Robertson Grant: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: 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:10366. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): Thank you Mr Chair and thank you for recognising and remembering that. I am currently looking in this contribution at clause 1 of the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill which is the title clause. I intend to come back and perhaps make a further contribution on the commencement date because there is a lot to say about that.The question of the title goes to an important matter around this bill that the Labour Party has been raising during this debate. It is currently called the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. That simply will not do because it does not accurately describe the purpose of this bill. There is one thing in here that is accurate and that is the word “Budget”. This is about the Budget for the National Party. It is about trying to justify or trying to make claim to getting the books into surplus. As has been established in earlier stages of this debate we have not heard from the Government a true justification of its surplus beyond how it has fiddled with and fudged the books.I would argue that a more accurate title for this bill would be the “Customs and Excise (Fake Surplus) Bill” because that is actually what it is. It is about a piece of legislation that contributes—along with raising petrol taxes in this bill there are the ACC levies and the other tax changes that have been made by this Government that have benefited the top 10 percent of income earners; all of those things have contributed—to the fact that this Government is now claiming a surplus a wafer-thin margin of error - level surplus which it will get as a result of increasing petrol taxes increasing ACC levies and some magic numbers that will appear in the Budget in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 years. There are magic figures of $400 million here—$1.1 billion from corporate tax which suddenly disappears again a year or so later. This is a fake surplus. That is why this bill should be called the “Customs and Excise (Fake Surplus) Bill”.It could also be called the “Customs and Excise (Bogus Budget Balance) Bill”. I like that—alliteration is good. I think it makes law interesting if we can have alliteration. It is a bogus Budget balance when one has to take into account this range of other things that are contributing to the surplus other than actually growing the economy creating jobs and doing the kinds of things that we would like to see in a Budget and it is bogus to see it here.I do also want to refer to another title that could be put in place for this bill that would actually argue that this is the “Customs and Excise …”—and there are a number of options here but I think the “Customs and Excise (Roads of Political Significance) Bill” is probably the most accurate. If we are to take the Government at its word that this bill is about the National Land Transport Fund and getting the money there—Hon Trevor Mallard: You’d be stupid. You’d be stupid.GRANT ROBERTSON: Well you would be stupid Mr Mallard but for now let us pretend we are stupid. That may not be too difficult for you so we will see how we go! But let us pretend that we are stupid and say that actually this is a time in which the Government says that yes it needs this money for the National Land Transport Fund. But what is that for? It is quite simply for the Government’s political choices about where it believes roading should go.We have established already on this side of the Chamber—without any response from the other side I might add—that this is the end result of the National Party’s decision when in Opposition to adopt a roading policy that was not about what was best for the transport infrastructure of New Zealand but was simply about what was best for the party electorally. That is what Don Brash and Maurice Williamson cooked up. That is what John Key took on from that. Maurice Williamson paraded it around the country and promoted it as well. That is what Gerry Brownlee has accepted now.These roads of significance to National or roads of political significance should be mentioned in the title because that would be a more accurate reflection of what is actually being put in front of this Committee today. To simply call it something benign like the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill does not actually capture what this is. In fact if they really just wanted to go down that path it should be called the “Raising Petrol Taxes Bill”. We have not heard throughout this debate an honest contribution from the National Party members to say: “Actually we are raising taxes. That is what we are doing.” There is a reason for that. We could also call it the “Customs and Excise (Breaking National’s Promises Again) Bill” because it promised not to raise taxes. It went around the country promising not to raise taxes and yet that is precisely what this bill does.We have been through a lot of legislation over the last few days in this House and the contributions of National MPs have been non-existent. National MPs have simply not got up and been prepared to justify to their constituents and prepared to say to their constituents: “Yes we’re raising taxes. We are putting taxes up. We are taking money out of your pockets because we want to come up with a bogus surplus.” That would be honest if the National Party MPs stood up and said that. That would be an honest title for this bill.