Adams AmyHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Madam Assistant Speaker thank you. Look I did want to come down and take a call on this Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I want to commend the speakers who have gone before us from this side of the House the honourable Jami-Lee Ross and Brett Hudson who have both spoken very eloquently.This is a very important matter for this House to debate because what we have here is a referral to the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the Government wants to have report back to this House by 21 May. Now if you're sitting at home and listening you might think well from 28 March to 21 May that sounds like a reasonable amount of time but what those of us in this House know is that a report-back date set at 21 May—not only is it four months short of the traditional select committee period of six months which generally is the bare minimum needed to properly evaluate legislation; and frankly there is any number of pieces of legislation currently before this House that are seeking extensions to the six-month period because the select committee can't get it done—this is a two-month period.Now what that means though to submitters is that submitters will have eight working days to submit on this legislation. Now we're not talking here about something sort of prosaic and a matter of form; this is a brand-new tax that people right across New Zealand are going to be subject to. I want to emphasise that point because Labour in Opposition and during the campaign did talk about an Auckland fuel tax but never once do I recall them saying We're going to bring in a 10c a litre tax across New Zealand. So actually it could apply in Gore it could apply in Fairlie it could apply in Motueka it could apply in Pētone it could apply in Masterton—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! [Interruption] Order! If I could just ask the member to come back to the specifics of the motion rather than speaking generally about the bill itself.Hon AMY ADAMS: Well Madam Assistant Speaker my point is the time that submitters have to submit on the bill and to express that you have to be able to reference the breadth of the bill and the impact of it because it is not a well-signalled bill and that is the point I'm making.During the campaign there was no reference to a fuel tax that would affect the whole of New Zealand. That has only become apparent very recently and now in a period of eight working days the whole of New Zealand who had little idea that this Government was going to come in and put a 10c a litre fuel tax on them—now they're going to have to get their head around what that means for them how it fits into their transport planning frameworks and form a view and submit on it. That is unreasonable to say the very least. I would say it's arrogant it's outrageous and it's egregious and unfortunately it is becoming all too common a trademark of this Government. It was only last night in the House I was talking about the five-year brightline test or the extension of the brightline test to five years which is—make no mistake—a capital gains tax by stealth with zero consultation. Now the Government may think they're doing some sort of favour to the people of New Zealand giving them a whole eight days to submit on this new tax. It is not good enough and it cannot be allowed to be the pattern of behaviour. Democracy deserves better than eight days to submit on a new tax.Now one of the other points that I did want to make in talking about the importance of the time to consider and submit on this bill is this is not a tax bill—and frankly every tax bill should be given the utmost of scrutiny because it is all very well for this House to impose legislation; it is people who pay the tax that deserve to be consulted. But this is not just a tax bill that changes a rate or we have a tax and they're changing a parameter; this is an entirely new legislative structure.So when you look at the legislation we have page after page of discussion about how a regional fuel tax scheme is drafted what it must contain the particular description of the projects the cost-benefit analysis how it's going to contribute the completion dates for various projects the consultation requirements—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can I bring you back to the motion please. Thank you.Hon AMY ADAMS: Madam Assistant Speaker this is critical to the motion. All of these are matters people will want to consult on. This is what people consult on at select committee: the content of the bill. My point—very obviously I would have thought—is that when you have an entirely new framework with substantial detail that people will want to engage on even if they're happy with the concept of a regional fuel tax there is a lot of intricate detail in how that should be framed what should be included how consultation should work and how the Minister should make their decision under section 65J inserted by clause 5 of the bill. These are very intricate issues of detail. It's not a black and white binary issue: should we have one or not? This is a complex piece of legislation setting up an entirely new taxation system and to suggest that people need only eight days to consider whether that's appropriate in the first instance necessary across all of New Zealand when that hasn't been flagged and then to work through the specific detail—and members of this House will know very well when the members of the public submit to select committees they go to real trouble and care to go right through the bill and identify issues where they think something has been missed where they don't think the consequences will be what is intended where there hasn't been sufficient description and particularity and where there isn't going to be the information for the consultation to work or for certainty as to how a Minister will make a decision. This is critical to the motion before us because we're talking here about how long is an appropriate period of time for the select committee to be able to consider this legislation.Within that is the necessary sub-question of how long should the public have to submit. My point very clearly is that when you have a bill setting up an entirely new tax framework with significant critical components as to how the process works to propose consult and decide on that quite apart from the issue of the rate quite apart from the issue of the extension across New Zealand it is outrageous to suggest that an eight-working-day period is sufficient for the public to submit.Members listening to this debate and watching on television I suggest will reach their own conclusions but the conclusion that this side of the House cannot escape reaching is that this is a Government that doesn't want public scrutiny. They don't want public scrutiny. This wasn't important enough to be in their 100-day plan. If this was as urgent as they want to tell us it would have been in the 100-day plan. No it wasn't. It has come before the House now and yet they want to rush it through and ensure that there actually isn't proper time for discussion. The issue of transport in Auckland is an ongoing issue and colleagues of mine have traversed that in the first reading debate the merits of the proposal. What I'm saying is that it is absolutely egregious to suggest that a framework like this doesn't deserve public consultation and that this is a Government that is too arrogant to even want to hear it too scared of criticism to want to hear from the public too worried about negative backlash for a tax and spend Government to want to give the public time. Their greatest hope is that the public don't notice it goes through they increase revenue and spend spend spend. Well this side of the House didn't spend nine years getting our economy working getting New Zealand growing and reducing the tax burden on New Zealand to see this Government come in with a callous disregard for people who work hard every day. At the very least they deserve a chance to have a say and if this Government cared a jot about New Zealand they would be welcoming that and not trying to shut it down."