Nash Stuart: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Energy (Fuels Levies and References) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1499. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):I did not quite understand the speech of the last member Gareth Hughes. He was supporting our Supplementary Order Paper 45 and then challenged our logic. I do not know quite where that fitted in but maybe I missed something along the line.The other thing I would like to talk about is Mr Brett Hudson. His speech actually epitomised everything that is wrong with this Government. Let me give an example. I talked about the fact that this legislation says that this levy “may” be allocated to meeting our international obligations whereas it should say “must” because the purpose of this bill is—and I will read it—the objective of the “Energy blah-blah-blah Bill” is to allow for the costs of New Zealand’s oil stockholding treaty obligation under the agreement on the international energy programme to be met through a levy on fuel. This is the very reason why this piece of legislation has been brought before the Committee. Mr Hudson stands up and has the nerve to say “Well you know if we raise more money then we may apply it elsewhere.”—like to Skycity’s $130 million and that sort of carry-on. That is exactly what is wrong with the Government Mr Hudson. What the people of New Zealand want to know with a level of certainty is that if they end up paying for this—and I suspect that actually it will be the producer who will end up paying for this—that it goes directly into an account that meets our international obligations as per the intent of the legislation. That is what they need to know. I am astounded.The other thing and I agree with the New Zealand First speaker to an extent—and we support the bill—is that what we do not want to see is this legislation enacted and then a day afterwards the price of fuel goes up by 3c a litre and the oil companies saying that they have just got another levy to pay and therefore that gives them an excuse to raise the price. As we have alluded to the cost of this on every consumer is about 3c over a 60-litre tank of gas—in fact I suspect that they will not put up the price because there will be a little bit of controversy. In fact we will go hard and work together on this. We will go really hard. If they whack up the price of petrol because of this levy then we will hold them to account for that.But I do understand what you are talking about. The reason I say that is that the amount of tax on petrol in New Zealand is substantial. You have got your excise tax you have got your GST and you have got this. You know one of the fundamental principles of tax is that there should not be a tax upon a tax. It occurs a lot in New Zealand because we do have excise taxes and we do have GST so the GST is always a tax on a tax when there is an excise tax in place.But one of the things I want to have a look at is that the New Zealand First member Fletcher Tabuteau said—and the reason why fundamentally I do not support what he said—that it should be paid by the supplier i.e. the guy who owns the pump. Well I have been told by the petrol guys that they make about 4c a litre. Let us have a look at what the importers have been making on this. From 2005 to 2010 importer margins were around 13c a litre. From 2010 to 2015 importer margins were 26c a litre. In late December importer margins were as high as 40c a litre. They were as low as 9c a litre in that 2005 to 2010 period. I do not know whether 9c a litre is sustainable or 40c a litre is sustainable. What I have tried to do as our energy spokesperson is have a look at all the costs along that supply chain. I cannot for the life of me determine who is being ripped off. I suspect the New Zealand motorist is—there is no doubt about that because at a 40c a litre margin someone is making an inordinate amount of money there. There is no doubt about that.But I have worked in this game. I imported and traded petrochemical derivatives for 8 years. I know how this works. It really annoys me when petrol companies as soon as the dollar moves or as soon as the price of crude moves go “Whoops our costs have gone up.” and they whack the price up and yet when it comes down they are incredibly slow. And let us not be generous with these guys. I tell you what: the price has dropped but the last time the price of crude was US$50 a barrel our exchange rate was about 0.63 and the price of petrol at the pump was about $1.40. So somewhere along that supply chain someone is making extraordinary profits. I think that as a Parliament we need to take a good hard look at it.Clare Curran: At the airlines.STUART NASH: Clare Curran is dead right—the airlines. If Air New Zealand comes out with record profits this time any MP who comes from the provinces and gets absolutely reamed by Air New Zealand will I think challenge them on this. The profits those guys are making are obscene. Thank you very much.