Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. You can tell a Government that's in trouble when their backbenchers start announcing and promising roads. The Minister sits there ashen-faced worried about what the next backbencher is going to say. Helen White's been talking about crime in Auckland Central. This one is the one-term MP for Ōtaki. She's worried that she's not coming back in 15 months and so she's starting to make policy up on the hoof and that's just the way it's going to be. The ill-discipline and scared reaction of the Labour Party we've seen tonight being expressed if only by the twitchiness of the senior whip who seems determined—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Under pressure.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —who's not only under pressure but seems determined to think that his whip-ly duties extend to this side of the House and I'm sorry to inform—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! I invite the member to come back to the bill.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well I'm responding Madam Speaker to interventions made by previous Government members—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): And now I'm inviting you to come back to the second reading of the bill.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: This is a bill that was created as a result of a bad poll—panic-stricken bad poll. Refusing to concede until they absolutely had to that there was a cost of living crisis confronting the squeezed middle in New Zealand this Government panicked. So they did and reverted to type which was to announce an announcement—as my colleague Simeon Brown so clearly enunciated in terms of setting out the time frame which is important to repeat because we didn't have a select committee hearing into this piece of legislation and just because the transport spokesman in the National Party calls for urgent legislation doesn't mean that it be passed by urgency. It means that it be introduced to Parliament urgently and then go through a normal parliamentary process. But that's not good enough for this Government. That's not good enough for this Government. They want to do things on a knee-jerk panic-stricken basis just to get a quick media shot. So aggressions commenced on 24 February in the Ukraine and that followed weeks of anticipation from international media energy commentators all sorts of people even New Zealand domestic commentators in the prelude to hostilities commencing on 24 February were saying if Putin acts in the Ukraine there will be a negative impact on petrol prices and diesel prices in New Zealand. So it's not like this came as any sort of surprise. So hostilities started on 24 February and on 14 March this announced change was made and then it wasn't until 23 March that finally a workshop was held with the New Zealand Transport Agency to try to figure out what to do and how to handle the issue relating to road-user charges because it became apparent very quickly that something needed to be done because it wasn't quite as simple as just simply lowering the price at the pump as it is with petrol. But what intervened between 24 February and the workshop and the announcement on 14 March was of course the public opinion poll that came out on 10 March. So this is the time line and when members opposite join the dots together as the New Zealand public have so carefully and easily drawn the dots together they know exactly what the motivation for this piece of legislation is and why it is. So this is a temporary measure that sooner or later is going to have to be reversed. The ACT contribution from Simon Court was correct. New Zealanders will be grateful for some small mercy of reduction—some small breadcrumbs really; just crumbs from the table of the massive expenditure that Government has spent. But don't forget Mr Court where this money is coming from. This isn't actually a reduction; this is smoke and mirrors stuff. This money has been diverted from the COVID fund—diverted from the COVID fund. So that's money that had already been printed or borrowed in the name of our children and grandchildren who will be paying for it for the rest of their working lives to fund a temporary announcement to get the Labour Government off the hook following one bad poll. Well the sad news for the Labour Government is that the polls are probably—I would think and I'm not a betting person; they're going to get worse. So we can expect a whole lot more of these sorts of decisions in the weeks and months to come. Members like the one-term wonder from Ōtaki and Helen White from Auckland Central they're going to continue speaking out because they know that their only lifeboat is actually to find a voice to be independent to actually speak on behalf of real New Zealanders and to actually put aside the speaking notes that come from the Labour Party's research unit and start thinking and speaking for themselves because that's their only hope of redemption. So the National Party is going to support this legislation because as our colleagues on this side have so clearly said we are grateful on behalf of New Zealanders for even a few crumbs that this Labour socialist Government has deigned to bequeath to hardworking New Zealanders who have suffered so long and so hard under the policy agendas of this Government who are going to continue to be the squeezed middle and continue to be suffering the cost of living crisis. We are grateful on their behalf for these small crumbs and this small gratitude that the benevolent Government has shown them.