Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to make a contribution in this second reading of the debate and respond to some of the remarks that were made, particularly by the National Opposition members in the first reading. A lot of the comments that we heard from the Opposition benches were really an objection to any further revenue gathering for the sake of the transport system. I just want to make a few observations about that.

The party opposite, when they get up in the morning and look in the mirror they like to see a reflection of a party of fiscal prudence, but, actually, the way this debate has been conducted by those members, I think, really gives the lie to that notion that they are, in fact, the party of fiscal prudence. The members tonight are opposing this bill on the basis that it’s revenue gathering, but their record in Government over nine years—and I know the 18 months since the last election seems like a very long time for the members opposite, actually, it’s not a very long time at all. But I want to remind them, because they’ve clearly forgotten, that during their time in office they increased the take from petrol tax by 24c a litre.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: How much?

24c a litre during their—and tonight, they come down to the House and object to the fact that we are putting it up by 3.5c a year, twice over the next two years. It’s also worth noting, I think—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: There’s a word for that.

—for the benefit—I wouldn’t say that word, do you mean inconsistency?

💬 Kiritapu Allan: That’s what I meant. Yeah, sure.

Yes, perhaps inconsistency is the right description. But the party of fiscal prudence, the National Party—they would like to see themselves regarded in that light—during the last election campaign, they went around the country and promised 10 new motorway projects. Ten new motorway projects that added up, would have cost $12 billion.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Did they set aside the funds for it?

No, they were completely unbudgeted. There was no decision making, there was no planning, there was no funding.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. As I indicated in my earlier ruling, the second reading is the widest of all the debates. The member has, however, used just about 25 percent of his speech without focusing on the bill. He will now, at least, have some passing reference to it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This revenue bill—the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill—has aroused, in the Opposition benches, very strong objections in that they don’t want to be part of gathering revenue for a transport policy that they don’t agree on. They’re against this bill increasing the petrol excise by 3.5c for the coming year and the consequent changes to the road-user charges because they don’t like what that money would be spent on. I cannot allow the moment to pass without observing what that says about the National Party’s transport policy: they are threatened by rail; they have a visceral hostility to rail. They are threatened by walking and cycling infrastructure. They are philosophically opposed to spending money on public transport.

💬 SPEAKER: Second warning. This bill is about excise and just reading out the title of it and then going back to a speech about another party’s policy is, even with a very broad second reading approach to things—and this is a broader stage and I want to warn members that it’s going to get a lot tighter going forward. This is the second warning and it is the last warning. The Minister’s speech will be curtailed if he strays again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to comment on the third main objection that we heard from the Opposition benches in the earlier debate, and that was the assertion that increasing the petrol excise or the petrol excise itself is somehow a regressive tax. Now, on the face of it, a 3.5c increase in the excise for people of all different incomes and means is regressive, but what the members fail to take into account is that this is about gathering the revenue, taking into account inflation, and avoiding what would, in effect, be real cuts to transport revenue. It’s far more regressive not to invest in the kind of transport policy that we have, and that is to build in our cities a decent public transport system—that is far more regressive. People who have to get to work every day and cross the city, who are forced to own a car and spend in the region of $10,000 a year running a vehicle because there is no decent public transport system—they face the real regressive charge of decades of underinvestment in public transport.

That is the reason why we have to protect the revenue stream for the transport system. We have to protect it against inflation by periodically increasing excise as that party did—as that party did—to the tune of 24c a litre during the time it was in office. If we don’t protect the revenue flow for the transport system, and if we don’t then invest in a decent public transport system so that New Zealanders have genuine choices about how they get around, then we will be doing a terrible disservice to New Zealanders, and this Government is not prepared to let that happen.

We’ve heard the cry “tax and spend” coming from the Opposition benches repeatedly through this debate, and what I say to them is that they may not be a “tax and spend” party on that side of the House; they’re just a “spend” party, because they promise over and over and over—they promise expenditure, but they’re not willing to recognise that that requires revenue gathering. That is a fundamental inconsistency and shows, I think, a lack of integrity in relation to the transport policy. So I urge the Opposition to tell us in the rest of this debate—

💬 SPEAKER: All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The previous speaker, Phil Twyford, has accused us of a lack of integrity in the way that we govern, tax, and spend, and he says we’re just a spending party, not a taxing one. Well, the previous National Government took us from massive deficits during the time of the Canterbury earthquakes and global financial crisis back to surpluses to provide the surpluses which this Government gleefully spends around the country. He says that where this party—

💬 Greg O’Connor: You inherited surpluses.

Oh my goodness. I suggest that member look over his history and you’ll find that—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Both sides now. There are going to be many, many more hours of Budget debate, and that will occur, and this is the sort of debate that can happen there. I’ve just asked Mr O’Connor to stop trying to get this man to deviate from what should be appropriate.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will not deviate from a complete focus on this bill, which is an introduction of higher fuel taxes. What this represents is a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. Only a year ago, they came to the country and said, “Yes, we’re going to put up fuel taxes. We’re going to put them up 3.5c a litre every year for three years, making it 10.5c plus GST”—don’t forget: plus the GST, so that’s another 1.5c or whatever, so 12 or 13c—“and we’re going to do that over three years. It’s going to come in on 30 September each year”—woompha, woompha, woompha—“and everybody is going to pay this big tax, and it’s going to hurt, but you’re going to like it or lump it.” Now what do we find—now what do we find? A sneaky little tax grab. They don’t bring it out on 30 September; they bring it out on 1 July—so another sneaky little three months of taxes that they’re adding to the pile just to gather a bit more money. We’ll be waiting for the committee stage to have the opportunity to ask the officials exactly how many more millions of dollars they will be sneakily bringing into their coffers as a result of this tax or excise revenue.

The Minister thought he might be able to get it passed, but he didn’t. It’s a reason why New Zealanders will never trust the Labour Party on taxes, because they always say that they’ll try and be disciplined, but when it comes to reality, they aren’t. This excise duty’s expansion of motor spirits levies and taxes is affecting the petrol pump and the diesel pump that people encounter on a regular basis, and paying more for it is going to be noticed by all New Zealanders and lamented greatly.

Now, you cannot talk—you cannot talk—about an increase in excise levies without referring to where that money is going to go to. This bill is about taking money in, and we need to know what we’re spending it on. That is why we are opposed to this bill—on a number of counts. The primary count is that it’s a sneaky little tax grab, bringing it forward an extra three months, but secondly because we are not at all impressed by how the Government is choosing to spend this extra excise money.

The way that we can work out how they are planning to spend it is through the Government policy statement on transport, and that guides the workings of the National Land Transport Fund, which is dealt with by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA). All these things are relevant. The chaos and dysfunction in NZTA, for example, where they’re losing staff at a great rate of knots—they lost a chairman within a year of him coming in, and the whole board has been turned over, so none of the local mayors can get anybody on the telephone in order to talk about their local projects—that is relevant to this bill because we’re raising the money for that fund to be administered by NZTA and we’re not getting much for it.

Then we’ve moved away from spending the money collected by this excise tax to reduce congestion on our roads to give relief to the frustrated motorists of this country who are wasting their lives away in congestion and are looking for solutions. This Government has decided not to spend the money on reducing congestion but rather to focus entirely on mode shift—that is, getting people out of their cars and on to scooters and walking and cycling and everything else apart from using their car, which is quite appropriate in some circumstances, but doesn’t meet the circumstances of everybody’s needs and requirements. If you’re trying to pick up your daughter from netball practice on the way home from school in the dark and the rain in Auckland, then you probably would prefer to have a car to do that. That’s one of the relatively simple things about having a good quality of life in this beautiful country that we all enjoy.

The people who are paying this excise tax at the pump, whether it’s diesel or petrol, want to know that they’re getting some progress on it, and they want to know that if they live in a city or in parts of New Zealand where there is rapid population growth, such as there has been over the last few years, because we had a successful economy and a successful country and people wanted to come and live here—not so much recently, as we’ve seen in changes to the flow, and I won’t digress on that matter. So you’ve got rapidly growing population, and we need to invest in infrastructure to keep the transport modes operating. That’s why you need to have a balanced approach to transport investment. So when we see this fund, when we pay our taxes, we want to know that there is a balanced approach, and we’re not seeing that from this Government, I’m afraid, and on that basis, we’re not very happy with it.

This was previously announced—I was just going back over the initial press statements from last year, when this Minister, Mr Twyford, announced these excise increases: 3.5c last year, another one this year, and another one next year. It was going to be on 30 September. Now he’s moved it forward to 1 July and has brought about a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. It amazes me that they think this is the first piece of legislation to celebrate post-Budget.

The only other question that I have—and I’d be interested during the course of the committee stage to sort of delve into this—is that a big part of this money that’s being collected from the motorists is going to be spent, according to the Minister’s wishes, on a slow tram down Dominion Road. When we asked what is the purpose of the slow tram—it’s not about going to the airport, as the Minister always talks about, because it’s never going to the airport; it’s only going to Māngere. The purpose that was explained to me by the chair of NZTA was urban regeneration—urban regeneration. So what I find intriguing is why motorists should be paying excise levies—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I was so enthralled that I missed the fact that the member got 10 seconds extra. It’s dinner time. The House is adjourned until 7.30. The debate will resume then.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was telling the nation that this bill here, the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill, was a sneaky tax grab on the motorists of New Zealand. A lot of people tonight will be asking, “What’s in this Budget for me?” Well, I can tell you what’s in this Budget for you: it’s more petrol taxes. We were promised that we would be paying more petrol taxes last year, starting from 30 September each year, but this Government, in this bill, have advanced that by three months on each of the two years, an extra—we’re trying to work out exactly how many more millions of excise that will represent. We think it’s about $60 million—an extra $60 million. So they’ve snuck in an extra $60 million at least, and we’ll ask the officials at the committee stage—$60 million worth of extra taxes, on top of the extra taxes that they were already bringing in, and that’s why the people of New Zealand can’t trust this Government on taxation.

I was also talking about that broad question: where does all this money that they’re taking out of the pockets of the motorists—where does it go? One of the biggest places that it goes—is supposed to be going—is into building the slow tram down Dominion Road. The primary objective of that slow tram, as has been explained to me by the chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency, was urban regeneration. So the question is, well, how on earth is urban regeneration an appropriate thing to be spending fuel taxes on? Fuel taxes are supposed to be hypothecated to building transport infrastructure—whether it’s roads or rail or public transport—in order to enable Kiwis to get around and do the things that they want to do. We’ve all got places to go and we all need to get on with it, and we don’t like being tied up in congestion. We do need to accept that the population is growing; therefore, we need to invest in expanding infrastructure, and when all the money that’s been collected in these fuel taxes is siphoned off—siphoned off—to urban regeneration plans, whatever that means, then we have less focus on reducing the congestion and building the transport infrastructure that we need in this country. That is why we oppose this bill.

I just want to take a short call on this, the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. It is a very important bill. It adds, in the next financial year and the financial year after, an incremental increase in the excise collected on petrol so that we can fund the roads and the road safety that this country desperately needs.

I think the member who’s just resumed his seat, or just spoken, at least, Paul Goldsmith, neatly illustrates the tension that I think exists with members opposite, that they have great plans—and they had great plans when they were in Government for a small number of roads; very grand plans—and any more roading beyond that, they had no ability to finance at all. We know they have an allergic reaction to tax. I didn’t think, however, it was as bad as finding out earlier this week that their leader spent the night on Monday night with Grover Norquist, an anti-tax extremist from the United States. That’s the state of their thinking now. That’s why they’re opposed to increases—very small, modest, incremental increases—in excise duties on petrol.

The reality is when you’re in Government and you want to do good things for the people like safer roads, like more roads in more parts of the country, you have to have the means to do it. You’ve got to have the financial means to back it. We cannot have a repeat of what we had in the dying days of the previous administration, which was very elaborate and grandiose promises but with nothing to financially back it. This bill allows us to do that. It means that the revenue collected in other forms in other areas—general taxation—can go towards those things that are about supporting and assisting, developing and growing the rest of the economy.

We need a good excise duty on our petrol so we can have good quality roads, safe roads, and it would be better for every New Zealander in every part of the country.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to say that it’s a better bill at this, the second reading, but it certainly isn’t. There are a couple of reasons for that, the first of which, of course, is the Government’s decision to sneak this extra tax in by shifting the date to 1 July. It wasn’t necessary, and had they chosen any other date, had they chosen to keep it at 1 October, of course, we could’ve had a select committee process for this bill, and New Zealanders could’ve had the opportunity to submit to the Government, to Parliament, and tell us what they think about their cost of living being raised by this Government on the first day of its so-called Wellbeing Budget. It’s very difficult, I think, to justify and to explain this so-called world-first wellbeing Budget if the very first action the Government takes to legislate change under it is to raise people’s cost of living, to take more money out of their pockets and, if their track record is anything to go by, to waste it.

So we could have and should have had a select committee process, even—as much as we dislike it on this side of the House, and they used to in Opposition—if that select committee process had have been a truncated one. We still could have given the opportunity to interested parties, and particularly New Zealanders themselves, to tell us—to tell the Government in particular—what they think about having additional taxes imposed on them. Instead, what we have, and are now debating in a second reading, is a sneaky attempt to grab even more.

The Government did say last year that they intended to raise fuel excise taxes not only last year, which they legislated for at the time, but this year and next year. But they signalled that those other two increases would be on 1 October of this year and next. So suddenly, people can perhaps anticipate—I wouldn’t say look forward to it, because they wouldn’t be looking forward to it, but anticipate that there are some additional costs to be imposed on them. But along comes Budget day, and, surprise, surprise, without any forewarning or signal, they discover that both the first iteration and the second are each going to be levied three months ahead of the original plan. Now, that will have a cost imposition over and above the 8c, including GST itself, of an additional, we believe, $60 million—$30 million each year—which puts the total, as the Minister has said that the 4c a litre including GST is an impost of $120 million. So there are two of those, which is $240 million, and this extra $60 million. New Zealanders arrive here on Budget day, find out what the Government wants to announce, and the first thing they learn is we’re going to take an extra $300 million off them—hard-working New Zealanders.

Although it was signalled somewhat in advance—not the exact timing, but these extra excise charges—I think it is not only possible but appropriate that as the Government goes through each of its financial years and is able to assess what has been done, what has worked and, mainly for them, what hasn’t worked, but also what the forecasts are for the years ahead, to have to not only re-look at what their plans were but to re-justify them, because, quite frankly, I would argue that there is no justification for these 4c a litre tax increases in the first place. For instance, the Government has come into the Budget giving back or re-prioritising or re-allocating about $300 million that had been set aside for the fees-free programme, because they discovered that it didn’t work. They didn’t get a single extra student. They in fact may have lost some along the way, but it didn’t work. So there’s a very solid argument to say that this tax is not an absolute requirement—not early or at all—because measures that the Government had spent other tax revenue on, particularly surplus or anticipated surplus revenue on, are not working.

I mean, of course, there’s the Provincial Growth Fund of Mr Jones. It’s been in the press almost every day of the year, mainly for the wrong reasons, and a Government, a Minister of Finance, might well look at that and go, “I could use that money to do my roading and other transport activities.”—which is what the National Land Transport Fund funds and what the excise funds. “I could choose to use other surplus money to do that, and I don’t have to add this incremental tax.”—or taxes, because there are two batches of them. The choices the Government could make—because we are firmly of the view that neither of these impositions are required.

In fact, we have had to listen tonight about allegations that we had unfunded and uncosted plans previously. Well, I can tell the House and New Zealand that we fully intended to use some of the Crown account—all those surpluses—to fund some of our transport initiatives, along with the National Land Transport Fund, at the taxation rates that existed at the time. We believed it was possible. It could be just as possible for this Government, notwithstanding the weakening economy is going to affect their forward surpluses somewhat, so it does raise the point that these taxes are by no means necessary. Clearly by that side they are desired, but they are by no means necessary.

Because the taxes themselves are very clearly—or hypothecated—set against specific uses, we can look at what it is the Government’s going to use them for. The excise can only be collected for the National Land Transport Fund, and the Government has already taken actions to show what its priorities are for under that fund. So the challenge here is that motorists—because it is motorists, in their diesel and petrol cars, in their vans and in their trucks, who are going to be paying these additional taxes and, therefore, have a lesser disposable income for the other pressures in their lives. It is these motorists who are going to pay these two batches of additional taxes, so they have every right to wonder and question what they will see from that, and the Government has pretty much set that out through the general policy statement and the National Land Transport Programme.

There is a removal from any prioritisation on reducing congestion, certainly on our roads, and a very strong objective or priority to mode shift into other, non-car or non - motor vehicle forms of transport, particularly, as we see along Dominion Road in Auckland and most recently announced in Wellington, into what appears to be light rail systems, because the amount of money they’ve budgeted would tend to indicate very strongly that they can only be light rail. So motorists can ask themselves, “Well, OK, if I’m paying an extra 8c a litre in fuel tax, how does it help me?” In Wellington at least, if you live north of the city, in the northern suburbs such as all of Ōhāriu, but also the Hutt Valley, Wainuiōmata—if you happen to drive from Wainuiōmata; some people cycle a bit, but if you happen to drive from the Hutt Valley and that area—those motorists will be paying significantly more in these taxes. They have every right to ask themselves, “What do I get for the extra tax impost?” They still have to go to work; they’ve still got lives to lead. They may have children going to sports. There are things—desirables or necessities—for them to get around in their motor vehicles, so they will pay extra tax under this bill. They have every right to say, “What do I get?”

Well, that programme that the Minister announced just a week or so ago, Let’s Get Wellington Moving—it’s not terribly aptly named, but that’s still what it’s named—means that they will no longer get an extra southbound lane from Ngauranga to Aotea Quay. They are not going to get an extra tunnel at The Terrace, and neither will that Terrace Tunnel area be undergrounded to Te Aro. Now, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme was initiated by the previous Government, and the clear objective of it was an integrated transport solution to unlock congestion and productivity from Ngauranga through to the airport. The programme that’s been announced simply can’t do that, but what it does do, through taxes like these—and particularly these are definitely part of it—is place an impost on motorists, who gain absolutely no benefit from it at all, because not only is the throughput not going to be there but the light rail scheme is going to remove a couple of lanes from out on the quays, so they haven’t even got a route change. They haven’t even got alternative routes that they can use to somehow lessen the congestion they’re going to face. So they’ve got every right—every right, I believe—to question the motives but certainly the actions of a Government that would simply take more money out of their pockets and give them nothing in return.

In the first reading speech, I said that in a manner of speaking—by no means a direct definition, but in a manner of speaking—this action could be likened to the most egregious form of taxation, which is taxation without representation. In this case, the people who will be paying the most are people who are required to use motor vehicles or whose lifestyles or circumstances favour it most, and an earlier contribution pointed out—and officials have agreed in the regulatory impact statement, by the way—that this is a very regressive tax. It is well understood that lower-income earners are more reliant on their motor vehicles than others, so they do pay a disproportionately higher amount. It is clear that they are getting hurt more. They will pay more of this impost—this $300 million impost—but what are they personally going to get from it? The answer at best is very little, and, quite frankly, approaches nothing. That is why I make the argument that it could be seen and could be interpreted as an equivalent of taxation without representation. It is unnecessary, it is wrong, and it is bad for New Zealanders, particularly when it’s supposed to be a wellbeing Budget. We oppose this.

I will deliver a methodological speech, because it’s important that members on the other side of the House understand that, in actual fact, a bill of this nature requires us to focus our remarks on to the actual bill before us. This bill is actually very simple. What it does is it changes the size of the impost for the petrol excise duty (PED), and then it changes the size of the impost for what we colloquially call the RUC charges—road-user charges. It makes a very small change in 2019, and then it makes a similar change in 2020. What it does is it funds to a greater level the resource reservoir, to enable the Government to meet its transport commitments.

Now, those commitments are articulated in the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Phase one of that was articulated and announced by my colleague on my right, and it’s generally known as the GPS. That’s all this bill does. In addition to that, the GPS is not a static document. The GPS is capable of being refined, and I am assured by the senior transport Minister that a process of refinement is under way. So the vast majority of the speeches that are being made, attacking this remarkably simple and bare document as an act of stealth or an act of artfulness, show that they have a pitifully low understanding as to how Parliament is meant to work on bills that are as sparsely written as this one, and they obviously have a vision to spend the entirety of the long weekend in this House.

What I would encourage the members to focus on is that it’s the GPS that contains the philosophical and policy preferences, not this simple bill. This simple bill, once we get into the committee of the whole House stage, is, basically, Part 1 and Part 2. It has absolutely nothing to do with their rants about Dominion Road, with their continual hate speech against rail, or with their ongoing displays of ignorance about climate change; it is simply Parliament using its sovereign powers to slightly increase this source of revenue so that we can allow the New Zealand Transport Agency to deliver the GPS, to the tune of $45 billion over the next 10 years.

I have now laid out what is for a bill of this nature, and I do hope the members on the other side of the House—I would point out that I was gone for three years, and, by Jove, standards have slipped on that side of the House. A bill as bare as this ought to be focused on the simple changes to the imposts associated with PED and RUC. All flights of fancy sadly seen on that side of the House should cease, and, sir, I beseech you to cause them to desist. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much for that speech, Shane Jones, which I think was designed to curtail our criticism of this bill. Can I say that I do support my colleague’s comments about taxation and the balance that we have around taxation, because this is a fuel excise tax. This is a tax that is coming out of the pockets of motorists to the tune of approximately $300 or $350 a year, if somebody is travelling perhaps 15,000 kilometres, as they do in regional New Zealand. Can I say that taxation without representation, the full terminology around that, is tyranny, and in this case it is taxation without compensation—that is, the benefit to the motorists—because they are the ones who are paying this $300 a year for benefits—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: How much did National put it up? Was it 26c?

We put it up 24c over nine years. You’re putting it up 24c within two years—within two years. So can I say that this is taxation without compensation, without designation of those funds to go back into those regions, which is the principle behind hypothecation of transport funds, whether they are road-user charges or excise taxes. They are designed and determined to bring expenditure back into those areas where that money was raised from in order to maintain the quality of transport networks that we have. Now, what we continue to receive are messages whereby we should feel guilty because we drive a car and don’t jump on to the nearest bus or train. Look, I just want to say that not every regional town or village or city has an adequate public transport network, and I do not think that this excise tax is going to do anything for most of New Zealand.

We understand and we feel that by the Government policy statement, there is going to be a significant concentration of investment into Auckland’s public transport, and there’s not a willingness to reduce congestion except to get people out of their cars. I think that my colleague Paul Goldsmith, who talked about picking up his daughter from a netball practice in the evening, on a dark night—perhaps, even on wet, windy winter’s night—is going to use his car instead of asking her to jump on a bus. And I think that parents all over the country would see sense in that.

There are times when I hop in my vehicle, my car, and I think, “Could I do this journey on public transport, as busy as we are as MPs?” I ask that question because there is this willingness by the general public to think of different modes of transport, and most times I come to the conclusion that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t jump on a bus and go out to Airport Drive to pick up my dog who’s been at a kennel for socialisation for a day. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t jump on a bus and go and visit a business somewhere—and I could never find a train—and I couldn’t jump on a bus to go and visit a school without losing many hours out of my hard working day.

I think many New Zealanders face this—they face the pressure of transportation. Everybody is time-poor. This is why personal vehicles continue to be very popular and used in our society. It’s because we live in a long country, we are sparsely populated, and we cannot afford huge amounts for public transport that comes regularly and goes door to door. None of them go door to door. Do you think a business would not use the rail network if it could go door to door and be cheaper than a truck? Of course they would, but it’s not—and those businesses need to pay their bills. They take options that work best for them in terms of being able to supply their goods to market. Until this country or KiwiRail can come up with a solution that is going to be competitive—and more competitive than other options—New Zealanders will continue to make those choices, and that’s what we face.

As somebody who owns a couple of bicycles—most of the time they are beautiful homes for a family of spiders—in the summer I get out there on our walkway and in our environs in New Plymouth and enjoy it, and there still is the incredible need and necessity for us to be able to transport ourselves and do whatever we have to do in ways that work for our lives. That is the issue, and what we are objecting to that we are paying a tax, particularly in regional New Zealand, for purposes that don’t work for our lives. They may work for Aucklanders who live down Dominion Road. They might work for other people who live in metropolitan centres, but what we want to have is the compensation for our taxation that’s going to continue to make our roads safe and easy to use and get us to where we need to get in wonderful and easy ways. I do see the first citizen of the regions in the House tonight, and I am sure that he will stick up for regional New Zealand and say that what I am saying has some truth to it.

What I would like to see from the funding that this bill engenders, from the $300 million a year extra that’s going to come in, is regional New Zealand’s transport networks continuing to be improved and upheld and that we would have safer roads. I don’t agree that safer roads is simply putting wire strip down the middle, because we know that if you’re a motorcyclist that’s the most dangerous thing you can have on that road. They call it the cheese-cutter for a very good reason, and I just think that what we need is investment in our roads, our contours, our curves, our berms, our markings, and our signage—all of these things that will make our roads continually safer. I believe very much that the gold standard of roads throughout Europe is double-laning each way. It’s four-laning, and the propensity of accidents is far lower than what we face here in New Zealand. One of the reasons, I think, after my visit to Ireland a few years ago, why they appreciate being part of the European Union is because the quality of roads they had to build in order to maintain the standard of roads that the European Union expect of their members.

This is something that I think, in terms of the network we have in New Zealand, we should continue to build. You might call them roads of national significance; they are roads that all New Zealanders can drive most safely on. Those roads of national significance, I understand, for very, very many years, had no fatalities. I think there was one recently, and it was not because of the quality of the road. So what we understand is that when you build good roads, you create safe transportation.

The reality is that there are many modes of transport on a road. A lot of people travel in buses. Well, that’s a good thing but you still need good roads. Once again, coming back to the point, as a regional MP I would like to know that when I pay my increased excise tax, I am going to get benefit in my region, and I think the people of Taranaki would feel the same. We grumble quite often about different parts. We live in a very rainy part of the country. We live in very challenging topography, like those who live in Gisborne and the East Cape area. They face challenging topography. We do not want to be ignored because a slow tram’s going to go down Dominion Road and it’s going to cost billions of dollars. We do not want to have our roads deteriorate and no longer be safe. We want our roads to have the investment that comes from our pockets, which we pay every time we go to the petrol station. I think that is what New Zealanders expect, and I believe that it’s our right to expect that as well. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Before I call the Hon Eugenie Sage, we are now halfway through this debate and what I’ve seen as the debate has gone on, not from a brilliant start, is that it’s drifted further and further away from the bill. I’ve made it very clear that the second reading is the broadest debate of any part of a bill, but I think the member managed twice to go five minutes without relating to the bill. What I’m going to be watching for very closely now is all members speaking to the bill, and if they find that there’s not 10 minutes’ worth in there, they can sit down. I call Eugenie Sage. [Interruption]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: You’re not going to reflect on my ruling, are you—because that would be disorderly, and you’ll be in big trouble.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek your ruling, actually, on a matter—and I have been trying to find this in Speakers’ rulings—with regards to the comment Mr Jones made around hate speech in the House. I raise that because that is a particularly concerning term, and the suggestion that hate speech has been used by members on this side of the House—well, there’s two options: either it’s correct, in which case his comment was a reflection on the Chair for not restricting the use of that speech in the House, or it was incorrect, in which case I’m sure the member would want to withdraw and apologise for an incorrect statement.

The member will resume his seat. It was a marginal comment, and, if members took objection to it, they have an obligation to do it at the time. They can’t spend their time flipping around looking for the right Standing Order in order to do it. But I will say to Mr Jones that he was, not unusually, pushing at the margins.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. I’m very pleased to take a call on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. Commenting on the previous speaker, National is so stuck in the past. It fails to get the point that under its Government you had 40 percent of the transport budget being spent on a few hand-picked motorways, and they carried 4 percent of the vehicle traffic. What this increase of 3.5c a litre in the excise duty is about is signalling a major change in our transport system, which was in the Government policy statement in 2018. So Mr Young, your comment that there is a tyranny totally ignores the fact that this was signalled in the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport. Why do we need to do it? Because National left a huge hole in the funding for transport. Mr Young was talking about the need for safer roads. That’s what this Government is prioritising with a $1.4 billion programme over three years to make our roads safer.

The Associate Minister Julie Anne Genter, who’s got a particular responsibility for road safety, was in my home city of Christchurch recently. One of the projects that’s being advanced there on State Highway 74 from Burwood to Marshland is putting barriers along the side of the road so that students at Avonside Girls’ High School and Shirley Boys’ High School can go to school cycling on that cycle path, feeling much safer.

It’s the funding that goes into new signage. It’s the funding that goes into rumble strips. We are about making roads safer. That’s what this excise duty funding will help to do. It’s all about ensuring that we change the priorities away from motorways that were used by smaller numbers and into making safer roads. Mr Young, you failed to mention that under your Government, deaths and serious injuries on our roads increased by 55 percent between 2013 and 2018.

We need to have this small increase in the excise duty, which equates to about 83c a week for the average family, because we want to make our roads safer. That is the programme of investment that was set out in the Government policy statement. That is the practical improvements that are being rolled out every month on roads all over New Zealand, not just the big motorways.

So yes, this is an increase in the excise duty, but it is about saving lives, saving families the pain of losing loved ones and of having people seriously injured, because it’s those practical improvements, like the signage, like the rumble strips, and like the barriers that ensure that our roads are safer. That’s why the Green Party is strongly supporting this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s nice to be talking on this second reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I will talk on the bill, but I’d like to just rebut some of the comments said before.

I think no one in National is saying that we shouldn’t be building cycleways or enhancing our bus services or, in fact, expanding our ferry services, which we’re not seeing in Auckland, as an example. I think to be characterised by the Government that we’re fixated on roads—and when I say we, National—is actually an incorrect statement and actually doesn’t reflect reality.

During our time in office, we certainly did spend a lot of money on roads. Some of it was towards trying to realise the 50-year dream that we’d have a four-lane motorway that goes from Cambridge to Wellsford. I guarantee, when the final bit gets completed—which will happen in a couple of years’ time—every single Minister in that Government will be there, and, for anything to do with transport, I imagine that Mr Shane Jones, particularly, will be there to be seen, to be cutting the ribbon, to be able to be part of this wonderful vision that no doubt they would like to claim at that point.

The other point I would just like to make with relation to the last speaker Eugenie Sage’s comments is, actually, some of these roads that we were trying to do, some of these motorways that you say we shouldn’t be worrying about and decrying, actually are about safety. The most relevant example, of course, is the Katikati to Tauranga road, and the campaign, “Fix the BLOODY Road”, is all about safety. For Government Ministers—and Ministers, as the previous speaker is one—to be able to be sitting there saying this is all about fixation and not worrying about safety aspects, I think is a very poor characterisation.

But now turning to the bill. It’s interesting. I think it’s just worthwhile reflecting that last year we were in a similar situation where the Government was putting forward all these arguments why it should be putting up an Auckland fuel tax of 11.5 percent plus GST and also put forward a proposal—legislation—that we should have this form of excise tax—two lots of 3.5c. We’ve heard today, and we’ve heard countless times in this House, that, yes, Mr Jones talks about the national land transport and the Government policy statement—and we all understand that, Mr Jones; some of us read the papers. The focus has gone from safety—not only safety and mode shift, and particularly buses, which we’re all very aware of—but the other thing is there’s now this removal of this issue around congestion. We had it confirmed by the ex-chair—the one who’s just recently stepped down, alongside the recently stepped down CEO—of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) that congestion was no longer a priority for the NZTA, and a lot of that was to do with the Minister.

I thought it would be worthwhile, in that intervening time over the break, to actually go back and look at some of the documentation that was put forward by the Government at the time that excise tax was introduced. It’s interesting—this is all in relation to the excise when it was introduced. The transport Minister said there is a need to increase excise and charges to fund roads and public transport initiatives. He talked about the 3.5c a litre—two lots, of course—coming in 30 September. One of the issues in this bill, Mr Speaker, as you no doubt know, is that that change is not from 30 September but actually 1 July. So it’s interesting. The lovely little press release actually referred to a specific date.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Petty. Petty.

Oh, it’s not petty, Mr Jones. For a person on your very excessive salary it may be petty, but for the people of my electorate and living in places like Waiuku and Kawakawa Bay, actually, it a lot of money. It’s a lot of money, and you’re arrogant to be able to suggest it’s not.

What this Minister did go on to say—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: He’s a howler!

💬 SPEAKER: Turn the volume down.

—Aucklanders are already facing an 11.5c rise in the cost of petrol—was “Auckland[ers] alone lose $1.3 billion a year in productivity to congestion. We will tackle gridlock in Auckland by giving commuters options through major road projects and upgrades such as Mill Road and Penlink.”—the new money will be spent on roads and public transport and road safety. That’s all in relation to the excise tax bill that we’re talking about tonight.

💬 SPEAKER: Yeah right!

On the very same day I went on the Labour website. It’s called LabourVoices—June 28: “We’re reducing congestion in our cities with a number of major road projects and upgrades.” Very interesting! “As well as this, we’re completing any current ongoing expressway projects, and allowing up to $9.5 billion of future State Highway upgrades.” Well, I’ve got to suggest, that was all in relation to the proposal to bring in excise taxes last year. Somehow, in the space of 12 months, not only have we seen the Minister go back on his word about when these excise taxes would be introduced, but also, he was very, very specific about the purpose of these. I think that borders on recklessness, because I think, to make that statement—and it was in two places, and it was well-documented—is actually a very poor thing for a Minister and the Government. As I’ve said before, to be introducing this tax bill at this point is incredible.

But the other thing I would say to you is I think there’s a lack of logic in this excise tax bill that we’re discussing tonight. What this Government over there is doing is imposing more taxes on car users to help the Government to fund projects other than those which deal with traffic congestion. I think that is the travesty about this bill. That is the travesty about what you clearly said—and when I say “you”, I’m referring to the Minister—a mere 12 months ago. We’ve got Government Ministers over the other side there, including the associate transport Minister, who’s interjecting rather loudly. There is a lack of veracity around what the purpose of this money—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Take care.

—this excise tax is going to be used for.

Now, just on the final thing—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: GPS.

I know about the GPS, Minister, but what I’d also say, for those people using motorways, such as electric cars and buses, they are also part of that network. Therefore, in terms of roading projects, it is a legitimate purpose and one that is not contemplated in this bill.

The final thing I want to do deal with is the question of regression. I talked about the regressive nature of this tax, and then I listened with somewhat horror to this absurd statement by the Minister of Transport, Mr Twyford, who, at the opening of his address of the second reading, made the comment that this tax is not regressive. Again, I find that very, very disappointing, because, in the accompanying papers, in the departmental report, in here, the regulatory impact statement—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: It’s one page.

You should have read it, Associate Minister. I suggest the Associate Minister of Transport should read the regulatory impact statement before he interjects, because he is showing a degree of ignorance that borders on—again, if you want to make the claim that you know everything, make sure you know it, Minister, and I suggest you don’t.

So specifically in here, Minister of Transport, are the words around regression, and it is absolute 101 economics that taxes of this nature are regressive. And for you to make the claim that they’re not, I’d love you to come out to places like Waiuku and Kawakawa Bay and explain why they’re not. When you live a long way out, and you have no option around public transport, and you travel much further than other parts to get to your work, because you have no other choice—to say that is not regressive is, I think, a shocking statement, and shows a total lack of economics and business sense, and I’m horrified to hear that from the Minister.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a call on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. You would think that that side of the House had never brought legislation in this House or do not understand what the purpose of excise taxes are. We are bringing this through to this House today because it is part of the Government’s GPS. It is a simple bill. There’s only two parts. It’s about enacting a Government strategy that has been well consulted on. It is an enabler to ensure that 3.5 percent per litre comes into effect on 1 July. It is to lay out the safety and also the acknowledgment of this Government’s interests on all roads throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, not just a select few that we experience from that side over there.

So I’m pleased that it is a simple bill. We are here in the second reading to pass it. It does look at—like I said—raising, per litre, 3.5 percent. This bill aligns very closely to the GPS. I haven’t heard that side talk and reference that, but that particular strategy, like I said, was well conversed and consulted on.

For the very short time I contribute to this I want to talk about the actual safe roads and roadside constructions that are currently happening in my electorate. My electorate goes from the top of Te Araroa on the East Coast, right down here to Wainuiōmata. I want to acknowledge the work that’s going on State Highway 2 of Wairoa to Bay View in Napier. I want to talk about the Paki Paki to Waipukurau on State Highway 2. You see, I share State Highway 35 into State Highway 2. Those particular roads not only unlock the potential economically in the regions I represent, but they create the safety commitment that this Government has built in the GPS. So it is important that we usher in this piece of legislation. It’s a simple bill, and I look forward to its progression in the third reading. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak for a second time on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. Now, the Government have a Government policy statement, and it’s radically different from the one that we had, and it’s focused a lot on Auckland, and it’s focused a lot on trains, but the excise tax is taken off motorists. So I heard Julie Anne Genter talking before about “car fascists”, but she wants to tax the very “car fascists” that pay the excise tax. The people that are driving these vehicles on our roads, they’re happy to pay tax. And yes, over nine years we put our tax up about 24c. You guys, at this current rate, it’ll be something like 50c or 60c over nine years, but we know you won’t make nine years, so we’re not too worried.

This excise tax is meant to be—or the motorists believe—it’s to be spent on the roads. In the 1980s, I drove up State Highway 1 to Northland, and it used to take me over five hours in my family’s HQ Holden, and that road is paid for by the excise tax. Over the—

💬 SPEAKER: Not by this change it wasn’t.

Over time, using the excise tax and other means, we’ve improved the road. The road is now not fit for purpose, and we need to be spending that excise tax on upping the road. So we’re building—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Nine years; National neglect.

—and we’ve started. Shane Jones is going “Nine long years.” So we talked about the four-laning of that road—back in 2012 we floated the idea. We were opposed by the Opposition at the time about spending excise tax on a four-lane highway. But four-laning is the way of the future. If we build a four-lane highway in Northland, we’re future proofing it for 40 years. This Government is proposing to use this increased excise tax on a tram to Auckland.

So the thing about the four-lane highway—they’re talking about the spending on safety all over the country, right. Well, the four-lane highway that we’re building is the safest, most resilient road in the country—they’re the safest roads. We’ve had no deaths on those roads.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’ve been listening carefully to the member, and other than one sort of time that I waved the bill at him, he hasn’t actually referred to the bill and what the bill does. What a Government policy statement doesn’t do is actually not part of this bill.

OK. Well, I’ll shorten it up a bit. This excise tax increase is a direct attack on the low-income people of this country. In Northland, we pay this excise tax and we pay a regional fuel tax, and we’re going to see no benefit from them. That four-lane highway has been cancelled in Northland. The excise tax goes on the lower part of my electorate; the regional tax is paid on the lower part of my electorate. The motorists in my electorate are not going to get the benefit of it, because this Government has cancelled the four-laning. So this excise tax you’re drawing on is going to be used predominantly for projects in Auckland—

💬 Matt Doocey: Trams.

—public transport, trams—a tram down the Dominion Road that’s not even going to be going to the airport, although it’s been promised; it’s not going to go to the airport.

So this sort of excise tax—all it does is load up and increase the costs for low-income people. Shane Jones, he can afford to pay this tax, but there’s a lot of people in my electorate that are going to find these increases—and all the taxes across the board that this Government is doing—really tough.

So of course we are opposing this tax. We support a more graduated, slower—over nine years—increase in excise tax over time, but we’re not going to support this one because this Government has whacked the taxes up across the board—

💬 Matt Doocey: That’s right—raising cost of living.

Yeah, cost of living. So we oppose it.

I rise to bring comfort and good cheer, especially to Mr Jonathan Young, who is distressed by this increased excise. I wish to refer Mr Young to the general policy statement at the start of this bill, where it says that the increase in this excise is “to provide additional funding to the national land transport fund”, additional funding that will help with our roading services.

Mr Young stood up and he said, “It’s taxation without compensation.” It does reveal a rather distressingly transactional approach to taxation. I guess that’s a problem for Mr Young. But Mr Young’s real problem was: what would this excise be used for? Would it benefit his region? This is where I bring comfort to you, Mr Young. Mr Young, among the projects that will be assisted by this increase in the excise is the Mount Messenger bypass. Mr Young, among the projects that will be assisted by this excise is the Awakino Gorge tunnel bypass. Mr Young, as a Taranaki woman myself, born and bred in that beautiful part of the country, these projects will benefit your region, brought about in part by this increase in the excise.

Mr Young, sleep easy tonight. This increase in the excise will benefit your region. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in the second reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I wanted to elaborate a bit on what I’d touched on in the first reading, which was primarily in regards to the manner in which the excise duty that is proposed to be raised under this bill will be utilised in rolling out the objectives of the Government policy statement (GPS) in relation to the funds under the National Land Transport Fund, and, in particular, to some of the projects in my electorate of the Waikato.

As I’ve mentioned in the first reading, the Government redrafted the Government policy statement, released that in 2018, and the No. 1 priority, as ascertained under that statement, was on safety as opposed to reducing congestion, which we’ve heard a bit about already. So in terms of raising additional revenue to help fund national land transport projects, this safety focus should be the priority, based on the Government policy statement.

When we consider the Waikato Expressway—and in particular the additional projects that were notified under the former Government for extension near Cambridge where it currently ends in my electorate, which is a beautiful part of the electorate, of course, but no significant intersection, as to why that would be a termination point as such for the expressway project in its entirety. Whereas just a further dash down the road, State Highways 1 and 29, the intersection there is a significant juncture with significant safety concerns—the cost, obviously, of extending that four-lane expressway down there is reasonable. We didn’t have a firm figure on that, but it was a few hundred million dollars. But the safety improvements that would have been achieved by continuing that expressway were significant, and that is the main aspect here. When we’re talking about raising additional revenue, primarily for safety reasons, then projects such as that should have continued to be a priority, and yet it was scrapped. The new Government came in and got rid of it.

That is a very busy piece of road, not only that intersection of State Highways 1 and 29 but, actually, the intersection of Karapiro Road as well. There’s a school there, and in addition to that there is significant traffic that diverts up to Hobbiton—one of the main tourist attractions in New Zealand, actually, and a great part of the Waikato. The schools had to shift their entrance, because it’s no longer safe to exit on to State Highway 1 there. So they’ve had to go out to a side road at some additional cost.

So when we’re looking at the expressway as it was previously planned—and the route had been identified—the significant safety improvements that would have been achieved from the investment of funds raised under an excise tax such as this would have made absolute sense. Indeed, the business case supported that.

So it is concerning to see, now that we are having an additional 3.5c plus GST—so just over 4c—a litre on fuel proposed to come in in a matter of only a few weeks now, to add to the revenue stream available to the Government under the National Land Transport Fund, to then try and achieve the objectives of the Government policy statement.

Now, we’d already, of course, seen an increase last year, and yet we’ve seen some of these projects be reprioritised away from safety. We heard previously from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) that congestion is no longer a priority, in terms of reducing congestion. So whilst I don’t agree with that, I accept that that’s their stance on it. When we look at a number of projects up in the Auckland area, where a lot of these funds that will be raised under this particular Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill will be funnelled or channelled into that area, it suggests that, actually, where are the significant safety improvements if we’ve heard that congestion is not the issue? Safety is the No. 1 priority and the key focus under the GPS, and we’re raising additional excise duties under this bill, of an additional 4c now, earlier than what we’d expected. Then why are we not seeing that diverted to projects that the Government has identified as being a significant safety risk?

So that is a key question that I would like to see addressed by the Minister during the committee stage. There may well be some Supplementary Order Papers coming, to look at adjusting how much and the timing of this excise tax, so that we can have more confidence that it is being utilised in a manner consistent with what the Government has expressed their intent is, under the Government policy statement 2018, as opposed to what we are seeing play out in an ad hoc sort of way, in terms of the debate we get from NZTA through the annual review process. What we hear when we tried to visit projects, which has been somewhat challenging, in terms of getting access, in terms of then how this utilisation of the excise funds will play out in a practical sense—and so another element, and we’ve heard around how rail is becoming a significant part of that Dominion Road project.

We’re talking about raising an additional 4c a litre this year and, when we move forward to 2020, 1 July next year, an additional 4c. And yet that project down Dominion Road, as I understand, is not able to be completed until after the America’s Cup.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: Not allowed to be started.

Can’t even be started, sorry. Thank you, Mr Goldsmith. It can’t even be started until that point. So here we are increasing the excise tax revenue take for the Government this year, an additional increase again next year, and yet they’re not able to utilise any of that additional revenue for this project until even further down the track. So why do we need to bring this in now if those funds are not yet going to be utilised? So that’s where we may well see an SOP coming from this side of the House as well, around those particular dates that these clauses would come into effect, rather than 1 July 2019, and subsequently under clause 3 and then under clause 5, 1 July 2020—perhaps pushing those out further to a more appropriate time line that would then coincide with what the Government has indicated under the Government policy statement for the National Land Transport Fund. It would be a more appropriate time for utilisation of that.

So those are the key aspects that I’d like to signal we will be expecting more debate and discussion on in the committee stage.

💬 SPEAKER: I don’t think so.

I beg your pardon?

💬 SPEAKER: I’m just saying that the scope of the bill is very narrow in committee.

Right, OK.

💬 SPEAKER: Very narrow.

Sure, excellent. So the other aspect of that rail, in terms of the commuter rail—sorry, what we’ve talked about—down Dominion Road, is actually the other project in my electorate, and what we were hearing from the Government is a commuter rail project from Hamilton to Auckland. Whilst we hear that reducing congestion is not the focus for the utilisation of these funds, that project is solely focused around, well, additional modes of transport, additional options, with a view to reducing congestion. Although, of course, with only 200 passengers on a slightly overloaded train each day—compared to the thousands of commuters that head north into Auckland—there would indeed be very little actual change to the commuter space there. At a journey time of about 2½ hours each way, I suggest it’s unlikely that we’ll see significant uptake of a slow train journey from Hamilton up to Auckland—as scenic and beautiful as that may be from a commuter’s perspective.

So hearing again that that is another significant project that may be utilising funds from this additional revenue raised under the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill, both this year, 4c, and an additional 4c next year, the question is how does that then play out if we are focused on safety? We’re not making much impact through a project such as that commuter rail system from Hamilton to Auckland, which actually consequently is now being extended again. So originally, the list member Mr Strange confirmed it would be up and running by now, in 2019. The subsequent date by the Minister, who I think pulled him aside and said, “Actually, this is what we’re doing.”, was early 2020. Now we’ve seen that extended again. So already they’re failing to meet some of those deadlines.

That just brings me to the last point I wanted to touch on around NZTA’s ability to meet deadlines and whether there’s additional revenue available or not. It’s quite clear at the moment in my electorate that they are unable to meet time frames, and I’ve written to the Minister about this with my concerns. A number of projects that are specifically safety-oriented—which the Government has said is their number one priority under the Government policy statement—are not being delivered in a timely manner. NZTA are exceeding their time frames that they’ve given to achieve that and putting the safety of motorists and residents in the Waikato region behind the priority that it should be there. It’s simply not good enough to see them not prioritised in that regard. So I look forward to seeing this continue and there will be much more debate from this side of the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to be the final speaker in the second reading of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Ah, ka pai.

Absolutely, ka pai. In fact, when I walked in I thought I was listening to the abdication speech from the member for Northland, Matt King, handing the seat to Shane Jones for his fantastic advocacy for rail, but that wasn’t the case. What a pity.

But let’s just say this. This second reading is really about saving lives on our roads. It’s as simple as that. We’ve heard a lot of fluff, just a lot of—I don’t know—whatever you call it, but they’ve missed the point of it, and that is the fact that every dollar gained will be reinvested back into transport—a transformational programme that the Minister for Transport, the Hon Phil Twyford, and the Associate Ministers are implementing. What a programme that is. Some are disappointed; on this side of the House we’re not. We’re all ready to go and do the bizzo. I commend this bill to the House.