Falloon AndrewANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you very much Madam Chair for the opportunity to take my first call on Budget legislation tonight—Chris Bishop: First of many.ANDREW FALLOON: —first of many; exactly right Mr Bishop—and specifically the committee stage of the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill which is obviously quite a mouthful but it's here tonight in the name of Minister Phil Twyford. If anyone at home is confused a little bit about why we're still debating this several hours after the Budget it's because we're passing through all stages tonight. The reason that's important is because we're now looking at the committee stage and because we've been denied the opportunity to have a select committee this is a very important stage in the process where all members can contribute test the Minister and put questions to him—which I'll be doing in just a moment.My first question to the Minister—just coming to Part 1 which talks about an increase in the excise from 63.024c to 66.524c; for the mathematicians in the room obviously that's a 3.5c increase—is: where is that money exactly going to go? It's difficult for us on this side of the House to determine whether or not we're going to support or oppose this measure if we don't know where the money is going to go because for me at least if I knew that money was going to be going fairly to regional New Zealand—if that 3.5c was going to be spent in the regions that it's needed—then it might be something that we might look at supporting.The answer for me has got to be roads. It's got to be roads and when you look at what the Government's done with the National Land Transport Fund they've taken $5 billion out of the State highway network and put it into Auckland rail and cycle projects. So if this 3.5c increase in the excise is simply going to go into more of those projects clearly that's not something that we're going to support.Now Deborah Russell in the previous stage the second reading said—she thundered in fact—Your region will not be worse off." Well actually Deborah Russell my region is worse off because that's a Government that has as part of that $5 billion cancelled four lanes between Ashburton and Christchurch.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! We're straying a little past the bill. Thank you.ANDREW FALLOON: Thank you Madam Chair. I was just coming to my second question to the Minister actually. It's been raised previously in the debate that this is a regressive tax—3.5c on the poorest people who live often on the outskirts of town. So it's regressive on lower-income New Zealanders but I would also argue that it's regressive on people in regional and rural areas. The reason for that is that if this money is going to be going to fund public transport in places like Auckland Wellington Christchurch and of course in David Bennett's area of Hamilton that's—Hon Tim Macindoe: Excuse me?ANDREW FALLOON: —fine for them—and Mr Macindoe's of course. That's fine for them actually but it's going to be people in places like Ashburton and Timaru who will pay for that.In his earlier contribution Mr Twyford said that no it's not regressive because we have a poor public transport system and so we need to put more money into that. Well my question to the Minister on that is: what viable public transport link does he think is viable in a place like Ashburton? Does he think it's from Allenton shops into town or from Tinwald across the river into Ashburton? If he wants to put this 3.5c excise into more public transport what does that mean for a place like Ashburton?I do want to come to the departmental disclosure statement because this actually referred a little bit to this regressive nature. It talks about the fact that petrol excise duty and RUC—road-user charges—are the major contributors of revenue to the National Land Transport Fund which funds the delivery of the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport. So that points out actually that the vast bulk of the money comes from road-user charges and from petrol taxes. So it's money that's coming from motorists from road-users and going into public transport when they've taken $5 billion out of the State highway network.My final point and my final question to the Minister is in relation to aviation—and this is a point that hasn't been raised yet. I know Mr Eagle on the other side is very proud of the fact that his electorate has got two airports in it. Well mine has three. The smallest of those is at Rangitata Island and that's a real favourite of aviation enthusiasts. The owner of that airport has asked me several times and I've put it to the Minister as well about a carve-out or an exemption for recreational aviation enthusiasts who go and purchase petrol to fill up their planes and then fly around. Clearly they're not using the roads. So my question to the Minister—when he replied to me last time he was talking about the fact that there's a review under way—is: what is the stage of that review and if it's not coming out soon will he consider a carve-out?"