Smith Lockwood: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Lockwood: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 October 2007. Volume:642;Page:12324. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney): In listening to the last Labour member speaking Charles Chauvel one could say that one is almost encouraged to hear that the Government is actually starting to ask what regulation is still required. But there is a huge difference between simply going through the bureaucratic process of questioning whether regulations are still required in this country and actually getting rid of some of them. The test on this Government is whether it gets rid of some of the plethora of regulations that makes doing business in this country so increasingly difficult.So far the track record of this Government is not good. If we look at recent regulation that has come into this Parliament so much of it does not have a cost-benefit analysis associated with it at all; and that is not good enough. Every new piece of regulation should have a thorough cost-benefit analysis so that Parliament on behalf of the people of New Zealand can be satisfied that the benefits of the regulation definitely outweigh the costs. There have been plenty of occasions where regulation has been put through this Parliament where in fact the benefits do not outweigh the costs.The test remains on this Government of whether it will do anything to reduce the burden of regulation. Talking about it and starting some bureaucratic processes are not the solutions. Actually doing something about it is what is crucial. What is often quite difficult with legislation like the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) is that it is the kind of thing about which Parliament can easily say that it is just confirming some stuff and that it should just put it through. So it is important that it goes to the Regulations Review Committee.The other quite important thing is that some of the provisions and confirmations in this bill are adjusting some benefits like superannuation and retirement income according to indexation for inflation. Those are measures that everyone accepts are really important and at times it is too easy to let those positive important measures override some of the tax-gathering measures that are also contained in this legislation.We should note that the legislation confirms increases in taxation through measures under the Customs and Excise Act 1996 and also the Road User Charges Act 1977.It is all very well saying that the Government just puts tax up by the rate of inflation but when it comes to tax we should really be always questioning whether this is necessary. Is it necessary to keep putting tax up? I have looked at the most recent notes to the Crown’s financial statements and at how much tax the Government has been gathering through the measures covered by the regulations this bill would confirm particularly the Customs and Excise Act Regulations and the Road User Charges Regulations. It is really interesting to look at how much tax the Government is collecting. If we look at the Road User Charges Regulations in the June year 2006 we see that the Government collected $731 million. In the year ending June 2007 it collected $55 million more—$55 million more tax—from heavy motor vehicles that pay road-user charges. That is a significant increase in tax and we should not be just accepting that these taxes go up willy-nilly with inflation. We should be questioning those increases all the time.With regard to road-user charges there may be a good argument that road users in the case of the heavy vehicles do have to pay to help contribute to the construction and maintenance of the roads in New Zealand that carry those heavy vehicles because one has to acknowledge that our roading network in the Auckland region is falling further and further behind requirements. Despite the Government’s claims that it is spending more money the result is a worsening situation not an improving situation as we heard in question time today. If we look at some of the other amounts collected though it is really interesting. The amount collected under the customs duty has gone up by $750 million from $1.083 billion to $1.836 billion which is amazing. That is a big increase. If we look at the alcohol excise it has gone up by $40 million. Again with the alcohol excise I guess that one could argue that we need some of that money to spend on dealing with some of the negative consequences of alcohol consumption but I think the customs duty increase is something that we should be questioning this Government about. Is that massive increase of three-quarters of a billion dollars in just 1 year justified or is that a windfall gain for this Government?And so it goes on. It is interesting that the petroleum fuel excise has gone down slightly in the last 12 months so there is probably a good argument for that one to increase. But the point I am making is that this Parliament should make sure each confirmation of these individual regulations is looked at carefully to make sure that where more taxation is being taken from New Zealanders it is justified. In some cases National fully accepts it is; in other cases I think the issues should be given full scrutiny to make sure that those increases in taxation are in fact justified and that the benefits outweigh the costs of collecting that taxation.Although National supports the first reading of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) and although some might say it is just confirming and validating certain measures there are important issues buried within this legislation. It is important that the Regulations Review Committee and Parliament scrutinise some of the taxation increases and that we do not develop a habit of just automatically upping taxes by the rate of inflation or indexing them automatically every year because I do not believe that is in New Zealand’s interests. In some cases it makes sense; other cases I think should be scrutinised. I hope that is what happens with this legislation at the select committee.