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

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

Tonight is a great night for Aucklanders, and it’s a great day for Aucklanders, because we are repealing the Auckland regional fuel tax which was imposed by the former Government.

Hon Tama Potaka: Gone by midnight.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: It’ll be gone by midnight tonight. This bill will remove the previous Labour Government’s 11.5c per litre Auckland regional fuel tax, and this bill will do so on 1 July 2024. This bill is part of our 100-day plan, and what a great 100 days it has been for the new coalition Government.

This bill is delivering on our coalition commitment to introduce legislation to remove the regional fuel tax, and I want to thank my colleagues in the National Party but also our coalition support partners from the ACT Party and also the New Zealand First Party for their support in bringing this bill through the House. It’s something we campaigned on and it’s something we’re delivering. It might sound radical to members opposite, but we campaigned on getting rid of the regional fuel tax. Aucklanders overwhelmingly voted—over 55 percent of Aucklanders—for the coalition Government, and here we are today delivering on our promises.

There are a number of reasons why we are removing the regional fuel tax: firstly, because it will save Aucklanders money as they fill up their cars from 1 July this year: $5 to $10 per tank. If you’ve got a Toyota Corolla, it’s 5 bucks—

Dan Bidois: That’s not insignificant.

Hon SIMEON BROWN: —and if you drive a Toyota Hilux, that’s 10 bucks. As my colleague from Northcote says, that is not insignificant. That will make a meaningful difference to Aucklanders.

Secondly, this bill will ensure that no future regional fuel taxes can be put in place. We are getting rid of the regional fuel tax regime that the last Government put in place—it’s “gone-burger”.

Thirdly, we will ensure that the remaining funds are spent on high-priority projects. There is over $340 million of unspent revenue. The last Government said, “We need this money to spend on major projects to get Auckland moving.” Mill Road: they said that Mill Road would be a high-priority project. Well, guess how that’s gone! It’s been cancelled more times than it was started under the last Government.

There’s hundreds of millions of dollars unspent. Over two years’ worth of regional fuel tax revenue has been taken from hard-working Aucklanders at the pump and not even spent, but we’re going to ensure that those remaining funds are spent on high-priority projects. The Eastern Busway, the electric trains and stabling, and local roading corridor improvements—those are priorities, and it’s not going to be spent on what the last Government thought were priorities. They thought that we should tax Aucklanders more to build speed bumps. Speed bumps—$490,000 speed bumps—that’s why they wanted to tax Aucklanders more, and red light cameras: they wanted to take another 11.5c a litre off Aucklanders to put red light cameras in. The other thing they wanted to do was speed management plans to slow Aucklanders down.

That was the priority of the last Government, and it’s not the priority of this Government. We want to get Auckland moving quickly and safely, and that’s going to be our priority. We released our Government policy statement this week, which highlights and clarifies and sets a very clear direction around transport investment for New Zealanders going forward.

The National Government, the coalition Government, our support partners—I thank them for their support. We’re very proud to bring this legislation to the House. We know it will make a difference to Aucklanders filling up their cars. We know we’ll make sure those remaining funds are put on high-priority projects. We’re going to stop the dumb stuff the last Government was doing. We’re going to get transport back on track in Auckland. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The best thing about that contribution was when the member sat down. This is an appalling use of the House’s time and urgency, and it will come as no surprise to members of this House that we in the Labour Party will be opposing this terrible piece of legislation that is being rushed through without any select committee process and with no public scrutiny, and it is a real indictment on the ability of this Government to engage with communities, because it simply does not know how to.

The Act that this bill seeks to repeal and remove does have a purpose. It provides opportunities for the folk of Auckland and, in particular, the decision makers in Auckland to make decisions for their local community. There is an opportunity for many of those Auckland transport projects to move along the way and actually get done with provisions such as this.

As I said earlier today, this is a bill that, basically, forces Auckland into a corner. Earlier this evening, we talked in this House about the possibility of renaming the bill, and said that this should be a bill where its name is actually more about giving instructions to Auckland Council about the regional fuel tax (RFT), because that is exactly what this is all about. This will result in cuts to critical transportation projects in Auckland, projects that will make a huge difference. It will mean that local government, as a sector in Auckland, will have to rethink what it wishes to do, what it wishes to prioritise, and how it wishes to fund things. That is not a good move that this Government is seeking to rush through the House under urgency at this late hour. It is a realistic fact that this will result in increases for those in Auckland because of the funding hole that will exist as a result of many of these projects that have been consigned to the scrap heap by this Government, who seem to have the mantra of “We know best.”

This is a Government that clearly has no eye on the future. It is a Government that has no new ideas, it has no new funding, and, in particular, it has no replacement for this legislation—there is no replacement whatsoever. They have no credibility, they are wanting to whack folk with a 22 percent increase to fuel excise, and they are wishing to, effectively, introduce a drivers’ tax on folk. This is what Aucklanders are not expecting from this Government.

It was unfortunate that the Government decided that they did not want a regulatory impact statement as part of this. They seem to have adopted this approach that, because they won the election, they’re not going to bother about the impact that it’s going to have, and, surely, what we would expect is a Government that’s prepared to actually stack those things up and be accountable for the things that are contained in that document. What we do have, though—and this was referred to earlier in the House—is a departmental disclosure statement, and it makes for very interesting reading. It makes for very interesting reading. I note that members opposite haven’t really relied on that in any of their contributions as this piece of legislation was before the House this evening.

But when we have a look at what is contained in that departmental disclosure statement, in the absence of any regulatory impact statement, it simply says that when it comes to the focus on the cost of living, removing this regional fuel tax “will result in modest savings for households and businesses, between $5-$10 per tank”—and we seem to hear that from Minister Simeon Brown frequently—but also that the actual savings, based on the average distances that are travelled in Auckland City and not collecting that RFT out to 2028, will equate to around $1.85 for a motorist, all right—$1.85. I’ve done a little bit of a calculation and a little bit of online shopping, and I know members opposite don’t like to hear this, but what will that get Aucklanders? It will get them a 227-gram can of Dole pineapple chunks—not a large tin; a small one. Now, if that’s their solution to the cost of living pressures that households in Auckland are going to be facing, then they are far from the mark in terms of where this bill will actually lie.

This is also a bill that the departmental disclosure statement identifies as “regressive” but that it will also have a disproportionate impact on those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and we have heard in this House today from local members who have explained and who have questioned the Minister about the impact that this will have in local communities. Local communities in South Auckland: I heard from my colleague Lemauga Lydia Sosene, the member for Māngere, who talked about the impact that that would have in terms of access to the airport. These are issues that the Minister and this coalition Government seem very easy and quick to just move to one side.

Rima Nakhle: Takanini can’t wait.

TANGI UTIKERE: But there are three projects, of course—and I hear Ms Stanford calling out there. There are three projects, of course, that are going to remain in the picture, and they are projects that are going to still be eligible for regional fuel tax funding, or what is left of them, and isn’t it interesting that two of those three relate to two members in this Parliament? One relates to Pakuranga in terms of the Minister who is responsible for this bill—Simeon Brown.

Hon Member: What a coincidence.

TANGI UTIKERE: What a coincidence, and when questioned as part of the committee of the whole stage, one of the issues that came out was the perception of conflicts of interest. The Minister was given an opportunity to inform the House as to the process that things went through, and the answer, actually, was non-existent.

The other project, it seems, of particular interest is one that Erica Stanford seems to be very fond of—

Hon Erica Stanford: For seven years, my friend—seven years of lobbying.

TANGI UTIKERE: —and it is in relation to project No. 12. Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s for seven years or six years, or whatever; the reality is it’s still in the list. Why is it that, when we look through those 14 projects, of the three that seem to make the cut—

Tim Costley: None for “Palmy”.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, “Palmy” is not in Auckland, Mr Costley, in case you didn’t know, all right? But of the three, there were two of them that managed to make the cut, and it’s interesting that with regard to project No. 12, which is the Glenvar Road - East Coast Road, Erica Stanford has put a petition up and, lo and behold, it’s suddenly one of the projects that is still able to attract the funding. The other one is the member for Pakuranga, the Minister who is responsible—his own project seems to be funded. They don’t shy away from that—they don’t shy away from that at all—and I find it very interesting that given the opportunity to address this in the committee of the whole House, that opportunity was not taken up. Mr Speaker, they get a bit tetchy over there when they get challenged, and isn’t that interesting?

This is about a bill that is going to—yes—repeal, but it is going to make a limited difference to many in Auckland, and if we have a look at some of the other projects that are up for the scrap heap, they are projects that relate to infrastructure. They are projects that relate to improving airport access. They are projects that relate to rolling out infrastructure when it comes to the electric charging of the ferry terminal, something I wasn’t able to speak to as part of this particular process. However, capital expenditure for charging infrastructure for electric ferries, among other things, will not happen as a result of this bill. There are plenty of other active transport opportunities and plenty of other road safety opportunities that our colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor touched on.

This is a Government that is signalling to Auckland that they know best when it comes to projects in Auckland, and they didn’t even support one of the amendments which was to ensure that there was ongoing dialogue and consultation with Auckland’s mayor. Now, we heard through this process that there have been conversations, there has been dialogue, and there have been discussions. What is—

Shanan Halbert: A meeting.

TANGI UTIKERE: There has been a meeting or two. What is wrong with putting in this piece of legislation a provision that would require there to be some consultation with Auckland so that the transport needs of the future for Auckland were considered and were put into the mix and that the mayor and the council were part of that particular process as well?

This is a bill that has been rushed through the Parliament. It is something that is a real shame, because of the projects that are still in the running, they are ones that are of direct benefit to some members in this House who seem to be promoting these or have promoted them for quite some time.

This is a bill where it really is a shame that the Parliament has progressed this piece of legislation without any select committee process. There has not been any opportunity, and for a Government—a coalition Government—to simply say, “Well, we campaigned on this and, therefore, that is the justification.”, it is a blind-sided approach to democracy, and we on this side of the House will not stand for it. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This bill reflects the very “short-termism” of the coalition Government, and particularly the National Party Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown. The whole way that they approach the problems and solutions is incredibly short term.

So within the explanatory note, in the general policy statement of this bill, it says that the purpose for this is to address cost of living because “Fuel costs are significant for many households,” and when this bill—the repeal bill—comes through, there will be potentially a tiny, minuscule saving in terms of what people are paying on fuel. I think we heard that the official advice from the Ministry of Transport was that it is about $1 or maybe $2 a week.

But, in reality, the high cost of transport is affecting all New Zealanders—particularly Aucklanders—and it’s not going to be solved by repealing a small regional fuel tax that was then being used to invest in infrastructure, because the problem is far more complex than that, and, fundamentally, there’s a misunderstanding on the part of the Government about why we’re in the world we’re in. The reason why New Zealanders have such high transport costs is because subsequent Governments over many decades—even more than half a century, I would say—have failed to provide for cost-effective transport solutions.

They have done this for really understandable reasons. They followed the United States in this pattern from the 1950s, where they prioritised urban motorways. They had planning rules that, basically, forced urban sprawl that did not allow residential development in city centres. They also underfunded public transport, and in the very worst years—in the 1990s—they sold off a bunch of assets like the railways and public transport operators and bus depots.

They ripped out the electrified, light rail public transport that had existed in the beginning of the 20th century in many parts of New Zealand, and that’s why New Zealand now has the highest car-ownership rate in the entire world. It is because people don’t have alternatives, and you don’t fix that by not funding the alternatives; you fix that by especially investing in the alternatives, and we’ve seen report and report and report of this.

There’s heaps of evidence around this. Even the previous National Government under John Key said that people don’t bike because—you know, I was looking at a press release from the Hon Gerry Brownlee when he was Minister of Transport, proudly announcing the urban cycleways fund and saying, “The problem is that there are not connected cycleway networks in cities. People don’t feel safe to cycle or to let their kids cycle and, therefore, they don’t, and so we’re proudly going to invest in that.” But now this National Government comes in, under Simeon Brown, and says, “We’re going to stop doing all of those things and we’re literally going to ban transport agencies and councils from using certain classes within the Government policy statement from investing in these things.” It’s very, very short term.

So we’re going to save a tiny amount of money for people in the short term, but in the medium term and long term, we’re going to keep having this same problem of households having to own more cars. That is affecting the cost of living. Transport is usually the second- or third-highest category of expense for a household, and for low-income households in New Zealand, it is much higher. They’re spending a much higher percentage of their income on transport than higher-income households. In other countries in the world, this is not the case. Low-income people spend less money on transport, but that’s because they have alternatives.

Here, in New Zealand, to afford a house you have to live far away from the centre of town, and then, on top of that, to get anywhere you have to own more cars. So it’s forced car-ownership. It’s thousands and thousands of dollars a year for every household, and for those who can’t afford cars or those people who are too young to drive or too old to drive or who have physical disabilities which mean they cannot drive, they cannot get anywhere. They’re completely dependent on other people to be able to get around.

There is an alternative to this, and that was some of the projects that were being funded by the Auckland regional fuel tax—not all of them, but some of them were quite good projects that had been consulted on by the community—so I’ll address now that part of this bill. Why we’re not supporting this bill is because it is very much central government dictating to local government and local communities about what they can do and how they can solve their local problems, and it’s the exact opposite of the rhetoric the exact same Minister used in all of the speeches around the repeal of the three waters. So, when it comes to three waters, they’re all about localism; when it comes to transport, they want to take away a tool that Auckland Council was using to fund projects that were prioritised locally, and even, I have to say though, in the regional fuel tax—a regional bill—I thought it was too much central control from the then Labour Government. I do believe in the very important role of local communities to decide what transport projects are going to be needed to solve their local problems, and I think much more central government funding needs to go to local government to be able to deliver that.

Finally, in this debate, the Minister has repeatedly used misinformation to exaggerate. He made these claims around speed bumps—it’s ridiculous. Yes, there was a project that involved a whole lot of other civil construction works in Auckland, not just the raised crossing. There was a whole lot of drainage issues, there was a whole lot of civil works. I asked the Minister written questions asking, “What is the average cost of a raised pedestrian crossing for Auckland Transport?” He couldn’t tell me—he didn’t know. The answers to his written questions were to go ask Auckland Transport. The only piece of evidence he cited was a New Zealand Herald article about this one project, and in subsequent New Zealand Herald articles where they kept referring to the cost of raised pedestrian crossings as $500,000, they had to retract it and print a correction because it’s just not true. There was only one project that was that much, and there were complicated reasons why that was the case.

But even if that were the case, why is it that on the one hand, putting in infrastructure that enables elderly people and young children to safely cross the road in urban areas where there are schools and markets and shops and homes—like why are we focusing on these trivial, tiny costs when the Government of the day is looking at building a highway in Auckland that’s going to cost $500 million per kilometre? Now, I know math is not everybody’s thing, but, like, that’s a thousand times more per kilometre.

Tim Costley: Speed bumps.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No, it’s not a speed bump, my friend. I know that’s what the Minister keeps referring to it as, but that’s not what it is, firstly, and, secondly, the cost isn’t $500,000. It’s misinformation. But that’s the kind of Donald Trump environment that we are now facing in New Zealand thanks to the National Party in Opposition, who were totally irresponsible. We’ve heard over and over again that they campaigned on this and, therefore, it’s fine—every single idiotic thing they said on the election trail, apparently, was agreed to by the New Zealand public, and now that they’ve had that election, they’re going to push things through in urgency.

Now, the problem is that in Opposition, they did not have access to the kinds of tools to carry out a proper democratic process to properly cost things, and that’s why, of course, there is a $24 billion hole between the money they actually have and the projects they’ve promised to deliver. But, ultimately, this isn’t about money. It’s like we have money, we have resources, and we can use them well, and what the Green Party is saying is there is an opportunity to make a much bigger difference to people’s quality of life, to their health and wellbeing, to the affordability of transport, and to the livability of their communities, and to do so, we have to do the exact opposite of everything this current coalition Government is currently proposing, because what they are proposing is so extreme and so backwards that it goes far beyond what the last National Government under John Key did.

It is hard to explain just how extreme it is, and it will take many years for people to see the results of these policy decisions. But to completely rule out funding things and to talk about red light cameras, safe crossings, and speed management as though that’s somehow anathema to a flourishing and productive society is completely ridiculous.

I know that some of those members opposite will have been to other countries. They will have been to successful, thriving economies that have productivity that we would aspire to have, and do you know what they have? They have walkable neighbourhoods and they have affordable transport. Their children are much healthier and their people are much healthier because it’s normalised to be able to walk and ride bikes and take public transport. That is the tragedy of the Trumpist misinformation, pathetic approach that this Government is taking to transport, and I hope that all of those members opposite reflect on their part in this.

Cameron Luxon—Luxton.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. “Lux-ton”—yeah, cheers.

Hon Member: This will be good.

CAMERON LUXTON: It is good—it’s nice and short. I commend this bill to the House.

I’m not going to be quite as short, but I will be quick. Two quick points to make. The first one of them is that we’ve heard a lot from the other side of the House that the repeal of this regional fuel tax will mean the death of all these projects they are so passionate about. All it will mean is that at the moment, Auckland gets about $130 million a year from this tax. It also gets about $1.5 billion from the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), so any good project that meets the criteria of the NLTF can get funded; it might take a little bit longer.

The second one is that I think that the Green Party hasn’t realised that the last Labour Government actually was quite emphatic that they were arguing for regional fuel taxes in other parts of the country. The last Labour Government was quite emphatic that there were going to be no more regional taxes across the country as a whole—no more. That was Jacinda Ardern who said that.

So this is meeting the coalition agreement. It is meeting the commitments that the National Party made to the country in the election campaign. I commend this bill to the House.

This is a five-minute, split call. I call Mariameno Taka—

Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tokerau Kapa-Kingi.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mariameno Kapa-Kingi—my apologies.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Ka pai. Tēnā koe. So, to build on my kōrero from earlier this afternoon, I now stand and question the real vision of this Government. In the first 100 days, this Government has repealed Act after Act and not replaced them, and if they have been replaced, then it has been to the detriment of our people and, in actual fact, to the detriment of their so-called one New Zealand, which is the preferred rhetoric. I think it goes like “All New Zealanders”, which is tantamount to “We are all the same.”, which finally lands with “We are all the privileged, entitled, white same.”

Hon Member: Oh!

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Despite the groaning in the corner, we have endured and continue to endure—only naming a few—the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, a Māori institution. They had barely much room to get themselves going, and suddenly it’s like “No, no, no. That might just be a bit too brown for this time.” The Legal Services Amendment Bill, the misuse of drugs amendment bill, the road-user charges amendment bill, business payment practices—

Hon Member: What’s this got to do with the bill?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: I know the list might be a little bit long for that side of the House, but at least listen and try and appreciate the position. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill—which will be discussed later tonight—and, finally, the bill which we stand here to debate tonight, the land transport management amendment bill. All of these bills were pushed within the 100 days. Clearly, the Government coalition obviously didn’t realise or didn’t trust, or have any faith in their work, that they wouldn’t take it to the people.

Tom Rutherford: Yeah, we did.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Really? You know, like take it out in a select process, in a real way, not in a “just speaking to your own mates” way and suddenly landing here.

So 100 days it’s taken this Government to undo the work of generations of Māori—generations of Māori. [Interruption] That might be an unheard-of position on that side of the House, but just let me continue and, hopefully, these people on my left will take some time and take a breath. Generations of Māori have committed to the reclamation of what is rightfully ours under—wait for it, people—Te Tiriti o Waitangi—you might want a little bit of a session on that, but let’s just carry on—otherwise referred to as the tino rangatiratanga document. Again, that’s another education session, which we might, if we bothered, provide. All of these bills and all of these points lead me to question what is the Government’s real vision, their real focus for Aotearoa and for Māori in Aotearoa?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Ms Kapa-Kingi, it’s been half the speech now. We’d like you to get to the bill, please.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: All right. With this bill, there was no clear vision, at least not beyond this coalition’s three-year term. A lack of vision beyond three years is, in essence, a lack of direction for all of Aotearoa. This will be the third time in a span of 30 years that a National-led Government has repealed such a tax. This Government illustrates a continuous failure when it comes to innovative thinking, and so I’ll repeat: this is the third time in 30 years the Government has repealed such a tax. I’m getting to it, Mr Speaker, just so we can get a bit of calm back in the House.

It is not the top 1 percent of Aotearoa who utilise public transport—our buses, our trains, our cycleways—it is largely those who cannot afford private transport who rely on transport infrastructure and who rely on us in Parliament to ensure we can provide for them at least their basic needs. For the community I stand here today and represent, I question us all to consider the vision this Government really has for Aotearoa and what this will mean for us beyond a three-year term. They are determined to demonstrate their conceit and arrogance, and I could not possibly commend this to the House. Tēnā tātou.

The Minister’s brazen confidence in pushing a bill through without actually substantiating the cost of living impacts it will have, despite the general policy statement focusing on the cost of living relief that the repeal of the regional fuel tax will have, is, quite frankly, admirable. For a Minister to have campaigned on a transport policy that was fiscally incoherent and then bring a bill into the House, claiming that it will have a benefit in terms of the cost of living pressures, and yet refusing to actually even present any evidence on how those benefits will be distributed amongst our different communities and not even being able to back up on how the poorest people in Aotearoa will benefit from the repeal of the regional fuel tax, let alone how this will lift, for example, child poverty rates—which the Government is making worse with other bills—speaks to the Government’s approach in the past few weeks, which is to ram through bills during urgency with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, making a mockery of their supposed commitment to using data and evidence.

Actually, this just speaks of a climate-denialist Government that wants to lock in polluting infrastructure—infrastructure that will make it worse for the people who were affected by the Auckland floods. Effectively, what this Government is doing is locking in damaging infrastructure that will prevent people having options, while at the same time presenting no alternative for revenue-gathering to be able to fund the clean, green public transport infrastructure that we desperately need and we’re desperately so behind on, and yet all that we have is a repeal that cuts off critical revenue sources and a climate-denialist Minister who actually just wants to condemn people to live in neighbourhoods that are going to be prone to flooding, neighbourhoods that actually are not going to be as safe as they could have been for children who need to go to schools. This Minister is leading a generation of the Americanisation of our towns and our cities, which is not exactly the kind of urban planning that I think we should be going towards.

The Minister should be ashamed that he was not able during the committee of the whole House to substantiate—he couldn’t even confirm to us about whether he had done a child impact assessment, despite parading the cost of living impacts that this bill would have. But are we surprised? No. At this point, I don’t think any of us should be shocked at the Minister being unwilling to back his legislation with data and evidence when, actually, he campaigned on a transport plan that was, as I said, fiscally incoherent—completely incoherent.

So what we are going to have as a result of this bill is a going to be a transport mess. There are going to be more people locked in traffic because this guy thinks that all we need is one more lane and that that will actually fix transport. According to him, he’s seen plenty of reports that, I assume, show that in the cities in the US that have taken the approach of just building more lanes and more infrastructure. That has not been proven to actually give people choices or to relieve pressures for those people who do need to use cars, and at the same time, it increases emissions by locking in years of funding of infrastructure that will make the climate crisis worse.

This is a Government that by nature of not providing a sustainable alternative and by the repeal of the regional fuel tax is making the climate crisis worse. Make no mistake: do not doubt the fact that this is a Government that is not committing to public transport infrastructure, despite people—particularly in areas like Auckland—being very, very well aware that our public transport system is not fit for purpose and needs a Government that is seriously committed to locking in generations of funding and to having a serious, reliable funding stream that does not become a political football.

This Government is not taking the climate crisis or the lack of public transport seriously in the repeal of the regional fuel tax, and it’s a Government that does clearly not care about actually fronting up about who is going to benefit the most and to what extent, despite passing through legislation earlier that will make 7,000 kids poorer and push them into poverty. The Minister couldn’t substantiate whether this bill will lift some of those 7,000 children out of poverty. Despite again being told that we should wait for those other interventions that will help people, this was supposed to be one of those, and yet, clearly, the Minister cannot back any of this up with evidence. This will simply make future generations poorer by making the climate crisis worse.

I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thanks for the opportunity to make a contribution in opposition to this very poorly thought-out bill in respect of Auckland transport issues relating to the regional fuel tax.

It’s now abundantly evident to every New Zealander who follows these issues that the National Party said anything to get elected. They were brazen, as the last speaker for the Greens has said. They were not straight with the New Zealand public. They pretended that they could have their cake and eat it too, and their numbers never added up—never added up. We had the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, and his leader, Christopher Luxon, look into the camera and promise New Zealanders that their transport numbers added up. They never did, and they now must be held to account for their lack of being straight with New Zealanders.

This is but one part of an enormous fiscal hole that they have created for themselves in transport. The “Roads of National Party Significance” that they told the New Zealand public were properly funded in their report were not funded; not just by $1 billion but by between $6 billion and $22 billion short. That was made clear most recently in a media article reporting on advice that has been given by ministries to the Minister that their “Roads of National Party Significance” are between $6 billion and $22 billion more than the amounts that they told the electorate at the time of the election.

These errors are huge. Take the one that was referred to in just the last couple of days: Tākitimu stage two. What did the National Party tell the public that was going to cost: $627 million. What’s its current funding projection: between $900 million and $1,400 million. What about Woodend? He was talking about that just today. The National Party took that and said that was going to be $270 million. What’s it costing now? Between $550 million and a number even bigger. Cambridge to Piarere: the National Party told New Zealanders it would cost $721 million. Present budgeted cost just a month or two later: between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion. Their numbers never added up, they said anything to get elected, and now they’re trying to hide from public scrutiny about that lack of straightforwardness to the New Zealand public.

Here we are, close to five months after the election, and just about every week we meet under urgency, where nothing goes to select committee—nothing goes to select committee—and this bill is another example. It’s being pushed through with no regulatory impact statement to judge the Minister’s errant comments that this will reduce the cost of living for Aucklanders. It is so superficial in its analysis. As Julie Anne Genter and Tangi Utikere have both pointed out, the costs of this will still be felt by Auckland. How will those costs affect Aucklanders? Well, as others have said, worthy projects that would have reduced congestion and reduced travel times in Auckland will no longer be funded. In addition to that, as Julie Anne Genter rightly pointed out, people are driven into having to purchase a second or third car in their family for a lack of transport alternatives.

The idea that just because this regional fuel tax is removed these costs are removed for Auckland is made clear by comments from the Mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown. “The Government have cancelled this in order to reduce people’s costs,”—this is a quote—“which seems completely ridiculous. So I have to put up rates to increase people’s costs.” We’ve seen the Mayor of Auckland make a number of other comments, and he makes the point, quite fairly, that there’s actually going to have to be a combination of rate increases to fill in some of these funding holes but also a cancelling of projects, which will of course mean worse outcomes for Auckland.

The cost of Auckland’s congestion is around $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Now, that’s going to get worse as the consequence of this legislation, not better.

Andy Foster: They need more speed bumps.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Here we go, the reference to speed bumps. What puerile comments we have from the other side. They know that the amount that is projected to be spent on speed bumps is infinitesimally small.

Now, I actually back the Mayor of Auckland to get rid of unnecessary speed bumps, but it was never a big part of the funding package that was going into speed bumps. I also back the Mayor of Auckland to get rid of some of these ridiculous amounts that have been spent on traffic management for this famous new pedestrian crossing in Williamson Avenue. It’s ridiculous that they’ve spent $170,000 of that $500,000 cost on traffic management—I agree with that. But that is no excuse for this measure, because it is so infinitesimally small in the scheme of things, even though those costs are wrong and should be driven out of the system, and I’d back Wayne Brown to drive them out of the system far more than I would look to Simeon Brown to do it. Wayne Brown will be far more effective at that.

What other misrepresentations do we have from Simeon Brown? Simeon Brown goes around the country and he says, “Oh look, we’re going to fix potholes. We’re going to fix potholes.” The long-term problem as to the state of New Zealand roads was caused by the prior National Government. Steven Joyce came along with his “Roads of National Party Significance”. There’s nothing new in the National Party; it’s just retread from the last term they were in Government, and the last time they did that, they didn’t have enough money in the can then either because, just as they pulled the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders coming into this election, they did the same thing last time.

So what did they do? How did they fund their funding hole that time? They cut back on road maintenance. For a number of years, road maintenance was frozen. The effect of that was that the road surfacing, of which on average about 6 percent of the length of State highways every year needs to be resurfaced—that dropped to, in the worst year, about 3 percent because they froze the funding for road maintenance. So what happens if you don’t resurface the roads? The water gets in. What happens when the water gets in? You get potholes.

So what did we do as a Government, having inherited that mess? We increased State highway maintenance funding by 65 percent. We started to fill in these potholes that were caused by the National Party. Notwithstanding the enormous problems that were made worse by those flood events last year around the North Island, we were making inroads into that. You can’t fix this overnight, but every year, other than the COVID-related year after we’d been in power in the last Labour-led Government for about a year, we then made sure that road maintenance increased in every year, except for the COVID lockdown year. We got those maintenance rates up so that we were actually resealing 6 percent per annum of New Zealand’s road length.

Simeon Brown pretends that he’s interested in the issues, but he really is not interested in serious answers to serious and difficult problems. He’s into populism. He’s into processes that avoid scrutiny of his flawed decisions. No select committee, no regulatory impact statement—absolutely appalling process, and not just this legislation, but bills, week after week after week, are being brought forward under urgency. No fair process; no ability for select committee to hear from interested New Zealanders who would be able to unpick the misrepresentations and brazen—brazen—falsehoods that we get from the other side.

This is bad legislation. It is part of a broader suite of flawed decisions being taken in respect of transport that will make congestion worse in Auckland. They say they’re going to fill it in with congestion charging; they opposed that legislation. They say, “We want road tolls”; they blocked tolling for Penlink. There is no credibility on transport in this Government.

There is so much to say following a lecture like that from David Parker, but what I actually want to say—as Ronan Keating sang—is that you say it best when you say nothing at all. So I commend this bill to the House.

There is so much noise from that side, they’ve finally decided to wake up. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Labour opposes this bill. We oppose it, because if you visit the Auckland international airport or if you visit the Auckland domestic airport, be prepared because you are going to be in gridlock. The regional fuel tax that is now being repealed will affect many families in Māngere. Many lower socio-economic households were reliant on the transport initiatives that the regional fuel tax was assisting in terms of payment for the investment, and it’s really important because I want to take the second opportunity to highlight a very local project.

It’s been helpful to understand and to hear the contribution of the effects that the loss of the scope of the regional fuel tax—local projects across Tāmaki-makau-rau will be affected. What does that mean? Well, it means taking from the left and putting to the right, and for those communities who use public transport, it’s really important that we are very clear on our focus, on this side of the House, that when you have options, you can catch public transport and you can ride your bicycle because there is a good cycle lane that has been planned and you can actually walk to school and you can walk to Māngere town centre.

I want to highlight the practicality and the impacts of the loss of such a huge fund that has been invested in Tāmaki-makau-rau. In many communities, the haves are fine, the have-nots will not be fine, and this will limit the choices of transport. Many of our young people work at the airport precinct, and they will have to continue to drive their vehicles because of the lack of transport investment.

I wanted to highlight Te Ara Mua, which is a local project for future streets that has benefited from this funding. How we have benefited is that we have many more in our community, including our mātuas, some of them who are over 65, who actually have started riding bicycles. Why? Because the transport infrastructure has been inputted with the assistance of central government and with the assistance of Auckland Council, and especially the elected members, who have been able to test, who have been able to be assisted in the design, and who have been able to be consulted upon in terms of what safety initiatives look like. Many of those projects have had provided the evidence from the community with transport planners.

So I wanted to remind our members of Government—who have come alive in the last 20 minutes—that it’s just helpful for you to understand that when you come to the Auckland domestic airport, be prepared. You are going to be gridlocked because if you can’t get out of the lanes that go across the isthmus, then it’s going to take longer for the transport initiatives to be delivered.

I want to emphasise this in this House and for it to be recorded: pedestrians and cyclists are people who feel safe on routes because they’ve been able to utilise the transport infrastructure that has been invested in. The reduction of traffic speed has enabled more lives to be saved because people understand that it’s an actual local road and not a highway. The reduction of crashes, having cyclists being safe, and for the parents to actually be able to utilise the cycles, rather than driving their children to school, and getting the bikes out—those are the practicalities that have an effect in our local community.

So, just as I end off, I just wanted to remind the Government members, and I know we’ve been reminded time and time again by the Minister—notwithstanding that that side of the House won the election, which is all good and well, you’ve got lots of local communities who rely on having a safe public transport networks. I do not commend this bill.

Dan—[Interruption] Look, I can understand the frustration when some people don’t get to speak, but can you just allow your man to stand here so I can hear his call. Thank you—Dan Bidois.

We did win the election last year. We won it on a mandate of easing cost of living pressures, of getting this country back on track, and of cutting back waste. This bill does it all, so I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I think that last contribution was about 23 seconds. It kind of reflects on where that member is at—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, if I may, I can’t hear over the boys there, on the other side.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Yeah, look, can I just say that we’ve done pretty well. It’s late at night and we all need to keep our blood flowing. Interjections should be rare, reasonable, and preferably just a little bit witty—failing on all counts, across the board. We need to keep awake, so can we just try a little harder? Thank you. We’ll give you back however many seconds my little soliloquy cost then—start again.

SHANAN HALBERT: Tēnā koe, thank you, Mr Speaker. I do want to speak for the full 10 minutes on this call because it is an important one. As a member of Parliament in Auckland based on the North Shore, living in Northcote, actually, the contribution here is very important. We’ve actually had a lack of input into this particular discussion. We’ve got the global city of Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland that will have population growth hitting 2 million come 2030. So the common point for everyone in this House, whether you’re from Aotearoa New Zealand or if you’re an Aucklander, is actually: how are we going to ensure that productivity improves and remains high, that Aucklanders can get around the city out of their cars, and that they can get out of congestion?

What we know, Mr Speaker, is that under good tuition—yours—in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, we did work around the congestion question. We debated in this House tools, solutions, of how we provide Aucklanders with some other options to sitting in their cars. So I’m disappointed tonight, after going through three speaking rounds, a committee stage, with the lack of input from members opposite and a lack of voices from Auckland MPs from the Government. Where was their contribution and representation of Auckland communities? They did not put that argument up.

Like my colleague Lemauga Sosene, we know the results of the election, and I accept that. I’m fine with that. I accept that this Government wants to repeal the regional fuel tax for Auckland. But in this process, as with anyone who wins an election, it doesn’t mean you’re above this House. If you win an election, it doesn’t mean that you can bypass parliamentary process. What’s happened here tonight is that through ramming this bill through the House, Aucklanders haven’t had the chance to have a say. Aucklanders contributed—

Hon Member: They did when they voted.

SHANAN HALBERT: The person who said that Aucklanders had their say when they voted—that doesn’t give you a mandate. It doesn’t give you a mandate to overlook parliamentary process, because the voices that matter in this discussion—and the questions I asked the Minister, who was sitting in the chair during the committee stages, were: who have you spoken to, who have you consulted with, what did Mayor Wayne Brown say, and what did Auckland Transport say? His response was: “I had a meeting.”

I then asked what was the nature of the relationship, knowing that both of those organisations—both Mayor Wayne Brown and Dean Kempton, CEO of Auckland Transport—do not agree with this particular piece of legislation. Why? Because it goes backwards—it goes backwards on addressing the common goal that Aucklanders need us to achieve for them. It goes backwards on every time in this House when we have agreed that we have a deficit in our transport infrastructure, and that Government after Government has not invested in adequate transport infrastructure in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland.

While I agree that this was put up under a Labour Government—this was our plan—what we don’t see tonight is a plan from that side of the House. There is no plan; there’s only repeal. That’s not good enough for Aucklanders. That is not good enough for people sitting in their cars.

There hasn’t been a regulatory impact statement. They’ve pushed this legislation through the House. There haven’t been public submissions. There hasn’t even been a contribution from Auckland Council themselves. So when this bill particularly relates to Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, how the heck can we not invite those voices to make a contribution on this subject?

Auckland members on that side of the House have done 23 seconds in their contribution in this speaking round—23 seconds. They’ve heckled from over there. The member for Upper Harbour has heckled. The member for Northcote has heckled. His contribution was 23 seconds long—I don’t care about Rangitata. My point here is: where are the voices from Auckland? They only tend to be on this side of the House.

The other key point, and what’s very clear in this bill, is that what the Minister is attempting is to save some of the National Party’s reputation in providing cost of living relief. A clear promise that they made in the election—a clear promise. Tonight, I’m calling them out. I’m calling them out on their broken promises to Aucklanders, because all we’ve seen in 16 out of 17 bills come through this House in urgency is that they are only repealing bills, and not putting up new plans.

James Meager: The 100-day plan.

SHANAN HALBERT: It’s a 100-day plan, but just in this 100 days, we have incurred additional costs for Aucklanders. Let’s count them, because if you had asked me a week ago, I would have defended this piece of legislation differently. But what Aucklanders and the rest of the country learnt this week is that they might like the idea of not having a regional fuel tax, and I’m sure most people like that idea. They also want to get out of having congestion. But they got hoodwinked—they got hoodwinked. They got gaslit by this Minister. Through his cynicism, he cancelled a bunch of projects—cancelled the only thing that gets Aucklanders out of their congestion challenges. But what they got hoodwinked with was not cost of living relief, as promised; they got slapped with a $50 drivers’ tax, and if you count that up, that’s already impacting on Aucklanders. On top of that, they’re adding another 22c to fuel excise.

Katie Nimon: Talk to the bill.

SHANAN HALBERT: Whoever said, “Talk to the bill.”, and I think it was the member for Napier—it’s actually the cost of living, and if she’d read the bill, it talks specifically about the cost of living. It’s actually a failed attempt by this Minister and the Government to provide cost of living relief for Aucklanders. So that’s quite embarrassing when these MPs have to go back to their communities and explain: “Sorry, we had a fiscal hole that, yes, we pretended in the election wasn’t there, but absolutely it’s there. We can’t fund our promises.”

But that’s not the only broken promise to cost of living, because Aucklanders also face a 23 percent increase in water rates because those members also repealed the affordable water reforms. They also didn’t put up another plan for that. At the heart of this is Aucklanders, the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau—people still stuck in congestion, people still feeling stressed and having their mental health be impacted on—and productivity still being lost in our economy. For a city that makes the largest contribution to our economy, this has been one of the poorest pieces of legislation smashed through this House that I have ever seen. I’ve seen the poorest contribution from members of Parliament from Auckland, but most of all, I’ve seen the broken promises that in only 100 days, this Government have made, and they will be held accountable for that. But, most of all, they’ve let down our people of Auckland.

The number one issue for the residents of Mt Roskill is dealing with the cost of living. The Auckland regional fuel tax has disproportionally hurt those on the lowest incomes in my electorate, who often drive the oldest and most un - fuel-efficient cars. Reducing the cost of fuel will make a meaningful difference, particularly to the families who are counting every dollar at the moment.

Last year, people in Mt Roskill elected a National MP for the first time, because they believed in National’s 100-day plan to get New Zealand back on track. What a victory for people in Mt Roskill today. What a victory for Aucklanders. Thank you, Minister Simeon Brown. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.