Brown Peter: General Debate 
Brown Peter: General Debate 
[Volume:630;Page:2710] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I listened to that contribution with interest. I think that the one sentence that actually said something to me was the sentence in which the honourable member said she and the Labour Government want to make a difference for the better for real people in a real way. Much else that was said was just an attack on the National Party. The Labour member who spoke a couple of calls before that spoke very well on a number of issues but she told us that Labour stood for fairness. Well let me invite Labour members and indeed National members to think about what is fair in this country. What should be done to make things fairer and to make a difference for real people in a real way? 
This issue is a small thing but it is a very important thing and it is an issue that New Zealand First has stood by and will stand firm on for many a day yet. We want GST to be removed from petrol. It has now reached the level of a fraction under 19c a litre on 91 octane petrol and a good deal more on 96 octane petrol. Something in the vicinity of $700 million in GST is now being collected by the Government and much of that is a windfall tax. It is a tax that the Government has not budgeted for; it just takes it and pockets it. 
I heard the Minister of Revenue today repeat what the Minister of Transport said a few days ago on television and I heard the Minister of Finance say the same thing: that when people buy petrol at the expense of something else that makes the whole thing tax-neutral. That is a myth—a fallacy. 
To put it simply—and I have put it simply because I am not allowed much time—there are three categories of people. There are people who can afford to buy petrol whatever the price and whatever other commodity they also need. In other words the increased GST is a windfall gain. I recognise that there are people who when they fill their cars with petrol have to make a choice. They know that if they fill the car up that week to take the children to school or take grandparents around or whatever they will have to cut out something else. That it might well be argued is tax-neutral. The third category of people are those who have to fill their tank with petrol but cannot pay their accommodation costs—their rent or their mortgages which are GST exempt—and that represents a gain to the Minister of Finance. 
I have to say that when we look at the exemptions—and there are not many of them; accommodations costs are one financial services costs are another and charitable donations are a third—we see that in essence the tax take by this Government is increasing at the expense to some degree of charitable donations and to some degree of people paying their mortgages or their rent. We say that is not good enough. 
Would the Government lose all the $700 million or whatever figure it is if it removed GST from petrol? The simple answer is no because many businesses use petrol to drive their equipment their cars and what have you. A successful business which most businesses are makes a deduction for the GST it paid on fuel or indeed on any other commodity against the GST it owes the Government. If say a business accrued $100 in GST on fuel-related earnings but spent $10 on GST it will pay the Government $90. If that business has paid no GST on the cost of its petrol then it will pay the Government the full $100. 
New Zealand First is saying as strongly and as loudly as it can that it is about time we parliamentarians recognised the importance of a car to an individual in this country. I am not saying anything against public transport but people need their cars and they cannot afford to go out and buy smaller cars as some people have suggested because the loss of capital value is huge. I note that the Automobile Association has taken up this issue since the election. The Automobile Association is an organisation that represents over 1 million motorists. We in New Zealand First say that it is about time that the Government and the finance sector of the Government looked outside the square and applied some reasonable compassionate thought to the tax take in this country. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.