McNair Craig: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
McNair Craig: Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18702] 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 As I heard that Labour member speak I had a new hope within me. I thought the Labour Party members were actually going to debate this bill. But as usual—they do not take all their slots anyway—the members who got up to speak to this Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill did not take even half of their allotted time. They know that they have not contributed to the debate on this bill in a satisfactory way at all. 
Hon Member 
: That’s right. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I have another member over here saying I am right. The hard-working New Zealanders who are driving home from work in places such as Auckland—driving back from Auckland City up to the North Shore and Whangaparaoa where I am based—will be listening to this. They will know that the Government members have not satisfactorily contributed to the debate on this bill. If they did not know that I am reminding them now but I am sure the public are very well aware of that as they are driving home at drive time as I speak. 
In speaking to this bill I must admit that in relation to the commentary as I read page 1 then page 2 and then page 3— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You would not have been awake after that would you? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: It was hard work but as I was reading through it I noticed the Green Party and the United Future party minority views on page 5. Then I started reading through the actual parts of the bill. As I read through it I came to a conclusion. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: What was that? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: The conclusion that I came to I say to the member who asked me what it was was that clearly the bill has the wrong name. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Tell me. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I will tell the member why because he asked. This bill has the wrong name because the actual name really does not satisfactorily represent the content. I will tell this House why. As I was reading through the commentary I noticed an excerpt that stated: “the bill provides for the indexing of the proportion of excise and excise-equivalent duty allocated to the National Land Transport Fund to inflation”. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: What’s that mean to the average man? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I will tell the House exactly what that means in just a few minutes. Then I read another paragraph in the commentary which stated: “We received 16 submissions.”—obviously this is the Finance and Expenditure Committee speaking—“Submitters generally expressed opposition to the increase in excise duty suggesting that the funding required should be provided from the duty currently allocated as general Crown revenue”. Then I flicked over to the heading of “Commencement date” under which was stated: “as oil prices are at high levels the Minister of Customs proposed that we amend the bill to allow for the excise duty increase to come into force on a later date by Order in Council to allow the implementation of the increase to be delayed.” Then I flicked over to “Minority views” and I saw that the Green Party and the United Future party had put minority views in but— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Who was that? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: The Green Party and the United Future party. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: They are not supporting an increase in tax! 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: They are supporting an increase in motor vehicle tax. But not only that; I tell the member that they have put minority views in the commentary but they are supporting the bill. Quite frankly I think that is—well there is a word that I know of that I am not allowed to mention in this House and it starts with “h”; I will leave it to the imagination of the members. 
So as I was reading through the bill I realised that it had the wrong name. After reading all those aspects that I have just mentioned to the House I realised that a more appropriate name for this bill would be the “Manipulation Bill.” I call it the “Manipulation Bill” because it is a direct attempt a savage attempt by the Government to sweep under the carpet by indexation the whole issue of it coming to Parliament every year to increase taxes on petrol. This Government loves taxing New Zealanders year in year out—and I will go into that a little bit more later on in my speech. Then I thought no that name “Manipulation Bill” does not go far enough. It actually should really be called I believe the “Deception Bill”. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: That might be a bit harsh. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I think it is very appropriate. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Fair enough! 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: The member says that that is fair enough when he thinks about it. When other members of the House think about it they too will think it is a fair enough statement. I want to explain this to the House. As I mentioned earlier page 2 of the commentary states: “as oil prices are at high levels the Minister of Customs proposed that we amend the bill to allow for the excise duty increase to come into force on a later date by Order in Council to allow the implementation of the increase to be delayed.” I have to ask the Minister—he is not here at the moment so I might as well ask the members who support this bill and they are the members from United Future the Greens and the Labour Party—whether they honestly expect the people of New Zealand the people who as I mentioned are driving home from work right now to seriously believe that rubbish because that is what it is. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: No! 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: The member over here is right. Members of the public will not believe such rubbish. I just cannot believe what I am reading. It is a bit like a couple of years ago when I was a new member in this House when the sherry tax bill was introduced. I could not believe what I was reading. The Government said it would bring in the sherry tax to curb youth drinking. To be honest with you I do not know— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Please do not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: That is a very good point. I do not know of any member in this House—young or old—who honestly seriously believed that. 
To get back to this bill it is obviously a work in deception. That is my whole point. It should probably be named the “Deception Bill”. I have only one other name for this bill because I think I have summed it up pretty well. It should be called the “Anti-Democratic Bill”. I cannot believe that during the Committee of the whole House yesterday the Minister had the audacity to say that to debate this bill was a democratic process and that it was the first bill like this to come to Parliament and it was being debated. I thought this will be the last time we debate this matter as well; there will not be a lot of need to bring to the House the issue of petrol tax because of the indexation clause within this bill. 
So we get right back to what I was talking about earlier right at the beginning of my speech: this bill is a deliberate attempt by the Government the Greens and United Future to sweep under the carpet the whole issue of taxation of petrol—and they know it. The average hard-working good New Zealander knows it as well. Since this Government came into power in 1999 it has brought in 24 new taxes. Out of those 24 new taxes this will be the fifth tax increase on motorists. As I said the Government wants to index this tax so that it can maybe reduce the amount of times it actually puts it up. 
As I close I want to say that this bill is a disgrace that the people of New Zealand will see through it come election time and that they will vote for New Zealand First because they know that New Zealand First can fix it.