van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill—quite the mouthful. Now this is concerning for me because we're looking here at imposing an additional 3.5c per litre plus GST. Whilst the intent here is to raise revenue for the National Land Transport Fund the concern is the impact that has and we have to consider that on our motorists and on our communities. In the Government policy statement in 2018 the Government's key priority after they'd reshuffled and reprioritised that Government policy statement was on safety we were told. So this bill looking to raise additional excise revenue to stream through into that National Land Transport Fund should therefore be focused around safety considerations.What we're seeing and how this is actually playing out the implementation of the National Land Transport Fund off the back of the Government policy statement 2018 is that there are allegedly a raft of safety improvements that are looking to be rolled out in numerous locations such as in the Waikato and yet they're not being delivered. So the question is: if we're looking to raise additional revenue through a bill such as this and clause 3 is looking to amend that specifically increasing the rate by 3.5c per litre on 1 July—only now a matter of some weeks away—then how do we have confidence that the Government is going to utilise that in the most appropriate way which they have said is safety? Safety concerns are absolutely important on the roads and we need to make sure that we are doing what we can in that space. An additional 3.5c coming in on 1 July this year is a significant impact for Kiwis all around the country—and that's going straight out of their back pockets. So we're hearing in the Budget at large about a number of other different areas where spending has been allocated but directly in relation to this revenue raising under the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill this is going to have a significant and detrimental impact.As if that weren't enough then we have clause 5 which amends the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table to further increase the rate of excise duty and excise-equivalent duty on motor spirits by an additional 3.5c plus GST on 1 July next year. So not only are our motorists and our communities going to be hit by 4c a litre from 1 July this year they'll see the same again next year. The revenue that's going to be raised through that as I mentioned is looking to try and achieve what the Government wants under their Government policy statement which they have reiterated on numerous occasions as being safety-focused at the expense of commuter times—that's no longer a priority we heard from New Zealand Transport Agency. But the bulk of that funding already comes through petrol excise duty—some $1.9 billion on recent figures. So the question then is: how do we have confidence that this additional revenue raising will be utilised in that safety component? When people are looking to fill up at the pumps they will rightly be questioning Where is this going? How can we see direct benefits from this extra expense this extra revenue that we are giving to the Government to allegedly invest on our behalf in areas of concern for us?" Depending on the locations around the country—in the Waikato there will be question marks around that because we're not seeing significant investment. The Government has already indicated that they're no longer carrying out projects which have significant safety benefits in our region; they've scrapped them altogether. There are some safety upgrades that are being planned but they're fiddling around the edges and not really hitting the heart of the issue.So raising this extra 4c a litre once we add the GST on this year and an additional 4c per litre next year—8c per litre for motorists is a significant cost that most families—Andrew Bayly: On top of the last year's.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —will be impacted by. And of course for anyone as Mr Bayly says who's in the Auckland region well they had the regional fuel tax as well. The amount of revenue this Government is now seeking to raise through the excise duty on fuel is going through the roof. They're covering up lack of funding in other areas shifting funding to address this—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."