Joyce Steven: Urgent Debates — Transport Funding—Replacement of Regional Fuel Tax with Increased Fuel Excise Duty and Road-user Charges 
Joyce Steven: Urgent Debates — Transport Funding—Replacement of Regional Fuel Tax with Increased Fuel Excise Duty and Road-user Charges 
[Volume:653;Page:1978] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The Hon David Hughes formerly of Otaki and now of no fixed abode comes running forward at 100 miles an hour and comes face to face with reality. 
Hon Annette King 
: And he’s got more hair. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: He does have more hair; he used to have a lot more hair actually. 
Let us look at the problems with the member’s argument. The first problem is that he neglects to mention that the previous Government proposed increases in national taxes of 1.5c a litre per year over the next 3 years. That was conveniently forgotten and not mentioned before the election. All we talked about then was the potential for regional fuel taxes. The previous Government forgot to say: “Oh by the way we’ll still be putting up fuel taxes. Oh did we forget to mention that?”. It realised that a tax of 14c a litre in Auckland would probably not be as well received as 9.5c which is less than 10c. The previous Government’s proposal was 4.5c a litre higher. So the member is criticising the National Government for an increase of 1.5c a litre per year for 2 years. He is criticising a national fuel tax increase of 3c a litre over 2 years. 
That was his first mistake. His second mistake was to try to suggest that somehow that means— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is a new member. Perhaps Mr Assistant Speaker you could draw his attention to the fact that it is actually permissible to look at members opposite in the House. We have not had any eye contact so far at all. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Then there is—[ 
Interruption 
] Yes I have a much more interesting view looking down here. The next issue is about what the money from national fuel taxes is to pay for. Mr Hughes—Darrell Hughes—says that it is to pay for Auckland’s railway projects. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Darren Hughes. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Sorry David Hughes that is right. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not a precious person so it did not bother me the first time— 
David Bennett 
: Sit down then. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I have a point of order and David Bennett is interjecting so maybe we will deal with that first. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Points of order will be heard in silence. We will enforce that and members must acknowledge that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: My original point of order was that it would be helpful for orderly and good conduct of debate if the member could get my name correct. I called him Steven Joyce. That is his name. My name is Darren Hughes. I am very proud of David Hughes but that is not my name. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I think that is a fair call. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: So Mr Hughes Darren Hughes—is “Dazza” OK?—“Dazza” Hughes tries to tell us that the Auckland railway projects will be paid for from a national fuel tax which of course is not the case. As we said in the releases of last week those projects are being funded through KiwiRail. We have made a commitment in principle for KiwiRail to own the passenger trains in Auckland and Wellington. Members might ask why that has changed since last year. The reason is that halfway through last year the previous Government made a decision to change track so to speak and to go out and purchase KiwiRail. It does not seem to make any sense to me or to the average layperson that the Crown would fund over a long-term period potentially three rail owners the Auckland Regional Transport Authority KiwiRail and the Greater Wellington Regional Council which are all effectively funded by the taxpayer through petrol taxes or through other means. That makes no sense at all. It leads to increased costs poor administration and lots of extra overheads. It just does not make any sense at all. 
In terms of the remaining projects—the diesel trains railway stations and Penlink—the Auckland Regional Council has committed around $80 million of ratepayers’ money to these projects above the regional fuel tax. We have said to the council and I have said in writing to the council chairman Mr Mike Lee that once that money has been invested the New Zealand Transport Agency will be available in principle as it has advised to assist with any bids for any shortfall funding that is required for projects that are already under way. 
Let us look at the regional fuel taxes again at the rest of the country and at which regional fuel taxes were proposed. A number of regional fuel taxes are about to come on to the drawing board. These fuel taxes are for Waikato Wellington Bay of Plenty Canterbury and Taranaki. The reason they were all coming on board was that the previous Government had reduced its expenditure on State highway infrastructure so that all the local regions had a huge number of projects that they knew had absolutely no chance of proceeding very far. They felt they would have to introduce regional fuel taxes in order to undertake those projects. They were being forced into introducing those regional fuel taxes. 
Of course the previous Government rather than actually fronting up to say that a bit more should be added into the national fund—which incidentally it was going to do anyway—said that the high administration costs and boundary issues of regional fuel taxes were all worth it as long as nothing happened that was the Government’s fault. The smaller national increase in national fuel taxes—which New Zealand as a whole will benefit from contrary to what Mr Hughes said through the National Land Transport Fund—will generate an additional $283 million over the next 3 years. On top of that the Government has put in $258 million in new Crown investment so right there is an additional $541 million in the National Land Transport Fund. We reviewed the allocations that the previous Labour Government had made on various activities in the National Land Transport Fund. We discovered that the previous Government had huge increases planned in some areas of the fund on top of other increases that occurred over previous years and a 9 percent decline in State highway construction. That made absolutely no sense. 
Whether we like it or not—and this is where reality intervenes I say to Mr Hughes—84 percent of New Zealanders travel to and from work each day by car bike motorcycle or truck. That is just the reality. We cannot build a transport system for what we would like. We have to build a transport system for what people use unless we are arrogant enough to believe that we can and should completely change the way people go to and from work. We would have to be as arrogant as that to believe this. Of course that approach tends to be used in respect of Governments that are in their dying days and sometimes those Governments get thrown out. 
 We reviewed those allocations and we were able to put up an additional $400 million - odd for State highway construction. State highways in New Zealand represent 11 percent of our roading system. One might not think that that is very much but over half of the traffic that travels on New Zealand roads travels on our State highway system. The Labour Government was going to reduce the amount invested on that by 9 percent. That is a travesty because those roads are also some of the toughest roads in respect of road safety. Let us look at these roads. Over the last 10 years there have been 21 fatalities on the road from Puhoi to Wellsford 55 fatalities on the road from Ohinewai to Cambridge and over 80 fatalities on the road from Foxton to Paremata on State Highway 1. I am sorry but as a country we need to engineer better roads in those areas. We received a cheap shot from Mr Hughes last week when he suggested that this Government did not care about road safety. Well I care about road safety. I care about the need for a divided highway in parts of the country where there has been large numbers of fatalities. 
We have come up with a direction for the New Zealand Transport Agency whereby it will focus on roads of national significance and there are seven of them. Funnily enough they happen to be around our largest five metropolitan areas in the country. They just happen to be some of the busiest most congested and most bottlenecked roads and they have the worst safety records. We have identified what to focus on and that is the Puhoi to Wellsford road the completion of the Auckland western ring route the Victoria Park bottleneck the Waikato Expressway the Tauranga eastern corridor the Wellington northern corridor and the Christchurch motorway projects. What did the previous Government do to move those roading projects forward? Well it sort of— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. There is no point in having debates across the Chamber. Interjections are permitted if they are rare and reasonable but members are getting into dialogues that are excluding the speaker who is on his feet. I call order to the House. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He’s just so boring. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The truth can sometimes be boring I say to young “Dazza”. The previous Government did not even design the Puhoi to Wellsford section and it had no plans to complete it within 10 years. That Government came up with a plan to spend $3 billion on the Waterview Connection but it had no plan or funding to pay for it whatsoever. However I give that Government half a point for its work on the Victoria Park bottleneck because work was set down to start happening on that in the next year or so. 
The Waikato Expressway was on the absolute never-never. I remember back in the 1990s that that road was set down to be completed by about 2008 but hello two-thirds of it is still not done. In respect of the Tauranga eastern corridor the previous Government told the local region that it would get that road only if it turned up with regional fuel taxes and a toll. The Wellington northern corridor is one of the cruellest of all in terms of road safety. That Government went to the regional councils and said: “You want Transmission Gully? OK well here’s the deal: we’ll give you $400 million.”—which just to be clear is not appropriated—”We’ll have to call that a ‘notional’ $400 million and you have to come up with the other $600 million.” If we do the maths even with a regional fuel tax in Wellington we see that it is well short—hundreds of millions of dollars short. So that was a road that the previous Government promised without actually promising a road. It basically said to the people of the Wellington region that they could not have the road but if they were able to go out and borrow hundreds of millions of dollars then it could be done. 
Then we have the Christchurch motorway projects. Over the last 9 years Christchurch has been getting back roughly half of what its local people have been spending in fuel taxes. That is what has been happening in Christchurch over the last 9 years. Opposition members have the temerity to criticise us for coming up with some plans to invest in roading around the country and they try to say that it is all for Auckland. Well those members should ask the people of Christchurch how much has been invested in their roading over the last 9 years. So there we have it. 
The previous member for Otaki the current list member has tried to tell us today that the removal of the regional fuel taxes means that the rest of the country pays for Auckland’s electrification. He is wrong. He tried to tell us that we are putting up national fuel taxes by 6c. That is also wrong; it is 3c over 2 years on top of what the previous Government said. He tries to tell us that a billion dollars in extra State highway construction over 3 years is not a big deal. He tries to tell us that the $4.4 billion over 10 years is also not a big deal. I say it is a very big deal. It is a very big deal for this country. It will be the largest investment in roading infrastructure that has ever been undertaken in this country. It will help national productivity. It will reduce congestion. It will help our economic growth as we come out of this recession. The biggest problem with Mr Hughes’ criticism of it is that he is upset that his Government did not think of it first.