Newman Muriel: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18601] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to oppose the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. I remind the Committee that this is the fifth tax increase on motorists since Labour has been in power. Each one has been presented to Parliament with the reason that Labour wants to reduce congestion in our cities or to improve the standard of roading in New Zealand. However I think most Kiwis understand that it is simply a way to grab more taxes. So this is yet another tax-grab bill by the Labour Government. 
I was not on the Finance and Expenditure Committee but I note in the report to the House that the bill was referred to that committee on 4 November last year and had to be reported back on 26 November. That gave just over 3 weeks for submissions to be called for advertised and sorted through. Is it any wonder that on an issue as big as putting up petrol prices and petrol tax there were only 16 submissions? This is yet another example of the Labour Party’s undermining of the democratic process by ramming legislation through so quickly that people who are concerned—and I say that would be every motorist and every small business in New Zealand in particular—do not have time to take part in the whole submission process. When submissioners are given 3 weeks from beginning to end it is no wonder that essentially the Labour Party seeks to lock out those people who might be opposed to this legislation. 
The first part of the bill deals with inflation adjustments. We have already heard in this debate how the Labour Government has inflation-adjusted excise duties on alcohol and cigarettes and now it will add petrol to that group. We have also heard how that undermines the whole sovereignty of Parliaments. Asking a Government to come to the House with its hand out or its hat out to beg for the numbers in Parliament to be allowed to put up taxes is a very key part of the Westminster democratic process. We want Governments to come cap in hand to their Parliament to ask for permission to put up taxes in a country. What the Labour Party is doing in a very sneaky way is taking that role outside of this House and doing it by regulation through Order in Council. In that way it will not invoke the wrath of taxpayers up and down the country who will say: “Hang on a minute. Government you are being too greedy.” 
 What is peculiar at this particular time as we pass this bill is the fact that Labour is already going to be sitting on a treasure chest of some $6 billion—the amount by which it has overtaxed New Zealanders. There is a huge surplus. Yet the Government is deciding that it has to pull more money out of the families of motorists up and down the country. 
We have heard about the problem of indexing taxes. It is interesting; I asked our research unit to tell me what would happen if we indexed tax rates. When Labour came into power it said there would be no tax increases for anyone earning under $60000 a year. Well if we had indexed taxation it would be only people earning over $68000 a year who would be on the top tax rate only people earning between $43000 and $68000 a year would be on the second tier of 33c in the dollar and anyone earning under $43000 a year would be paying the bottom rate of 19.5c in the dollar. So instead of the Government being fair and deciding that it would index income tax rates as well as all those user charges it has tried to pretend that it does not need to.