Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the call. We will be opposing this bill under urgency. This is a bill that seeks to, essentially, repeal a scheme that is targeted to a part of the country that is in need of transportation as an area of focus. This is a regional fuel tax (RFT) that has a purpose: it has provision for the funding of roads, it has a provision for the funding of buses, it has the provision for the funding of the very things that communities of interest all around Aotearoa New Zealand expect. That should not be the reason as to why Auckland, as our biggest city, should be penalised for that.

Many of the vital transport projects that are listed as beneficiaries of this scheme will now be at risk. This is an example of the coalition Government that is seeking to do nothing but force Auckland into a corner. This will result in cuts to critical transport projects that will make a huge difference. What it will mean for that community is that they will have to turn their mind to either not proceed with many of these transport projects or to look at alternative funding mechanisms such as an increase to rates. When Auckland is faced with increases to rates alongside water issues and the like, it is far from ideal.

This is an example of a Government that clearly has no eye towards the future. This is an example of a Government that has no new ideas, and the only aspect of new funding that is coming Auckland’s way is a 22c increase to the fuel excise duty and a 50 buck increase in the form of a drivers tax that will be placed on registrations when folks go to register their licence for their vehicle.

What’s really interesting is that this is a bill, a proposal, that had no regulatory impact statement. What we hear from the coalition Government is that anything that’s subject to their 100-day plan is not subject to a regulatory impact statement, and that’s very, very unfortunate indeed. But what there is, in front of this House, is a departmental disclosure statement. For the benefit of those who are tuning in at home, what that is, is it, effectively, is an independent assessment or analysis in the absence of a regulatory impact statement, that focuses on many things. One, it is very important because one of the things that it touches on are the potential costs and potential risks of this proposed change. When we have a look at it, we see that it was prepared towards the end of January 2024. So Minister Simeon Brown knew about all of this stuff at that time, and he’s been sitting on it for a wee while. But it’s also been prepared by the independent Ministry of Transport.

When we have a look at this particular disclosure statement, what it identifies there is that removing the RFT will result in modest savings for households and businesses in Auckland, and that that figure comes out to around $1.85 for each motorist that’s going to use it—$1.85. When this is a Government that is focusing on measures to apparently address cost of living pressures—$1.85. I can tell members opposite, I had a look at what you could get for $1.85 in Auckland—

💬 Hon Member: You tell us.

—and I’ll tell the House. What they could get is a 227g of Dole crushed pineapple. That is what this tax is about. Actually, well, the repeal of this tax is going to provide cost of living support in the form of a 225g—that’s a small can. And people like pineapple, but we are talking about a small amount there. If this is a Government that is serious about addressing cost of living pressures, this is not the way to go for Auckland.

So this is from the independent departmental disclosure statement that identifies that—it also says that “Removing the RFT is unlikely to have a substantive impact on households and this change would need to be made alongside other interventions in order to reduce [that pressure].”

💬 Shanan Halbert: What’s the point?

My colleague Shanan Halbert says, “What is the point?” Well, that is a very good question because we are still waiting for the answer. This is a stupid piece of legislation, which is becoming, actually, in the vein of this coalition Government—they like to do things that are stupid in nature. So we will look through these individual projects as we progress through the committee of the whole House stage and others, but, on this side of the House, we are not prepared to support something that will bring no cost relief to the people of Auckland.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill, the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I think it is worth considering what our options are to raise revenue to pay for infrastructure. While it will be great to have perfect time-of-use pricing for every user, that’s not the situation we’re in now, and fuel tax has been a very low-cost, relatively administratively easy way to raise revenue. And it’s a good proxy because generally the people using the roads are generating the need for the infrastructure.

One of the things this coalition Government doesn’t seem to understand—and it’s a real shame, because I feel like they’re almost there; they could almost understand this—is that you don’t need to use something directly to benefit from it. Road users are the greatest beneficiaries of projects that move more people with fewer cars, especially in an urban area like Auckland. We know this because back in early 2000s, the National Party in Opposition opposed, with many other doubters, the Northern Busway. They said it would be a white elephant. Now, that Northern Busway was funded from State highway funding. It was the State highway agency—at the time Transit New Zealand, the predecessor to the New Zealand Transport Agency—who saw the opportunity. They said, “We can acquire a corridor, and we can either use it for one lane of traffic or we can use it for a busway.” And by using it for a busway, they spent a mere $200 million—incredibly effective investment—and now, $200 million, they were able to build the Northern Busway, which now carries as many people as all the lanes of traffic on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

So let’s compare $200 million to the cost of the next additional Waitematā Harbour crossing, which is going to be somewhere between $20 billion and $50 billion. OK, I know numbers aren’t their strong suit, but let’s picture this. So I know 200 sounds bigger than 20, but, in fact, 200 million is a much, much smaller number than 20 billion, because 20 billion is 20 thousand million, OK? So with the Northern Busway, we had an incredibly effective investment that not only benefited all the people of Auckland because it enabled twice as many people now to travel around at peak time without having to build another bridge or a tunnel, and without all the additional costs that are needed when you build a road.

Obviously, the people using the road have to pay for the car and there has to be the land for parking their cars somewhere, and they’ve got to run the car. So there’s all these costs that they’re missing, and that’s why this shouldn’t be a political football. People on the right-wing end of the political spectrum should not be opposed to sensible, economically efficient investments in transport that benefit everyone. Mr Speaker, you don’t need to take the bus to benefit from more people being able to take the bus or the train. And, Mr Speaker, you don’t need—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Don’t bring the Speaker into this.

You personally—I mean, oh, OK. Well, you and anyone else—you in the general sense—don’t need to ride a bike to benefit from infrastructure that means more people make short urban trips by bike instead of a car because the bike takes less room than the car—significantly less room; less parking; and, guess what, bikes don’t cause potholes. So the more people who use bikes for short urban trips, the better off the people who are driving the cars, the better the quality of the roads, the less the congestion, the lower the transport costs.

So, unfortunately, we have a Government that is mostly innumerate, incapable of accurately forecasting the costs of the projects they campaigned on, extremely, extremely irresponsible in Opposition, and just opposed things for the sake of it, like the regional fuel tax. The money that is needed to build the infrastructure that is needed in Auckland has to come from somewhere. So instead of it being spread in a very efficient way at a very low cost over a large number of people who are driving around Auckland to get that infrastructure, the infrastructure—

💬 Hon Member: How did your bike bridge go?

That was not my project, by the way. The infrastructure will now have to be funded by rates rises or won’t happen at all. And everybody in Auckland loses because those projects won’t be funded. That’s been signalled by the mayor. And, by the way, the coalition Government is happy to fund the Eastern Busway from the regional fuel tax revenue, so they do kind of understand that road users should contribute to public transport.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we heard in question time from one of the honourable Ministers, the blip of the last six years is over. This regressive tax, which goes on everybody who fuels up their car no matter how they transport themselves around, is going. What the regional fuel tax did not do was improve the efficiencies of the road. There was no accounting for time shifting or trying to make your workday fit around the use of the road, so it wasn’t improving congestion, which is one of the bigger problems that the Auckland City motorists face.

As I say, this was a regressive tax and it ended up with an unspent $341 million. As the previous speaker, Julie Anne Genter, has mentioned, one of those projects which will be saved is the Eastern Busway, but the $341 million will also go on electric trains and stabling and road corridor improvements. So this money is being ring-fenced for these projects and is not to be spent on frivolous activities that end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars more than can be justified, such as speed bumps. There are better ways of funding roads, and we as a coalition Government are looking at tolling and electronic road-use charging along with city and regional infrastructure deals and time-of-use charging. This money, which will be paid by road users, will be spent on roads and, as I mentioned, those three projects are going to be finished.

I will also just say that the rest of New Zealand will be able to sleep easy, knowing that a regional fuel tax will not be coming to them thanks to this repeal bill. Thank you.

This legislation should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody because our National Party colleagues and partners campaigned explicitly on it, and we have joined in a coalition agreement with them to deliver this, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are keeping the promises that we collectively have made.

Look, let’s also be clear: this legislation was always finite. It was set up. It had four years to go. We’re just bringing that date forward a little bit. I think this is a very sensible cost of living approach for the good people of Auckland.

We’ve already heard from my colleague Cameron Luxton that the tax is regressive and certainly effects people who have to move around Auckland, particularly those people living in the outskirts of Auckland, who will more likely be those who are less well off. So it’s going to benefit them.

Let’s also look at some numbers here: $780 million has been raised to date, $341 million of that is still left in the kitty at the moment. So even if you didn’t raise a cent from now until the 10 years of this scheme coming to its conclusion, in the last six years $73 million a year has been spent. But in the next four years, you would have to spend at $85 million a year to spend all that money—in other words, $12 million more than the Auckland authorities have managed to spend in the last six years.

Look, I’m sure that our friends in the Opposition would say that the tax should be kept going, but the reality is: if you look at what’s in here, and the purposes for which the tax was intended, you could just about put anything into it—just about put anything into it—and it makes it, effectively, almost just an extra slush fund, if you like—it’s a bit of a pejorative word, but a “slush fund”—for the Auckland authorities.

I also note that that $341 million—I can see why the Auckland Council is so enthusiastic about it. We had a question earlier today about the cost of borrowing. Well, the Auckland Council with $341 million in the bank is earning, say, 6 percent—they’re earning something like $20 million a year in money that they are getting from having that money in the bank. If I might say, the question which was asked about the cost of borrowing, for us as a nation, it is over 2 percent—so more than $2 in every hundred dollars is spent in debt servicing just for our debt that we’ve run up, and we’ve run up particularly under that Government.

I’ve also noted that Mayor Brown has said that removing the scheme would cost something like $1.2 billion in possible revenue. What he didn’t say is that $600 million of that, roughly speaking, will come from the fuel tax, and he assumed that the other $600 million would come from the National Land Transport Fund. Of course, that’s not free money; that means that is money which is not available to anyone else anywhere else in the country. Look, while we know that the good people of Auckland need investment, so does the rest of New Zealand. So it is not free money that was going to come from nowhere.

We’ve also heard from the Hon Julie Anne Genter just now about all the other wonderful projects that will benefit motorists. But I think one of the issues we’re having here—and I don’t think that motorists are buying into this—is that so much of the fuel tax dollar is now going on to non-roading projects. There is a balance—public transport benefits motorists—but there is also out of balance, and I think that under the last Government, we got out of balance. Too much of the money which was taken from motorists was spent on things which did not benefit the motorists. I think we lost that sense of balance, and I think we need to get that sense of balance back.

Just to finish off, it looks like almost anything could be fitted into the set of things that were under the scheme as it was originally set up. There were 14 different areas of spending which were enunciated here, and the three biggest projects there: one of them, the Eastern Busway, is under way; Penlink, I understand, has been reduced in its scale; and Mill Road was cancelled by that last Government, and it is this Government which is going to bring it back again as part of the roads of national significance. So, in actual fact, while they are decrying the removal of the scheme, they actually took one of the major flagship projects of the scheme and cancelled it, and that is very unfortunate.

I’m just going to finish off by saying that when I was in local government, I was never keen on these sort of blanket fuel taxes, but what I was keen on was congestion pricing which sends a clear message to people what they can avoid by changing behaviour, by changing the time that they travel. I think that that is appropriate. What we also know, on that side of the House and on this side of the House, is that road-user charges are coming and that is going to be the way of the future in terms of charging, rather than petrol taxes. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ka tū au ki te kōrero ki tēnei take, ka kōrero ka tangi ki tēnei whakaaro nui e te Pīka e te katoa.

[I stand to address this issue, I speak and convey my sympathies towards this immense matter, Mr Speaker and the House.]

So let’s talk about our mokopuna in this bill; based on the fact that that’s certainly been my previous job to this job, I can speak with confidence but endurance about what this implication will be. So what message does this bill send to our mokopuna? Does it assure our tamariki that we, as the leaders of this country, are doing our best by them? Right now, the answer is a big, fat kāore—or a no—no, we cannot reassure them. The message that this Government sends to our mokopuna and to our tamariki is that their future in this country does not matter, and that a short-term profit or the short-term pacification of a small demographic will be prioritised over mokopuna. Business as usual, it seems.

So why can I say that the future of our mokopuna is not currently being prioritised? Well, this Government has prioritised their 100-day plan over whānau, over mokopuna, over people. This Government has failed to carefully plan and to consider the applications of the promises that they have set to the public. This ultimately fails mokopuna. Whether the other side of the House actually knows that and can comprehend what this actually means, in either language—I’m happy to share, when I’ve got patience for it.

This work that has been done to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and to reduce the pressure of living cost crisis is undone with this very repeal. This Government has ridiculed the projects aimed to improve cycle lanes—why do I know? Because I hear them scoffing every few minutes—railway infrastructure, and further improvements to public transport. These projects moved towards transitioning Tāmaki—that’s Auckland—from an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels and instead towards sustainable transport options, which in turn decongest roads, support the longevity of our already existing transport infrastructure, and relieve the pressure we as consumers place on our environment.

All right, let me see where I’m going: not only this, we need to also ensure that our people can get from one destination to another safely. Safety upgrades, including the installation of speed bumps, red-light cameras, and lower speed limits in Tāmaki—that’s Auckland—all funded by the regional fuel tax, were done in an effort, in fact, surely, done as response to the 50 lives that Auckland roads take each year. That’s 50 lives; that’s 50 whānau who don’t have their loved ones returning home. This Government has labelled these safety projects as wasteful spending. Is it wasteful to invest into the oranga of our people?

Speaking to the oranga of our people, how can the Government claim that this bill will aid our people during living cost crisis when the funding for infrastructure that is currently sourced from the regional fuel tax will only be sourced elsewhere? It is now the responsibility of ratepayers and all of those who pay road-user charges to cover the revenue lost to this bill.

To conclude, as mentioned by the Minister Simeon Brown himself during the first reading of this bill, 57.8 percent of voters in Auckland voted for the current coalition Government, later in this reading stating, “I don’t think that was what Aucklanders thought they were signing up for when the Auckland regional fuel tax was put in place.” In response to this, I say: I don’t think that was what the 57.8 percent of voters in Auckland were signing up for when the Government’s current coalition was put in place. Tēnā tātou katoa.

At the last election, we campaigned on reducing the cost of living for Aucklanders, and one of the ways to do it was to remove this regional fuel tax. Guess what! They listened to us, they voted for us, and a number of the people on the other side of the House lost their seats. There’s your message. I commend this bill to the House.

As this bill goes through its first reading, and before we’ve heard what might have been submissions from people who live in Auckland, we need to consider why we had the regional fuel tax in the first place.

As someone on the other side pointed out, it could apply to any council in New Zealand who applied for the capacity to charge a regional fuel tax. So what the regional fuel tax did was set up a mechanism whereby Auckland, in this instance, and other councils could apply to charge a regional fuel tax, and that money was to be used for projects in that region.

Now, as it turned out, Auckland was the only regional authority that was able to take advantage of this mechanism, but other city councils were interested in it too. And why were they interested? Because the cost of congestion, the cost of getting us around our cities and towns, the cost of our transport network is increasing in many ways.

Now, talk to any Aucklander and they’ll be able to tell you and other people in this House what the traffic in Auckland is like. It’s particularly appalling at the moment in the midst of March madness, but the congestion on the roads is intense. We have many, many people living and working in Auckland and they end up spending hours in traffic. The reason why that happens is because there aren’t other alternatives, it’s because we do not have the critical roads we need, and the regional fuel tax was put in place in order to enable Auckland Transport to get under way with getting some of those critical projects built.

So what is the problem with removing it? Well, the problem with removing it is not just that it removes the funding that Auckland Transport could have used but it removes the capacity to borrow more money, because it changes the council’s debt ceilings. Now, I’ve heard members on the other side complain that there’s some money left in the kitty at the moment. That’s left there precisely because these big projects take time to deliver and payments get delivered as various stages in a contract are reached. It’s quite straightforward. It’s not that no one wanted to spend the money. The money was allocated but it was sitting there, waiting to be spent on the projects as set out in time.

Yet we have this critical need for transport funding in Auckland. We have the Mayor of Auckland saying that he wanted the regional fuel tax to continue, and yet on the other side they are removing the capacity for Auckland to have a regional fuel tax and justifying it on the grounds of the cost of living. But it’s going to save—at the most, it will save a household $2.70 a week. Well, that’s a big contribution to the cost of living! Where’s the substantial change that the other side was promising?

Not only that, but a few years down the track, they’re going to whack the fuel tax back up again by another 22c a litre, and, on top of this, something that just simply cannot be justified by reference to the cost of living, the other side is increasing vehicle registration fees, so another $50 a year—whack!—out of people’s back pockets.

So whatever the other side thinks might be saved by repealing the regional fuel tax, whatever they think it might save households, well, they’re giving it with one hand but taking it away with the other, and taking away not just the short-term monetary savings but the savings that would have been made by having better transport infrastructure in our biggest city.

💬 Hon Simeon Brown: Speed bumps.

And I hear the other side complaining about cycleways. Now, one of the projects that has been lost because this side has taken away the Auckland regional fuel tax is the Great North Road cycleway. See, what the other side fails to do is to recognise that every cyclist on the road is one less car on the road. That is a person who has chosen transport which imposes less costs on other people. So taking this decision in isolation, taking away the Auckland regional fuel tax, pretending it’s a cost of living measure, it is bereft of sense.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me great pride to stand in support of the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill in the name of the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown. This bill legislates that the remaining unspent revenue from the Auckland regional fuel tax is ring-fenced to fund the Eastern Busway, electric trains, stabilising for the City Rail Link, and road-corridor improvements. Introducing legislation to remove this regional fuel tax was part of our 100-day action plan, and, unlike Governments previous, this is actually a Government of delivery. We’re delivering on what we campaigned on, and I’m pleased to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Government speaker after Government speaker has stood up from Wellington and from the regions and told Aucklanders on this side of the House that we should be grateful for cuts to our public transport and our roading budget; that Aucklanders should be so grateful that Wellington is telling them that they are having cuts to the long-term kind of investment that we need to be the city of the future that we can be.

Because I love Auckland and I hear the Hamiltonian member, Tom Rutherford, who has resumed his seat asking me whether Auckland is the city of the future. He was the closest they could get to standing a speaker near to Auckland. So I have listened to his contribution.

💬 Tom Rutherford: Point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Point of order, Tom Rutherford.

💬 Tom Rutherford: That’s a misrepresentation. I’m not from Hamilton.

💬 Hon Simeon Brown: Speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Point of order, the Hon Simeon Brown.

💬 Hon Simeon Brown: Well, speaking to the point of order, I actually gave the first speech on this bill and I am an Aucklander.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Speaking to the point of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Hon James Shaw.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Yeah, the Rt Hon Gerry Brownlee the other day requested that when giving points of order, that we refer to which clause—which specific Standing Order—the interjection related to.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I haven’t called “Point of order”, so we’ll just leave it there. Thank you, Arena Williams.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Those debating points were well made. They were points about how Auckland is represented in this debate, making points over and over again about how Auckland needs this investment; how Auckland—to be the best city that it can be, to be the kind of city that we want to live in as Aucklanders, that we want for our kids who are growing up in Auckland to be—we need long-term investment. This cannot be treated as something of a political football. We need to grow up and resource our biggest city to be a city that is somewhere where everyone wants to live.

Because Auckland is awesome. There are some parts of Auckland that I’m so incredibly proud of. South Auckland is a creative place. Some people see it as “the hood”, but that’s where all of the good creative juices come from. The worst thing about living in South Auckland is the amount of time that it takes us to get around. That is time between getting up in the morning and going to work where we are not with our kids and our families; that is time in the evening when we are tired and coming home from our jobs that we could otherwise be spending in our homes with the people we love.

Transport and its investment isn’t something that’s esoteric; it’s not something that is high-minded and difficult to understand. These transport investments being cut mean that more Aucklanders will spend longer in their cars. It means that kids will have to wait another half an hour before dinner with their mum or dad. It means that the kind of quality of life we enjoy as Aucklanders will be diminished. And for what? For $1.80 a week in savings for most Auckland households. That’s the advice that was prepared in the departmental disclosure statement: that this, that has been done in the name of cost of living relief for Aucklanders, will have such a minute effect compared to the long-term investment that our city needs in order for us to live better lives.

In fact, it’s not even that: that we’re also being faced with a 22c increase on fuel, straightforwardly, almost in a very quick amount of time, and $50 increases on vehicle registrations. Those things combined mean that, essentially, this is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. You’d see the regional fuel tax saving Aucklanders perhaps $600 million in revenue that would otherwise go to these specific transport projects, but the $50 increase would then net the Government another $660 million—almost conveniently, the same amount of money—that will then be going into a general pot for general transport projects.

This is a real disappointment for the people of Auckland, who needed a ring-fence around those projects. We’ve also heard from the other side of the House that the remaining funds in that pot of money will be spent on projects. Here’s where we get back to my point about Wellington telling Auckland that we should be grateful for this, because those are projects which have been ring-fenced not by Aucklanders, but they have been saved because of the choices of this Government. Those are not necessarily the priorities of Auckland; they do not necessarily reflect the greatest need in Auckland. They are things like the Eastern Busway, which benefit certain communities.

So I think it’s a disappointment that we are dealing with this bill in this way, that we won’t have time to really drill down into what it means. But I will be using the committee stage to speak specifically to those things which this bill seeks to change in South Auckland, in the region that I call home, and those projects which we need which will be gotten rid of because of these changes—changes which also allow for the prioritisation of Mill Road but also go alongside major cuts to the way that South Aucklanders get around and ultimately lead to South Aucklanders spending more time in their cars and not having transport choices to get out of their cars if they so wanted to. So I do not support this bill, and look forward to discussion at the committee stage.

It’s a pleasure to rise as an Aucklander to support the repeal of the Auckland regional fuel tax today. During the election campaign, I door-knocked 80 percent of the streets in my community of Northcote—I actually door-knocked Camilla Belich’s home. And the number one issue that came up time and time again—and I suspect she might be the Labour candidate for Northcote at the next election—was the cost of living, and I’m really happy to support this because this bill addresses the cost of living of those in Northcote, it addresses the cost of living of those in Pakuranga, those in Takanini, those in Mount Roskill, those in Upper Harbour, and I really support this bill. I commend this bill to the House, and, since it is a brief call, I abide by the general principle: one who talks too much makes the most mistakes. So I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading