Bennett DavidIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to take effect on 1 July 2019Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It gives me great pleasure to take a first call on this bill. When we look at it we're getting a taxation regime as the first thing on our Wellbeing Budget day which is something that many speakers have raised here already. It just seems very ironic that a Government that is focused on wellbeing really wants to put taxes on the most hard-working and dedicated members of the New Zealand community. The hard-working people of our regions and our cities will be paying more for petrol from this Wellbeing Budget.It's not a small increase that they're putting on. They're putting on an 8c increase over two years. The first part Part 1 talks about the first effect which will be the 3.5c that comes into effect—plus GST gives you the 4c that will come into effect. And it's great that we've got the Minister here because I note that when the Minister brought in the last set of charges on excise tax he came to the figures that—basically the figures that you'd be looking at here under Part 1 would effectively be $260 per car per year; 260 bucks. So all those people that are thinking that this is a Budget that will actually help them well you're 260 bucks down this year now under this Budget and that's the reality of it.Then we've got the intricacies of where that money is actually going because there are no roading projects post-2020. They've all been cancelled. Well the Waikato Expressway Hamilton bypass is still going—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! I hope we can start this debate the way I hope it will continue in that it is a very narrow debate and the member was very useful in referring to the clause on which he was speaking but we are talking about the collection of the excise rather than the use of the excise OK? Thank you.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yeah and so the collection of the excise is very important and the reason the Minister gave for that collection of the excise is rail and that was one of the things they talked about in the Budget today. It was a very high priority in the Budget was rail. When we look at that the 3.5c—going to 4c with GST—goes into the pot of funding. It doesn't go to one particular form. It just goes into the general fund that they use and that's the hypothecation.That general funding is going to be disproportionately used on rail under the Minister's change in priorities that you've seen in recent years and that's been seen effectively in the removal of a lot of roading projects in the regions. My region for example is one of those that's had that effect. So 4c each Waikato motorist will be paying under clauses 3 and 4 to take effect on 1 July—they will be paying that extra 4c and they will get no benefit for it because there are no rail projects of significance that will be funded from that.The Minister's looking at me and I know he wants to explain the train option that he's looking at from Hamilton to Auckland but that's only for 150 people. That's the maximum number of people that can go on it. So there's going to be 300000 people in the Waikato paying 4c from 1 July under clauses 3 and 4 and there are 150 people that will get some benefit from it. So that is demonstrably unfair to the residents of the Waikato. You're going to see that across the other regions and I'm sure other members will stand up and give their own stories. Some of them won't even have any payment in relation to that but in the Waikato we have had one option but it isn't a very effective option.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): As I said to the member before this is about the collection of excise not about expenditure.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yeah and because the Minister looked over and was obviously wanting to make comment around that I was clarifying it for him so that he wouldn't make an inappropriate comment and would do it with the full facts.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): It's very helpful of the member—Hon Shane Jones: But irrelevant.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): —but perhaps not needed.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well the relevance of it Mr Jones is that 4c is a lot of money and when you add it up to 8c over the two clauses that affects New Zealand families. This is a time when people are finding the cost of living very difficult. We're putting more costs on to New Zealand families and on New Zealand motorists and that affects the productivity of the country it affects the economic growth of the country and it affects the spending power of families because they can't get out of this cost. It's not something that you have a choice around. Every time you fill up at the gas tank you're going to be paying 4c extra now.