Brown Peter: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Brown Peter: Land Transport Management Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:613;Page:9686] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Earlier on in this debate there was much made of the words “efficiency” and “cost-effectiveness”. I think Jeanette Fitzsimons said she did not understand what efficiency meant in terms of this bill. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I said nobody could define it for me. 
PETER BROWN 
: Larry Baldock from United Future had a go. He tried and got four out of 10. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness should apply to every dollar the motorist puts in. If we go for road tolls as this bill does the motorist has to build toll plazas man them 24 hours a day be responsible for their administration pay back the interest on the capital borrowed and make a profit for the private component. If we talk of fuel tax there are none of those capital costs or outlays. It is relatively very easy to collect. It can all or very very largely all of it go into roading—the whole darn lot. I would like to see a measurement of what amount of a dollar collected through fuel tax could go into roading as against a dollar collected at a toll plaza. I would say it would be significant. 
Larry Baldock 
: Are you going to support a 50c increase? 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Baldock has asked me a question and I will endeavour to answer it. I would say that fuel tax wins hands down in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We are arguing therefore whether the motorist pays enough now or in lieu of paying a road toll should pay a bit more. If the Government is to collect so many millions—or so many billions as Mr Baldock obviously thinks he is going to—through road tolls from the whole of the country what would that amount to in terms of adding on to the fuel tax or taking a bit out of the 18.5c or whatever? With fuel tax we do not have to worry about alternative routes. We do not have to worry as they are worrying right now in Tauranga about putting restrictions on those alternative routes in order to compel people to use the toll road. Fuel tax or to put it better another way the motorist paying on a common user basis is a much fairer system it is a much more easily understood system and it is a much more acceptable system to the average New Zealander. 
I say to the Committee is the motorist paying enough now? Is there an economic report? Has the Minister of Transport seen the economic report that the Deputy Prime Minister indicated he was having compiled some months ago? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It’s a secret. 
PETER BROWN 
: Is it a secret? Or is it worse still a con trick? Is it something that the Minister told us about in this House but does not exist? 
Hon Paul Swain 
: No it was about the cost and charges study and it is due to come out at some stage. 
PETER BROWN 
: Why not bring it out before this bill is passed so that we the people who are genuinely questioning this bill can have a fuller understanding of what it is about? 
 I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Paul Swain to ask his officials whether they are aware of such a report because the last time I spoke to them they were not. I find that most unusual. I tell the Minister honestly that I would not run a corner diary with that sort of philosophy. If we are straight-up in addressing roading problems in this country then we have to be straight-up. We have to divulge what we know what the problems are and what the recommendations are for fixing them. If there is a report on the economic evaluation—call it what one likes—of roading in this country in terms of the 18.5c that goes into the Crown account then we should see it before we pass this bill. I believe that the Minister has a duty. The Minister of Finance referred to this in the middle of September in answer to a supplementary question from Mr Baldock. I gather that Mr Baldock has not followed that up. He is nodding that he has not followed it up.