Mallard Trevor: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10342. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I am going to do something relatively unusual. I am sure my colleagues will come back and rebut the comments made by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. I want to thank you Mr Chairman for letting him run on and effectively do the second reading rebuttal as part of the Committee stage because the debate is now so broad that all our members will want to have a go at leasttwice and possibly up to four times as they are allowed to do. I would like though to do something slightly unusual and that is to focus on the detail of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and in particular the detail of the Customs and Excise Act which it is proposed to amend.I will start as the Minister briefly referred to the regulatory impact statement by informing him that the 6.6 percentage increase in petrol excise duty to which he referred was on 1 October 2010. In case the member does not remember that was when he was the Minister of Transport and in charge of the area. To blame the Labour Government and say it was a Labour Government increase is just clearly wrong but it shows the grip on detail that occurs when you put either Steven Joyce or Gerry Brownlee in charge of these areas.It is interesting to note that the proposed increases are at about double the rate of inflation. So what we are doing over the period of this Government is a transfer of the effect of taxation from those on high incomes to those who are on low incomes. There is no doubt that this is a regressive tax something that is pushed on to people especially poorer people in rural areas people in cities who do not have public transport alternatives and people who are forced to use their cars. I think in particular of my constituency of Wainuiōmata. Although in some places and at some times the public transport is relatively good in other parts and at certain times at the weekend and in the evenings people are forced to use their cars because public transport is not properly available. What this bill does is push it back on to them.The question I want to get to though—and I apologise that I was unable to be in the House for the Minister’s speech on the first or second readings—and what I am slightly surprised about when I look carefully at this bill is an indication of whether it is necessary. My reading of section 79A of the Customs and Excise Act as it was amended in the latest set of amendments is that there is already a regulation-making power sitting there for the Minister to increase excise rates in this particular way. I am left with a dilemma here as to the reasoning on the part of the National Government for taking this approach. One reason could be—and it is fair to say that this is slightly cynical—that it is doing this now rather than passing a regulation later on at the appropriate point in time in order to make its Budget figures look good. We do not need to be here. According to the calendar on the wall today is theoretically Thursday but actually it is Saturday afternoon. We are debating legislation but the Government already has the power to do these sorts of changes under regulation. The Government does not need this legislation to do it but methinks one of the reasons the Government is doing it is in order to gerrymander its Budget figures. It is to get into the Budget to do it as part of the Budget legislation and to create an illusionary surplus through this method rather than using the regulation-making powers that already sit within the Act. I am going to be even slightly more cynical still and ask the question—Chris Hipkins: For one so young.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I like the compliment from my teenage friend Mr Hipkins but at this mid-point of my career I accept that I am not that young.The point that I would now like to make in a slightly more cynical way—although nothing would surprise me about Steven Joyce and his cynical approach—is that by passing this bill in this way the Government leaves open the option of also regulating for more. The question I am asking is whether we are having this change now so that the National Government at some stage later on can again hit motorists up for yet another increase. I would not have said that even about Bill Birch because Bill tended to be pretty transparent. Muldoon would just tell you if he was going to do something like this; there would no surprises from Sir Robert. But I am not sure with Mr Joyce in charge of this part of the finances whether in fact what he is doing in using the powersthat are available under 79A(1) the power to alter “rates of excise duty and excise-equivalent duty on motor spirits … by Order in Council”—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Annually.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Annually—that is right. So what the Government can do is implement this 3c increase in July and it can do an annual change in January as well. So in fact instead of having one set of 3c increases a year it could have two.I know that there are some people who may well be future colleagues who think that that is a good thing and some people will want to keep increasing the rate of excise in that way. What I want to say to my Green colleagues is thank you for your transparency. Thank you for your honesty much unlike Gerry Brownlee who appears to be taking this approach for two reasons: firstly to gerrymander the Budget figures but secondly under sections which are—it says B48S; it does not say “BS48”. It is B48S. This amendment to the 1996 Act has the power that appears to be reserved and preserved—preserved and reserved by this amendment—to have increases in excise tax on an annual basis other than that which we are addressing now. Maybe the Government is going for two hits a year. If it is I would be interested to hear from the Minister who says he has not yet decided the level of the next increase. He is shaking his head. Has he decided the level of the next increase? He shakes his head. Well that is fair enough if the—Hon Ruth Dyson: When is it going to be?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well I tell you what I think it has got only one more chance at it—1 January 2014 will be its last chance. It will probably do it on a holiday. It will be the last Order in Council of the year the one that has the Christmas cake with the Governor-General. It will be Christmas cake for the Governor-General and Mr Brownlee and at the same time the Governor-General will be signing off yet another increase in excise taxes excise duties Budget measures—no it will not be Budget measures because that is a different set of amendments.The other area which I think I will get on to in my next call relates to the main method which is in clause 5. Clause 5 is very important. It really is the operative clause. To be absolutely fair I am sure that it was Mr Joyce not Mr Brownlee who said this made it clearer. We know what Mr Joyce is up to.