Bayly Andrew; Rurawhe AdrianANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It's a pleasure to be talking on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill and particularly just to listen to that previous speaker Julie Anne Genter who I heard was an expert in transport matters—something I never heard before. She did make the point that we all have to go back to our Auckland constituencies—and of course I am an Auckland MP—and tell them about this issue and tell them why we're not supporting this bill.So I was just looking at the public opinion results. Back in May we had the One News Colmar Brunton poll—58 percent opposed. Another one in May: final consultation on draft proposal for regional fuel tax Auckland Council 51 percent did not support; May Auckland Council Facebook 74 percent against; May select committee 89 percent of the 500 submissions opposed; April 10-year budget plan 48 percent opposed; and the Colmar Brunton poll—another one in April—52 percent opposed. So I'm going to talk about my electorate soon because I can assure you that many of my constituents are very unhappy with this bill.I think we have to ask ourselves: why is the Government pursuing this agenda? As we all know the National Government worked closely with Auckland Council to develop a $28 billion plan over the next 30 years to deal with a scheduled planned well-considered transport plan for the Auckland area. Of course that was called the Auckland Transport Alignment Project or what people referred to as ATAP. Now out of that $28 billion all of it was funded except for $4 billion. When you talk about $4 billion it sounds like a lot over 10 years but in fact every time you talk about a brand new motorway it's basically a billion-odd dollars.So in context Mill Road which the National Government committed to just before the election is a billion-dollar project if it was to be done. So actually the essence of the regional fuel tax is about making up that shortfall of the $4 billion over 10 years. And of course we have tried regional fuel taxes before and they have shown to be not a great mechanism. In fact last time they were tried was back in 1990. Of course where we were trying to go as the former Government was actually to look at congestion pricing and I think there is a great deal of support for congestion pricing in Auckland and I've been in many seminars. As a Government we were trying to do it and I know the deputy mayor and a number of councillors and people from Auckland Transport went to places like Singapore and looked at congestion pricing. Now the issue with congestion pricing of course is that it's going to take a little while to implement. But we have heard from many of the submitters that this should be the key priority if you are to put in this type of funding. The emphasis and the incentive to put in congestion pricing should be of paramount concern.The third option that the Government may have considered was charging at Marsden Point and one of the submitters—Mr Ken Shirley made a very good submission the very first one we heard in Auckland—said if you're going to charge a fuel tax make it easy do it at Marsden Point. Really easy.Or the fourth option was you could've put pressure on Auckland Council. As we all know Auckland Council costs have gone up dramatically over the years since it got formed and of course this regional fuel tax puts no further pressure on the council to do that.The fifth option was for the Government to take over the funding of key projects. Of course that's where the central government was under National. Increasingly we were looking at major roads in Auckland where we would take them over as the Government which gave us the advantage of being able to consent them in a short time period of up to six months or nine months depending on their priority and actually get them built—and actually get them built—rather than talk about getting the council to work through their own processes. That in my view was the most important option that should've been considered in terms of looking at this issue.But what did we end up with? We ended up with this fuel tax proposal which is collected at the distribution level which means if fuel is imported at Tauranga as an example it is a distribution company that then accounts for it. That fuel may end up in a petrol station or it may end up in a farmer's tank. Consequently it is quite complicated.The second thing is we've now ended up with two fuel taxes which I think the Government hasn't really been that clear about. We've got the 11.5c that this Auckland fuel tax will generate on top of the new tax of 12.5c—on the fuel tax increase that has been implemented by this new Government—making a total of 25.3c per litre. Every time you go to the pump in Auckland you will be paying on average depending on the size of your car about $15 extra per tank load. I put it to you that this is quite a significant cost—$15 every time you fill up the tank.The third thing we've ended up with is a bill that promotes a 10-year window with a right to the council to actually extend it beyond that. So if you are saying Let's have the incentive to put in place a much fairer system around congestion pricing." you wouldn't put a 10-year time frame and a number of the submitters suggested that we should put in a much shorter time frame. But of course that was overruled and we actually made it even more permissive in the sense that Auckland Council prior to the end of the 10-year period do a review and it can be extended. Of course in the Act which wasn't—what was partly talked about in the election but has now been incorporated in the bill is it expands this legislation to all other regions. So of course we had Hamilton City Council turn up in Auckland and they were saying "Yes we want to do it too." When we asked them how much that would raise they said "$15 million a year."—$15 million a year. Then we had a whole raft of other councils talking to us about raising money. Of course this is going to proliferate around New Zealand.So we ended up receiving 520 submissions 20 of which we heard. To be honest I have been a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee now for five years and I found it quite embarrassing to listen to the submitters coming in thrashing the committee about this bill. Of particular concern to my electorate in Hunua—south of Auckland a farming and large horticulture industry—was we had one of the submitters Horticulture New Zealand come and talk about the implications this will mean for the many many horticulturalists who drive their tractors trucks loaders and fork hoists in their factories. A large number of equipment all running on diesel power will now be caught under these arrangements. We talked about a dispensation but of course that was overruled. I think it adds an incredible amount of complication to an industry that is incredibly productive and helpful to the New Zealand economy.The second thing we heard about and we're already seeing the impacts of is price spreading. This occurred in 1990 when a fuel tax was in place. We are now seeing that—and we talked about the boundary of Auckland stops at basically the Bombay Hills and cuts down through my electorate on the other side at Pōkeno. We had a number of the fuel companies turning up talking about the issue of price spreading and of course we now have seen that in evidence happening.But the worst thing about this bill in my mind is the regressive nature of this bill and how it will hurt the poorer members of New Zealand. I know that the Labour Government like to say "Well our tax proposals are going to deal with them." but unfortunately their tax proposals that they ripped off average New Zealanders are being directed to those families with children. What does it mean for young adults who are going to university? What does it mean for those couples that don't yet have children but are busy buying for their house? What does it mean for the superannuitants who are out there driving around going to their bowling club—all that sort of stuff? All those categories are not going to have any benefit by the tax reforms that this Labour Government has put through. What it's going to mean is that these guys will be paying $15 every time they fill up their car. I think that is the worst aspect of it.So in my area I just want to deal with this issue around Mill Road. The Minister of Transport keeps saying that he's going to deliver Mill Road. Well let me be clear I've been since this announcement has been made trying to educate my constituency because they've been in my view misled to the extent that they believe that they are getting the entire Mill Road $1 billion project that the Hon Judith Collins and I were successful in getting the National Government to commit to. They're not. They're only going to get the first stage: Redoubt Road—Redoubt Road which will stop at Alfriston School. It will be a road to nowhere—a road to nowhere. It does nothing for my constituency.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes."