Brown Peter: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Brown Peter: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18603] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 This part deals with the indexation of the fuel tax. New Zealand First does not support that. We do not believe it is necessary. I know that the Minister will bear these figures out and support me in this because the growth in vehicle traffic grows greater than inflation every year. On top of that the average car consumes more petrol per year. I know that cars can go further on average on a litre of petrol but they are actually burning more. So the Government— 
John Key 
: Not in Auckland they can’t be because they are at a standstill most of the time! 
PETER BROWN 
: I think the member is making a very good point. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: It’s all the fault of the National Government—9 years of neglect under National! 
PETER BROWN 
: But believe it or not on average in New Zealand more petrol is being used— 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I apologise to my colleague from New Zealand First but you could if you saw fit remind the Committee that there is a convention that a Minister in the chair with a live microphone is not to interject whilst other members are making their contribution to the Committee. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is quite right and I certainly so caution the Minister. 
PETER BROWN 
: The point I am making is that the Government is getting more and more revenue from motorists by natural gains in that there are more cars and more fuel is consumed. It is way ahead of inflation. 
I want to turn my attention to United Future because Gordon Copeland offered us a challenge. He asked the major parties National in particular whether they would repeal this. Let me tell the honourable member that if we do not get taxation indexed we would repeal this. I am convinced we would repeal this. Although I have not discussed that detail with my caucus I know the feeling on this matter in my caucus. We do not think it is fair or justified to index petrol but not taxation. The member sitting there—Gordon Copeland—who is nodding his head has an absolute power at his fingertips. He can say to this Government: “Look we don’t agree with this unless you do both bits. We will not support this bit unless you do the other bit that we want.” He claimed that his was the instigating party in wanting taxation indexed. I do not believe that to be true. I believe that the member does want it to be indexed but his is not the only party. It is certainly a worthwhile idea to be given strong consideration. 
He can go to this Government and say: “Look we give you supply and confidence. We give you it very very cheaply but on this issue unless you give us both we’re not going to support it.” I know that the bill will still have the numbers to get through because the woolly-woofter Greens will support it. But the member does not have to tie himself along with the Greens on these sorts of things. The Greens would tax everybody out of existence. I see Sue Bradford is shaking her head but the Greens state that they believe diesel users should contribute to the non-road costs they impose on the economy through an excise tax on diesel. They want to tax diesel operators—the trucks and goodness know what. They want to slam it on to them. That is the truth of the matter. It is more taxation. There is no account of where it will go and no doubt they will want to index it through inflation. 
However I say to United Future members—because from time to time a degree of common sense comes through from those members in some of their announcements—that they should show some strength of conviction and if they cannot show New Zealanders that they stand for something show us in this Committee that they really do believe that taxation should be indexed. That party has spent oodles of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money saying that there should be no GST on rates—there have been big notices all over the place—because it is a tax on a tax. That is absolutely correct. Would those honourable members remove GST from the tax that is on petrol? No they would not. I have already asked them that. So the principle of not taxing a taxation does not count for too much but when Grey Power or somebody else says: “Take it off rates.” they go along with it knowing that they will give the Government confidence and supply and whatever and that they will do nothing about the taxation at all. 
It is no wonder MPs and politicians generally have a bad name with the public. Nobody really knows what those members stand for or where they will put a stake in the sand. We will not support the indexation of petrol.