Guy NathanHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Now Mr Speaker what you didn't hear in that summary of one year on and when we reflect back to the election campaign that member now the Minister of Finance was out there saying No new taxes." Well lo and behold today what a boomerang we have and a real back-down. The Prime Minister has ruled out any further regional fuel taxes anywhere under her watch. And then we had the stand-in Minister of Finance Shane Jones when he was asked when he found out by Paul Goldsmith today—well lo and behold he just found out then just a couple of minutes ago. And I'll tell you why that occurred it is because UMR Insight the polling agency that Labour uses had been telling them that fuel taxes have been a massive issue. The polling has been picking up that the cost of living has gone up. It's the highest cost of living in the last quarter and it's all because this coalition Government have been heaping on more taxes. They stood there in their election campaign and said "No new taxes."Well here we have a regional fuel tax rolled out in Auckland secretly. And I'm not sure how secretly it was. We had Wellington City Council officials meeting the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to talk about how they could get a slice of the pie. They needed to start the work before 2021 so that it was all ready to go because there's a plan in place and it's called Let's Get Wellington Moving. We know it's going to cost $3 billion to $4 billion and we know that they were sitting there hoping that they could get a regional fuel tax. This is a great day for any voter in the Wellington region because now they know there won't be a Wellington regional fuel tax—all the councils were lining up.It was really interesting this morning—because I saw Simon Bridges on Newshub. I thought he gave a fantastic interview. He let this information out today and it needed to come out. Then what did we have? We had a Wellington official—probably a person working in the communications unit of the Wellington City Council—say "Yes we have been in discussion."Then what happened? Phil Twyford monstered that official so did Justin Lester. I'll tell you what will happen. I bet your bottom dollar that when we put in the Official Information Act request we'll find out what's been going on and the truth will hurt. There have already been a lot of discussions happening about the regional fuel tax.What is also fascinating is that New Zealanders are hurting. The Prime Minister has stood up today and effectively said "I will axe the regional fuel tax." What about the excise tax? Why doesn't the Prime Minister who wants to be seen as caring and compassionate rule out the excise tax and the further excise taxes for the next couple of years? Why doesn't she rule out the Auckland regional tax? The reality is she won't.Their polling has been picking up that this is a massive issue for New Zealanders. If they want to be seen to be caring and compassionate you would've thought they shouldn't be ruling out the regional fuel tax from 2021 and beyond; they should be ruling out the excise taxes—the one that's just come in and the future ones. They could do that. They could save motorists 25 bucks every time they fill up and yet when you look at the fuel pricing—and I know it's 20c different in my electorate down here to the capital city of New Zealand.This whole market study with the Commerce Commission—Matt King: Twelve months away.Hon NATHAN GUY: —well that's going to take ages. My colleague Matt King said it will take 12 months. It'll actually take longer than that. I've been through how the Commerce Commission does things. It's very thorough. It's robust. They will put a heap of officials into it. And we're worried about the political influence of this. Yes we support it but it should always be signed off by Ministers because you could just have at a whim as we saw the Prime Minister saying that the oil companies are fleecing motorists. Well where is the evidence? So yes we will back the Commerce Commission to have a look but that's not going to impact on people's back pockets now; that's going to take another 12 to 18 months.So I summarise by saying this is an amazing revelation by the Prime Minister today to come in and indicate that their polling is picking up that fuel taxes are hurting New Zealanders to rule out future fuel taxes and then for Ministers to stand up and say there weren't detailed discussions going on between the Government and the Wellington council."