Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to begin my comments in what I think will be a reasonably brief call by thanking the National Party for its support in the second reading of this bill. That was a little bit surprising but it was very gratifying to see that perhaps over the select committee process we'd built up some cross-partisan support. However what we have learnt in the course of this debate is that the National Party are very good at changing their minds in respect of this issue. I do just want to acknowledge the voluminous petition for billions of dollars' worth of roads that was tabled in this House earlier on today yet here we have the National Party opposing any revenue-raising measure to actually get on and build the transport networks that our cities and our regions may need.I also want to note the calls we've heard and some of the speeches so far about consideration of other means to raise revenue to support our transport systems. Of course that's something that the previous Government had nine years to consider and simply didn't do the work on. What they did was raise fuel tax by 17c over six years. So once again we have a pretty significant shift of position.I want to come to a couple of the specific provisions that came out of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and might I note it was a very pleasing select committee process in spite of some of the comments we heard earlier from the member from Botany. We in fact received 520 submissions from people so the suggestion that it was a truncated process without ability for people to input simply does not bear scrutiny.One of the suggestions we heard is Why don't we just slap on a tax at Marsden?" Curiously we heard that from the member for Wairarapa who seems to entirely miss the point of the bill—that at this point it is about regions such as Auckland funding their own infrastructure. If that member wants to go back to Wairarapa and argue that his constituents should fund Auckland's transport needs then I invite him to do so. But of course we haven't heard that from him.What he'll be very very pleased to hear indeed—and I want to just note his concern about the prospect of possibly the Wellington region maybe some years in the future after 2020 considering whether it might want to have a regional fuel tax to fund its transport needs. I want to note new section 65D inserted by clause 5 of the bill which was a change made at select committee which does enable regions to make exclusions if it is inappropriate for a part of a region to pay the regional fuel tax when the main benefit is going to occur in another part of the region. That was a request which specifically came through from the Auckland Council on the select committee process and could be applied for example in that region to somewhere like Great Barrier Island. So hopefully that gives that member some comfort.I also want to reflect on the somewhat grandiose statements made by Jami-Lee Ross earlier on in the debate about the Minister's ability to review the rate of the regional fuel tax. This is addressed in new section 65ZD inserted by clause 5 of the reported-back bill from the Finance and Expenditure Committee in which the select committee has included provisions in the bill which will make sure that there are reasons provided for any changes to the rate of regional fuel tax. Of course what Mr Jami-Lee Ross forgets to mention is that any such change has to come back to this very House just as changes to other rates of excise tax have to come back to this House. I haven't noticed Mr Ross or any of his other colleagues opposing changes to general rates of fuel excise tax which are made by Order in Council in exactly the same way subject to confirmation by the House.The previous speaker Alastair Scott asked "What does this bill achieve?" and sort of made the suggestion that it throws money into a pot somewhere never to be seen again. Of course that is absolutely nonsense because what this bill very specifically does achieve—and further changes were made at select committee to new section 65E inserted by clause 5—is it achieves the transport objectives of particular regions. The particular region that is applying for the regional fuel tax has to put forward a very specific proposal down to the level of particular projects and the benefits that those projects will achieve for the transport needs of that region. And that in fact has been strengthened at select committee in new section 65E and really that's the nub of this bill. It's about recognising that Auckland has a very specific set of transport needs after nine years of utter neglect and increasing gridlock on the roads of our city. Finally thank goodness we have a Government with a plan to fix that and with the gumption to front up and to fund it as well and that is what this very good bill does. Thank you Madam Chair."