colleagues have already talked, about the fact that there is more than one way of getting things done, but, actually, I’d like to turn it around and challenge the other side to realise that in many cases, for Aucklanders and, again, I emphasise, all New Zealanders, the disposable income for purposes of transportation is fixed. So the question is not whether they will be paying more to get the same amount of travel, the same amount of distance, and the same amount of petrol, but rather that they will have only the same amount of money available to spend, and they will not be able to go as far. Their opportunities will be limited by the fact of this legislation coming in to introduce a taxation which is at a certain level now and will almost certainly be higher later. The principle of a ratchet applies in relation to taxation—it only ever seems to go up and not down. The reverse gravity that seems to apply to taxation policy of left-wing Governments will apply all too certainly, I am sure of that.

Finally, “Auckland versus other regions” is my opposite that I wish to finish on, because much has been made of the fact that it was designed and intended and advertised and campaigned to be in Auckland—the regional fuel tax. We’ve heard on this side—and it’s not denied by the other side, and how could it be; it’s in black and white—that this will be a regional fuel tax that does, surely, in time, apply to other regions, but it’s interesting to note that for the purposes of taxation, Auckland is a region, and yet for the so-called regional development fund, Auckland is not a region. So for the areas of Auckland that are neither fish nor fowl—or rather, they’re one and not the other, depending on whether the Government is proposing to give or take away—it’s a bit ironic. In particular, for the rural parts of Auckland, like my constituency of Helensville, there will be much scepticism about a Government which continues to say that “The regions are important, but, by the way, Auckland, you’re not one of them.”, until it comes time to apply and impose a tax, at which point: “Yes, indeed, you are a region, and we’ll have your extra money, plus some extra taxation on the tax, besides.”

💬 Hon Members: What a joke.

So, for all these reasons, it’s a joke, but not a funny one. The people of Auckland are unimpressed. The people of New Zealand are unimpressed. We’re unimpressed, and hence we oppose this bill vigorously.

It is an honour to be the final speaker in the debate on the third reading of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. In that last speech, I think that is exactly the reason why when I was at the Kaitāia market on the weekend, one of Matt King’s constituents came up to me and said, “We don’t want to pay for Auckland’s roads.” I said to him, “Guess what? You’re not going to have to pay for Auckland’s roads if we are able to get this legislation through.” He told me he voted for you.

The other reason why he got so frustrated was for that comment that we just heard then—“Auckland’s a region, so why can’t we also have you pay for our roads, Northland and everywhere else, and get that provincial growth funding?” No, it’s coming to the regions like Northland—thank you to that Minister of the regions over there, Shane Jones.

Now I want to also just take this opportunity to talk about the poll that my opponent Matt King apparently spoke about on Facebook. Well, I just did a quick search of the things I’ve been tagged in, and there are three comments that I want to read because it goes to the absolute frustration of people who are living in Auckland. Here is one mum. I can’t read the first three words because they are inappropriate in this House, but it follows on and says, “Two hours to get home from work with my babies in tow.” I feel for that mama, who has similar-aged children to me. Two hours in the car—the levels of frustration of the mum and those children build and build and build.

Here’s another one: “People are leaving because of the traffic.” Another person said on my page, “Stuck in traffic. Now I know why I left Auckland.”, and we welcome them home. It’s absolutely wonderful to have our whanaunga home, but the fact is that they’ve been driven out of Auckland because of this problem.

The last one—back to 2013, this comment I was tagged in—“Wow, no Facebook-suitable words for Auckland traffic when you’ve got places to be.” I think that was in reference to going to the Beyoncé concert and not even being able to make it there on time because of the traffic in Auckland.

Auckland is at a standstill and we understand the frustration of its ratepayers, who are spending hours stuck in traffic every day. We have a plan. We have a plan and, as our Minister Phil Twyford said, let’s do this. So I want to thank the Minister for his leadership, I want to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee, and I want to acknowledge all of the submitters, for and against, who submitted on this legislation. 1 July is an important day in this calendar for us getting on with the plan to address these issues. I commend the bill to the House.