Shirley Ken: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Shirley Ken: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18415] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party certainly opposes the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill which we have before us here. This bill is unnecessary. It is more about smoke and mirrors and politics than any rational planning of what is needed for the very important infrastructure that is the roading network of this country. There is no question of that. 
To begin with the Government made a big hoo-ha about the fact that 35 percent is dedicated to Auckland and then it said that the rest of the country will get its share proportionate to population. In fact Auckland has got 35 percent of the population so why not just say—as the Government would if it were not playing politics—that the whole lot will be done proportionate to population? But oh no this bill is all about spin. This Labour Government cannot get away from the spin—it is just spin spin spin. The simple thing to do would have been—if one supports the bill and we do not—to say that the distribution would be proportionate to population and Auckland would have got its 35 percent. But that would have been too simple for this Government which wants to introduce a bit of deceit and deception it would seem. 
We have had some curious contributions and the one from Mr Brown was a classic from New Zealand First. He said we should borrow for our roads. He is opposed to tolling. Every country in the world is getting into road tolling. Australia and most European countries are using tolling. It is the modern way. The problem with our investment in roading is we have not had pricing mechanisms. When we do not have proper pricing mechanisms for any good we get wastage and distortions and that is exactly why we have not had the extent of planned investment in our roading that we should have had. The best way is to have pricing mechanisms and that means tolling and things like congestion pricing. There is no question that that would be the most sensible movement we could have in our road funding. It will not be the total answer. There will always be— 
Peter Brown 
: Does the member support network tolling? 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: There is a place for increased tolling including more network tolling and congestion pricing unquestionably and any report that member might care to read written by local or international experts will draw that to his attention. Unfortunately it would seem that he does not want to accept that point. The worst aspect of this bill however is the fact that fuel tax of 18.7c per litre plus GST is not all dedicated to roading—far from it. There is no case to increase petrol taxes further. 
This bill is an absolute taxation grab by the Government at a time when we have incredible surpluses. We know that the hard yards put in by previous Governments in restructuring the New Zealand economy have enabled this Government to pick the low fruit and in spite of having a $6 billion to $7 billion surplus it has found a sneaky way to grab more revenue by inflation adjustment of excise duty as it has done with alcohol and cigarettes. So the three excise duties—alcohol cigarettes and now motor spirits—are now inflation adjusted. Of course it is win-win situation for the Government and a lose-lose situation for the taxpayer. 
The Government through fiscal creep has already breached the promise it made when it came into Government that only 5 percent of taxpayers would be in the top tax bracket. We know that that promise has been broken by fiscal creep. There are now significantly more people in that $60000-plus bracket who are paying more income tax and now the Government is inflation-proofing itself in respect of excise tax. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: I was making the point that the ACT party is committed to increased investment in our roading network. Arguably of all infrastructural needs roading is right up there as the highest priority of all. The whole success of our economy is dependent upon good efficient transport networks. We know that the chaos with gridlock in the Auckland area is costing the New Zealand economy dearly—a total deadweight cost. This Government has sat on its hands for 6 years in office and only now in the final year of its term is it trying to do something about proper funding for roading. 
It is a bit rich for speakers from the Labour side to try to blame our roading woes on the previous National Government although I would say that successive Governments have not made the commitment they needed to make. The point is however that this bill is not the answer. This bill is not about securing sound revenue and commitment for road funding. This bill is a “smoke and mirrors bill”. It is we know all about Government revenue—particularly as we know that currently about half the revenue collected by Government is excise tax on motor spirits that actually goes into the public account and does not go anywhere near roading. In this Bill the Government is saying that it wants to inflation-index excise duty. That is a means by which the Government is inflation-proofing itself for its revenue and of course that is to the disadvantage of the taxpayer. We have no way of knowing how much of that money will go into the roading account. 
The other point that was made—and I think it is worth repeating—is that the proof that all this is about politics rather than any genuine commitment to road funding is the fact that it highlights 35 percent of the increased revenue for Auckland roads and the fact that distribution to the rest of the country is on a proportionate basis according to population. Well it just so happens that Auckland is 35 percent of the population therefore that requirement is totally redundant. We could have had a simple formula whereby all funding would be on a proportionate basis according to population and we would have reached that same formula. But the Labour Government wants to pretend that it is actually seriously addressing the chaos it has allowed to develop in Auckland by sitting on its hands when that is not the case. 
The other aspect is the interaction between this bill and recent amendments to the Land Transport Act where the Labour Government has totally sold out to the Green Party members—arguably we could say it was held hostage by them. It does not make any firm commitment to road funding. It introduces a whole raft of meaningless nebulous concepts like sustainability and all sorts stuff—I see that the Minister for the Environment is in the Chamber; she might like to comment—and of course all cultural aspects now have to have extra layers of consultation. 
We saw that problem on State Highway 1 where a major upgrade was held up because of a taniwha. A taniwha popped up at the critical point. All of a sudden out of nowhere a taniwha emerged. We saw people on national television drawing pictures of it depicting what it would look like and discussing how it could be placated. The one thing we do know is that if people pay money the taniwha goes away. We understand that Transit New Zealand did that and the taniwha went away. That is the sort of provision that the Labour Government has put into the Land Transport Act—layers and layers of consultation and meaningless ill-defined and nebulous concepts that will frustrate any commitment to securing a good roading network for this country. 
The ACT party certainly opposes this bill. We are particularly concerned with the way the executive is bypassing Parliament. One of the principles of our Westminster democracy is that the Parliament has to approve a taxation increase. Yes the Government of the day may well have a majority but it is in Parliament that it has that majority. This bill bypasses that and it gives the executive directly through regulation the power to inflation-proof itself. No business in New Zealand has been inflation-proofed. The taxpayers of New Zealand are certainly not inflation-proof. In fact the Labour Government turned down a member’s bill whose purpose was to inflation-proof taxation. Yet here we are seeing a revenue grab—and that is all this bill can be described as. It is another revenue grab by the rapacious Labour Government. It is pernicious it is bad law and even at this late stage the House should not pass it.