King MattMATT KING (National—Northland): You're killing me—you're killing me! SPEAKER: It's a mental block. MATT KING: I know you know me—I know you know me Mr Speaker. Look I've got to reply. I feel so strongly that I've got to reply to Jan Logie about this excise tax. She earnestly believes in what she's saying. If she could come to rural New Zealand and tell them that they're going to spend this increased excise tax on trains and trams in Auckland or on public transport she would get booed out of every regional hall in the country. It's just simply not practical. They talk about this excise tax and this increase in excise tax and they're going on about road safety. Well when we were in Government we invested in road safety—every Government does. The Labour Government did before us. They invest in road safety. The only road safety investment I've seen in Northland that this excise tax is going on is plastic sticks and rumble strips. Plastic sticks up the middle of the road and rumble strips—that's the only thing I've seen in Northland. If you're an apartment dweller in Wellington or any of the major cities and they're talking about public transport—yeah that's fine. You know money's going to that—that's great—but what about the rest of the country? The fact is that this excise tax is funnelled. It's taken off it's extracted from the motorists and the motorists expect that this money should be spent on roads. I mean they talk about this multimodal transport. In Northland we don't have buses except for school buses. For the distances that we're talking about we're not going to be biking and we're not going to be walking. We need to take the vehicles so we need this excise tax money spent on roads. We've got four-lane roads. We started the programme of four-laning and this Government seems to have taken the excise tax out of that spend. They've cancelled 12 projects—our four-lane highways which are winners—and they're going to funnel that into I guess trams in Auckland and rail and so forth. It's just not going to work. In the UK and the USA they've got extensive train tracks—especially the UK. They've got a massive population and all their trains are used for passengers. The freight goes on the four-lane highways. It's the same in the US—their freight goes on the four-lane highways. So in Northland you're going to take this excise tax taken together with the regional fuel tax out of the southern end of my electorate—the Wellsford Port Albert area is in the Auckland region so there's a regional fuel tax. If you put this excise tax on top of that they're paying a massive percentage of tax. Under this Government none of that money is going to be spent for them. There's people in Port Albert who would go to Auckland maybe once a year and their excise tax their fuel tax every time they fill their car up—and in my electorate there's a large number of rural people on low incomes. They've got a large number of rural people on low incomes and they're paying this excise tax this increase to pay for spend in Auckland. They're not going to get any benefit out of it. I know that Phil Twyford has talked about our gold-plated four-lanes but he doesn't refer to his gold-plated tram that they're going to spend this increased fuel tax on. Well these four-lane highways it's just what the rest of the world are doing. This is the way of the future. We're going to be ending up going on electric vehicles. The Greens will love that and I'm all for it. Everyone knows that we're all for that. We've got our own MP here with an electric car. He's very proud of it; he shows it off all the time. So we're all about the future. We're all about lowering our emissions—I mean you're a fool if you're not—but in the here and now we've got to improve our infrastructure and the four-laning is future-proofing. I've got to talk about Northland. In Northland the four-laning is—SPEAKER: Just keep relating it back. MATT KING: I see the Speaker's holding up the bill. I've mentioned the excise tax increase just about every sentence I have. I'm talking about it. Phil Twyford talked about what they're going to spend this excise tax on and I'm demonstrating that it's actually not going to be going on the roads because they've cancelled 12 of these projects. It's actually going to be going on trams so I think it's relevant to be talking about what the excise tax is going to be spent on. They always harp on about safety so they're going to spend this excise tax on road safety. Well piecemeal repairs on old dangerous roads in my book are not going to cut it. In Northland spending on the State highway—yeah that's great. There are a few stretches of road that are especially dangerous and Dome Valley's one of them. I'm all for spending this increase on that and I go along with that. That's a good spend. Dome Valley is called the killing fields up North. It's a particular stretch of road and they're going to widen it and they're going to put some safety wires up the middle and some rumble strips and all that. You know quite frankly that's great. I appreciate that. I think it's a $30 million spend and we would have done that in our term as well but the actual answer for Northland is a four-lane highway going right through to Whangarei. That's the answer. So they've cancelled the leg from Whangarei south. They've cancelled that. They're taking money off Northlanders for this excise tax and they're going to can that. That's the busiest road in Northland and I think the cost-benefit ratio for that section of road is three or four. So it's hands down better than just about all the projects in the country but they've canned that. They're building a roundabout there. They're going to spend the excise tax on the roundabout but they're not going to do that road. The New Zealand Transport Agency have told us they might put another State highway next to the one that they've already got instead of doing a four-lane highway. They've told us that the costs for that are going to be two-thirds of the cost of just doing a four-lane highway which we all accept we're going to have to do in the future with the excise tax. We're going to have to build a four-lane highway and it's going to have to wait until the National Government comes in to do that. So instead of accepting that Hey this four-lane project that we've got going throughout the country is actually a winner." they'd do anything but. They'd pour money into piecemeal repairs down the State highway—in some areas it's great; in some areas it's just wasting money—and they're even going to talk about putting in just another State highway next to the existing one. But the fact of the matter is that if you want to spend the excise tax efficiently you build a four-lane highway with the gradient and the camber that can carry heavy freight. They're pouring money into rail in Northland and it's just going to be a waste of money. It's going to be a big white elephant—it's a total waste of money—but the four-lane highway is going to open up Northland to economic growth and it's going to future-proof us for 40 years. So this Government isn't very visionary in my view. They talk about us being in the 1950s—the previous speaker Jan Logie talked about National being in the 1950s—and yet they're going to invest in last century's technology: trains and trams. That's last century's technology. We are planning and we are visionary. We are visionary because we're planning four-lane highways which will carry electric vehicles electric trucks in the future. You boohoo it—you boohoo it—but deep down you know it to be true. You know it to be true. SPEAKER: Order! MATT KING: The four-laning of the highway is a good spend of this excise tax and rest assured when we're back in we will start building that four-lane highway—we will start building it. You talk about safety. OK we want to make the existing roads safer which is what you're going to spend this excise tax on—SPEAKER: Order! I'm "you". MATT KING: Sorry Mr Speaker. Sorry it's—[Interruption] OK. Are you me? Oh OK. SPEAKER: Well that's close to the most embarrassing thing I've said in here. MATT KING: I know you'd like to be me—no sorry. Now I've lost my train of thought. Building a four-lane highway. So us in National we're going to spend that excise tax on—you plan for the future so you're visionary. You build four-lane highways—that's what you do. The rest of the world is so we're just doing what the rest of the world's doing. You plan for the future but you also have to live for the here and now as well. We have to build for the here and now as well and as National MPs we recognise that not everyone can catch a bus—you know that's great. In my electorate unless you're going to school you can't catch the bus. Cycling everywhere? Well the Speaker might be able to cover the miles—Dr Duncan Webb: On yer bike! MATT KING: —on yer bike yeah—but the rest of us mere mortals we're not going to get on our bike. We're not going to ride so it's not practical. So yep OK funnel all that money from the excise tax into Auckland—that's fine—but what about the rest of the country? Ninety-eight percent of the rest of the country is rural and this is not going to work. We oppose this bill on principle and that's it."