Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Oh thank you very much Madam Chair. I want to address a clause that hasn't been spoken to—that I'm aware of anyway and I think I've heard most of this debate—in new schedule 1AA in the schedule new clause 4 Additional amount to be paid before net revenue is paid to Auckland Council". This is quite interesting. It says "if an RFT scheme is established for Auckland under section 65K before 1 January 2021 then before paying any amount to the Auckland Council under section 65U the Agency must pay to the Crown out of the revenue from the RFT scheme the amount of $1000000."Is this legislation for sale? It sounds like the work that's gone into researching this piece of legislation—the Crown is seeking to recoup that investment in the initial take of the fuel tax. So what will be next? When the racing legislation which will no doubt come out from the report that's being done—and this might be of quite some interest to you Mr Clayton Mitchell—comes in will that also have a similar clause as this does? Because I think this is quite an insidious clause and you know I think that it leaves Governments open for quite interesting accusations.So I would like to ask the Minister in the chair Phil Twyford to please take a call and please tell me the origin of this particular clause what that money is to cover how it was calculated and you know why that is in there. Is this something that the Government will continue with? So I'd like to put that to one side.But I'd like to now turn to the matter of GST and I think one clause of this that hasn't been looked at—and I think Dr Smith talked about the Rt Hon Winston Peters making 200-odd statements about tax on a tax. I'd like to offer Mr Peters an option to save some honour from this—find a way out so he can actually not look as though he's a bit tardy on his reputation—because there is a way around this and I would submit that the way around this would be to calculate the GST on the cost of the retail price of the petrol—or the fuel—excluding excise and the fuel tax and then add the excise and the fuel tax on top of the GST inclusive price of the retail fuel.Now why that isn't a tax on a tax—as I can see the cogs whirring in Mr Mitchell's head there trying to figure that out—is because Mr Mitchell excise and a fuel tax are a flat charge whereas a GST is a percentage of the price. So that's how you get a tax on a tax and I think that Mr Peters—I see you're texting him now. I think it'd be a really good thing for him to come down to the Chamber put a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in and put this to rights because you know it really is a serious slight on his reputation that he's made these claims about tax on a tax—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): You cannot refer to a member who's not present in the House.STUART SMITH: OK. All right. But it would be a great thing I think if you could get an SOP to try and sort this tax on a tax out because it is quite insidious. I think we see the same thing in the alcohol with excise tax going on and then you get the multiplier. It extracts quite a significant greater income on that from GST and that might be the aim. Maybe that is the aim of having GST on top of the excise-inclusive price rather than the exclusive price but I think this is really bad governance. I can accept it's been a long practice and you know we're as guilty as anyone else of that but this is a wonderful opportunity to fix this anomaly in this legislation.I can see—are you scribbling something down there Mr Mitchell? I think that would be quite good to write that SOP now and we could get that in and fix this piece of legislation because I'm sure there'd be great support on this side of the Chamber. My colleagues would all join me in voting for that SOP to sort that anomaly out and get this bill in much better shape than it already is.So with that I thank you Madam Chair."