Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to rise and speak to a tabled amendment that has not been ruled out yet in relation specifically to the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. My amendment relates to Part 2 of course in this part of the debate and it specifically would seek to insert a new paragraph in new section 34B(1) in clause 10(5). The wording of the text I'll speak to and then obviously I'll outline the reasons that I am proposing such an amendment to the committee: (d) Reporting of all RFT Schemes should be received by each local board in a region and consultation undertaken with that local board prior to the consultation on the annual report."The reasons that I have proposed this amendment first relate to the fact that reporting will be required by the insertion of this amendment. Reporting is inherent to the nature of a regional fuel tax (RFT) scheme because it is an accountability mechanism to the extent that the bill even requires accountability in the first place. The people of a region who will be subject to a regional fuel tax must have the ability to know that the projects that have been used to justify the imposition of such a tax are being undertaken. The reporting element is a fundamental feature therefore and that is the reason that I am suggesting it by way of this amendment specifically in relation to local boards. That is the matter now that I wish to turn to.Local boards it seems to me are the most appropriate level of local government for such reporting to be made. The reason is that a regional fuel tax is by very definition applicable to an entire region and a region can be a large geographical area whereas a local board area is of course as one would expect a much smaller area and therefore more responsive to the needs of the local people. Again to increase the transparency and the accountability of the projects aligning with the taxation that has justified it it is appropriate that local board members should be accountable to their people who have voted them in in that very direct fashion.The next point that I wish to make in relation to my amendment is the fact that it would be in an annual report that such consultation and reporting would be made. An annual report is of course sufficiently regular—once a year as the name implies—that progress of projects would be monitored carefully and on a continuous and indeed continual basis up until the point at which those projects are completed. If in accordance with the mechanism set out in the regional fuel tax a project is used to justify the introduction of a fuel tax it makes sense that the progress of that project be reported back regularly—not less than once a year I would suggest—by way of annual report.My final point in relation to this amendment in the time that remains to me is the fact that such reporting would be mandatory. This is the reason that I have chosen the words "should be" as in "Reporting of all RFT Schemes should be received by [a] local board". Arguably I could have been stronger in my language perhaps and used something like "must" "shall" "in every case be required to" and so on. However I think it is clear enough to say that the reporting "should be" received and the point of that of course at the risk of stating the obvious is that it is to be required that such reporting take place. If we leave it at the option of the local board or indeed any other level of local government to make such reporting or not then the people of the region who are subject to a regional fuel tax can have no assurance and no guarantee that such reporting would be made.As a related note as I understand it such a mechanism would in turn require that the Office of the Auditor-General be able to have oversight of such reporting and the accountability mechanism therefore would be—[Time expired]"