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

Members, we now come to our final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the last part of the debate in the committee stage in this bill. Clause 1, of course, is the “Title” clause; this bill is the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2024. That is the title, that is what it does. I know there’s a proposed tabled amendment by the Opposition which we will not be supporting because, effectively, it changes the purpose of the legislation. This legislation is repealing the regional fuel tax, which is exactly what we’re doing.

Clause 2 is the “Commencement” clause, and there are three key dates for the commencement of this bill. On the day after Royal assent, the list of projects that regional fuel tax revenue can be spent on will be amended to just three. The regional fuel tax order from 2018 contained a list of 14 projects, and this legislation will constrain that remaining revenue and funds which have accumulated to be spent on the remaining three projects, as outlined in earlier parts of this debate.

On 1 July 2024, the Act will come into place. This is when the regional fuel tax will be lifted, and the fuel distributed in Auckland region will no longer be subject to the extra 10c per litre plus 1.5c of GST—11.5c per litre. On 1 July 2025, the savings provisions will be ended and other consequential amendments to Acts such as removing references to the regional fuel tax and particular mention of the Search and Surveillance Act—which I note sparked the interest of the Opposition transport spokesperson—will come into force. This will wrap the scheme up in its entirety. Leaving a year allows some activity to continue, so that’s issuing refunds, and it will allow the NZTA to continue its auditing process to ensure the tax has been correctly paid.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his interest in the Search and Surveillance Act of 2012. The Minister has already alluded to a proposed amendment in my name; I have two in relation to “Title” and “Commencement”. I invite the Minister to reflect, perhaps, on the contribution that I’m about to make, and then he may wish to inform the House as to whether he has changed his mind or not, as to what this should be.

I think what’s really important is that the title of any bill or any piece of legislation needs to reflect what’s actually in it. And when I look at what is proposed here, my amendment is, effectively, to delete the words “Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax)” and to replace it with “Land Transport Management (Instructions to Auckland Council Regarding the Regional Fuel Tax)”. And that is exactly what this bill is about; it is about setting a set of instructions to Auckland Council about what they are going to do next.

It’s important, I think, that when you look at a label, it says what you’re getting. It says it on the tin. Perhaps this is something that should say: “227g Dole Pineapple Chunk” because that is the cost of living sort of measure that this Government is going to provide as part of this piece of legislation. What is really important is that the title of the bill reflects what it is all about. The Minister, you know, talks about, “Actually, it’s about a repeal bill”; yes, it is, but it doesn’t have to have that in the title. The content of the bill is what is important. And so your suggestion, Minister, that, well, it’s called what is suggested because it is a repeal bill; well, this House is the author of its own destiny, and it can determine what it wishes. And so I encourage the Minister to reflect on whether or not he thinks these are instructions to Auckland Council, and, if so, he may wish to think again. And, you know, it’s never too late to change in terms of support for a fantastic Amendment Paper.

Andy Foster: We’re still waiting for one!

TANGI UTIKERE: The other one is a proposed amendment to clause—what’s that?

Andy Foster: We’re still waiting for one.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, we haven’t got anything from you, so many people will be waiting for quite some time.

Not bringing the Chair—

TANGI UTIKERE: My apologies, Madam Chair. Mr Foster, we’re still waiting for a contribution that’s meaningful from him. But in terms of “Title” and “Commencement”, in clause 2, the suggestion that I’ve put forward there is to delete the commencement date by one year. And I’m interested in the Minister’s thoughts around this because being able to provide a bit of a buffer in terms of a delay to the commencement would mean that some of those transitional provisions could actually be looked at. They could be thought through. So that’s the basis on which I’ve put forward this amendment.

Then the second clause there—clause 2, subclause (2)(b)—the dates changing there are, effectively, consequential amendments that are further aligned.

So I’d be interested in the Minister’s thoughts around the title to make sure that it intends to say exactly what it intends to do, and that the commencement date is such that it provides an opportunity for things to bed in, and, in particular, a number of the unknown elements that may exist can be ironed out. So I look forward to the Minister’s contribution.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As we debate clauses 1 and 2 of this bill, the “Title” and “Commencement”, as the Minister of Transport has laid out, and as we can all read, this is called the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill 2024. I would argue that this is just window dressing.

We’ve asked, on numerous occasions, why this piece of legislation that dismantles the structure, which will actually lead to gaps in infrastructure funding, across Auckland is being commenced at all. The only response that we’ve had from the Minister to date is that his party’s won an election. I would argue that the title of this bill is not what it should be or what we see here before us; what it really should be is: the “Land Transport Management (Backwards on Buses) Amendment Bill 2024”. With all due respect, I would point out to the Minister that the campaign wasn’t on the infrastructure projects—the 11 projects, that would be scrapped as a result of this bill going through—it was just on the repeal of the tax, which sounds great, but what people might not have known, because it wasn’t campaigned on, was the indirect costs to Aucklanders as a result of this.

In terms of being backwards on buses, I would really like the Minister to reflect on just the number of avenues in which we would be going backwards, because, for example, whether it’s bus priority improvements, whether it’s the central city being able to cope with the number of buses and the frequency of buses—in my area alone, we’ve had buses cancelled just because we have too many of them that are terminating in the city centre—what this bill will eventually lead to is absolutely a gap in how we manage that. How do we manage, in a central city the size of Auckland, buses not terminating there? How do we make improvements to the priority of buses in that sense?

In my area, as well, improving airport access was part of the project that was scheduled, and we’re going backwards in that sense, as well. There was a long-term programme of initiatives to improve bus services from the likes of New Lynn, Mount Roskill, Onehunga, right through to the airport. Now that’s been scrapped as well. That’s why I would ask the Minister to reflect on the number of instances in which we’re going backwards on buses here, as a result of this bill.

There are a number of other things. This could also be the “Land Transport Management (Repeal but No Replacement) Amendment Bill”, because this takes away, as I’ve mentioned, 11 projects that would actually make a huge difference for Aucklanders, and it replaces it with nothing. So if we’re going to argue that this is window dressing, this title, it doesn’t actually go to the heart of what it does or what the cost or what the impact would be for Aucklanders. I could also argue, then, that this would actually be the “Land Transport Management (Increase of Rates for Aucklanders) Amendment Bill”, because we’ve heard very clearly from the Mayor of Auckland that—

Tim van de Molen: Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, the member has now had three attempts at suggesting an alternate name, none of which are actually credible or objective attempts to provide an alternate, and are indeed actually a criticism of the bill, which is clearly—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): That’s not a point of order.

Tim van de Molen: Well, it is. It’s clearly Speakers’ ruling 130/2, which specifies “An amendment to the title of a bill must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than an attempt to criticise its contents.”, which is all we’ve heard from the member through her contribution.

Tangi Utikere: Speaking to the point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): There’s no need; we’ll just carry on. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A new question for the Minister on this part. I draw his attention to clause 2, which is the commencement. My question for the Minister is about (2)(a) of this clause, and I’d like the Minister to provide the committee with some answers about this staggered commencement date. Usually in the legislation that I have examined in committee stage, there has been one commencement date. It’s possible for legislation to have multiple dates, but that is somewhat unusual. In urgency, it’s useful for the House to understand why a staggered date exists and what the rationale is, and what advice the Minister considered about the staggered commencement date.

So in clause 2, most of the bill is introduced on 1 July. That is the date that terminates the Auckland regional fuel tax, and though this side of the House does not agree with that, we accept that between now and 1 July—that is a very quick time frame—that provides some buffer for those arrangements to be made which will need to be put into place: things like changes to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s regime of monitoring fuel prices, which the Minister so helpfully told the House about in the prior debate. But my question is about the amendment restricting which capital projects will be supported from the Auckland regional fuel tax revenue, because that comes into force the day after the bill receives Royal assent.

My question to the Minister is: why is that earlier than 1 July? Is that because the Minister is essentially giving instructions to Auckland Council as soon as possible? Is there something which suggests to the Minister that Auckland Council would try to spend the regional fuel tax money on the projects which it prioritises over the priorities of the Minister? Is it the Minister’s thinking that he needs to intervene, given that the Mayor of Auckland has criticised this move by the Minister? Is it his thought that councillors will move against the Minister to spend that regional fuel tax money if he does not move this date forward? And what is the advice that he’s had about bringing the date forward for this particular part of the commencement clause?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the member for her questions. The regional fuel tax date is ending on 1 July, as she’s pointed out. I note there’s a tabled amendment by Tangi Utikere to try and push all those dates out. We’re not supporting that. We were elected to remove the Auckland regional fuel tax; we are delivering on that commitment, which Aucklanders overwhelmingly voted for.

Now, there are remaining funds in the Auckland Council coffers—over $340 million—and there’ll be remaining funding which will be received between now and 1 July, and as I’ve outlined publicly, 1 July was the date chosen because that aligns with the Auckland Council’s annual budget year and that’s the right time to make that change. We want to make sure that the remaining funds go towards those priority projects, and to do that, the commencement clause means that, effectively, the scheme is amended immediately upon enactment so that those funds are channelled towards those projects and any remaining funds which are collected between now and 1 July are also channelled towards those projects. Then once the tax ends, those funds continue to be channelled towards those projects until those funds are completed.

That is the rationale for the commencement clauses and the three different ways in which it is put in this legislation. I think it’s very sensible. I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. There’s been—with all due respect to my Auckland colleagues—a lot said about the effect on Auckland when this commencement occurs. I’m concerned about that, but I’m more concerned—because no one on the other side of the House is—about what happens to other parts of the country. Because my questions—and the Minister and his colleagues voted down my amendment relating to road safety and the ongoing need for that funding. So given the absence of commitment to those projects, the question I have for the Minister is: will other regions of the country, following commencement, then start to miss out because he succumbs to political pressure to fund some of these Auckland projects?

Because they’d take money from Northland, or they’ll take money from Otago, or they’ll take money from South Canterbury because none of those members of Parliament are standing up for their own regions. So on behalf of them and other rural areas: once the commencement occurs, how do we know that there’s not going to be a shift in funding when the regional fuel tax ceases? How do we know there’s not going to be a shift in funding from other parts of the country into Auckland? Because there’s a whole lot of votes there, I’m told, and politicians seem to be receptive to a lot of voters.

The question is about the shift in funds to fill the gaps that my colleagues have identified once this bill comes into place. So I’d ask the Minister to give an assurance—an absolute assurance—that from commencement date, there will be no shift in funding from projects or commitments and safety around the rest of the country just to fund the shortfall that this bill will create for Auckland.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendment to clause 1 be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendment to clause 2 be agreed to.

The question is that Tangi Utikere’s tabled amendments to clause 2 be agreed to.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Land Transport Management (Repeal of Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading