Newman Muriel: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6482] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT NZ) 
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 This is a bill that the ACT party will be voting against all the way. This bill is all about another tax grab by Labour. That is all it is. This is the third petrol tax increase that Labour has put on to the citizens of New Zealand. We have to say to ourselves: “Is there a good reason for bringing in this tax increase?” and the answer is “No”. The Accident Compensation Corporation has millions and millions of dollars in its coffers. This is a way of getting more money from the motorists of today to fund a surplus into the future. It is an absolute disgrace that the Labour Party is putting yet another cost burden on to New Zealand motorists. It is an unnecessary cost burden and it just goes to show that this is a Labour Party that does not care about families’ and New Zealanders’ rights to be able to get on with their lives in a proper manner without having all these extra taxes shoved on to them. 
The title of any bill should reflect exactly what the bill is all about. The title of this bill gives us no idea at all that it is a bill that will increase levies and taxes. A better and more honest title from the Minister would have been something like the “Motor Vehicle Account Tax Increase Bill”. That would have said it exactly as it is. That would have told New Zealanders that when they went and got this particular bill out of the statute book they were looking at a tax increase bill. If the Minister did not like that maybe she could have just called it the “Increase in Accident Compensation Levy Bill”. Again that would have told consumers exactly what the bill is all about. It is a rise in levies which is a rise in taxes by stealth by this Labour Government. 
Another idea I had was to call it “Another Labour Party Stealth Tax Bill.” Again that would have told everybody exactly what it is—a stealth tax. People do not see it upfront; it just comes on quietly and every time people go to the garage and fill up their cars with petrol they have paid this extra money in tax which the Labour Party wants to grab off New Zealand motorists. This is a Government that is anti-business—every New Zealander knows that. It is anti-business and anti-worker and I think it is a shame that it has to go about doing this sort of stuff by stealth. 
This bill brings in a 120 percent increase in petrol taxes. They will go up from 2.3c in the litre to 5.08c in the litre. Again I say that that is the third petrol-tax increase by Labour since it has been in power and I ask what on earth that party has against motorists—to keep on socking it to them with more and more tax increases. That is why New Zealanders did not want the Accident Compensation Corporation to go into monopoly control. A monopoly can do what it wants; it does not have to look after consumers. This bill is a very clear example of a monopoly saying: “Let’s get more money. Let’s grab more money off the motorists. Let’s do it by a stealth tax.” So the Government is raising money from today’s motorists to fund its organisation into the future. That is completely unnecessary. 
I say to the Labour Party that the title of this bill is a lie. It does not tell New Zealanders what this bill is all about. The Government has a responsibility to be more honest to the people of New Zealand so that when people go to the library and get out this bill—which they think is all about accident compensation and somehow about helping to stop injuries or rehabilitate people—they will realise that it has nothing at all to do with those things. It is simply a stealth tax on every New Zealand motorist. So I ask Labour why it is not honest and why it does not come clean. Why does it not put that in the title of the bill so that it is being open transparent and accountable?