Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm pleased to take a call in this debate on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill and I want to cover a number of matters in this first call that I intend to take in this Part 2 debate.I want to start with some comments that the Minister raised in his contribution which really bring in some new elements to this debate. Given that the Minister has raised a number of issues around equity I want to use that to extend one of the arguments on this side of the House in terms of a number of the amendments. One of them I'll speak to very specifically but there are other amendments. I think there are 14 or 15 amendments that haven't been addressed at all yet so I will come to a contribution on that in another call. But I wanted to just come back to the Minister's comments about equity because as my colleagues have quite rightly said before this—and in particular Jami-Lee Ross in his contribution—we've actually got two significant issues of inequity. I raise this because the Minister raised it in his contribution and in his contribution he specifically asked why it was that when the previous Government increased the goods and services tax we did not make some of the changes to for example the Social Security Act. What the Minister failed to raise in his contribution which is why I want to bring it to the attention of the committee—because when the Minister spoke in his contribution in the committee of the whole House he talked about issues that are broader than this particular part of the bill. So I just want to address the issues he's raised around equity. So when the changes were made to increase the goods and services tax at the same time there were changes to reduce the amount of income tax that those on lower incomes were having to pay. So the equity issue that the Minister has raised in this debate on Part 2—actually he's argued against the point that he was trying to make. He's actually argued in favour of my colleague Jami-Lee Ross' amendment which basically says there should be compensation for those on lower incomes if you are increasing a tax called a regional fuel tax. There should be an offset for those on lower incomes. The offset proposed by my colleague Jami-Lee Ross is one of supporting individuals in low-income households through the Social Security Act and this is something I'm particularly interested in being the National spokesperson on social development. This piece of legislation will have an impact—a disproportionate impact—on low-income households. The comments the Minister himself made in his comments on Part 2 which is the focus of this debate were about equity. Well I put to you that this bill that's before us creates inequities that don't exist today. The passage of this legislation as proposed by this Government will disadvantage low-income households. There's another equity issue that I want to raise—and I raise it because the Minister raised issues of equity and fairness—and that is the original intent of the regional fuel tax being about Auckland and the fact that what we have seen now is other regions introducing it. So you have the inequity—a double inequity—of a low-income family in Auckland that is paying more than a low-income family in another part of the country. So we have two inequities that the Minister and this Government have introduced. That is why I wanted to speak on Jami-Lee Ross' amendment which basically allows through the Social Security Act—and in some ways you could argue that the Government has a bit of a precedent in things like the winter energy payment which is also for a significant cost to a household. There is a direct compensation for superannuitants and for low-income families of $700 a year and it's interesting that $700 a year is pretty much the same amount that the calculations have been—that this regional fuel tax will have. So I want to ask the Minister—[Time expired]