Williamson Maurice: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Williamson Maurice: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18609] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am delighted to speak to Part 2 because this is simply about an extra 5c a litre being added to the petrol tax. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: John Key’s agreed to it. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well unfortunately Judith Tizard interjects and asks whether I disagree with her and let me tell her yes I do—for this reason: I have no doubt that roading in New Zealand is in desperate need of a lot more spending. I am happy to say that in Auckland as in just about every other part of the country the amount of money currently being spent on roading infrastructure is woefully low. It is way below the OECD average and way below that of those comparable countries we like to compare ourselves with as in the case of Australia the United States or any individual state. In fact in nearly every one of those jurisdictions I quote there is not only a public spend as a percentage of their GDP that is substantially above ours but also there is a big chunk of private money spent as well. 
The Government lauded the Land Transport Management Act a couple of years ago. It was going to have the private sector in there doing things but I ask whether members have seen a single private sector project—no! [ 
Interruption 
] OK so let us strike that down first just before Judith Tizard gets all excited about it. We truly believe that there should be more money being spent on the roads than is currently being spent. The next question is: so where does it come from? Well that is easy. It is really easy. There are two things—in fact there are three points to make. First of all the Government is currently running a surplus of around $7 billion. It’s around seven. I know that it has all those zeros. I worked it out: it has a seven and three zeros and then millions after that. That is the Government’s surplus. 
John Key 
: $7000 million. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It is $7000 million—thank you—which is seven by 10 to the power of nine for those who are scientific in their view of it. I can understand why the Labour Party would have been wanting to do this in its last time in Government between 1984 and 1990 because it was running deficits every year it was in power. That meant it was not taking in enough even to cover the cost of running the show as it was so I would understand that if it wanted to put some more money into roading it would have to go out and rack up the petrol tax. But right now here is point one. There is a $7 billion surplus on the books. Michael Cullen is very proud of it. So why does the Government need in addition to take another $200 million which pales into insignificance relative to that figure of $7 billion? 
The next point I make is that the people who are driving around on those roads are already paying their fair share towards roading at any rate. Well hang on one should look at the accounts. There is $600 million a year already coming off the motorist by way of petrol tax that does not go to roading. Now I am hoping that Judith Tizard will leap in and say: “Oh it does indeed” or that it is wrong or anything else. I really wish she would because I know that Michael Cullen does that. 
I got a copy of  
Hansard 
 from May of 1995 when the Hon Winston Peters put forward a bill saying that all petrol tax collected should go to the roads and guess what? There is one Dr M Cullen voting “Yes”. There we are! Dr Michael Cullen now Minister of Finance voted in this House because he thought it was right then—it is the old Steve Maharey principle: it was right when one was in Opposition and not right when one is in Government—that all the petrol tax collected from the motorist went to roads. If the Minister did that alone and took the $600 million he would not need this piddly $200 million. He would not need to even think about this figure. It is 18c he is ripping off to the consolidated account and now he will add another 5c on and say: “What a good boy am I.” What a joke! 
Then we come to the third point I want to make about Transfund the body that gets all the money into its kitty to spend on roading. Now we would have to say that last year it must have ended up completely strapped for cash it had no money left and it could not move. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right. My colleague Shane Ardern from the Taranaki - King Country area is dead right. It had $239 million unspent in its coffers. When I asked Transfund why it ended the year with all that money when there is so much need for new roading out there it said it could not find any projects that were ready to go. What does that tell us about this situation? So the Government will take another $200 million from the motorist when it could not spend the $230 million that stayed as a carry-over surplus in the Transfund account but it is taking $600 million out of petrol tax already that does not go near it. So I make that point because I know Labour is trying to portray it as National not wanting to spend more on the roads. Oh yes we do! We think there is a desperate need for a big ramping up of expenditure on roads but I say to the Minister that the Government is already getting the money. It is getting it in spades and I use that expression carefully.