Foster AndyANDY FOSTER (NZ First): This legislation should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody because our National Party colleagues and partners campaigned explicitly on it and we have joined in a coalition agreement with them to deliver this and that is exactly what we are doing. We are keeping the promises that we collectively have made.Look let's also be clear: this legislation was always finite. It was set up. It had four years to go. We're just bringing that date forward a little bit. I think this is a very sensible cost of living approach for the good people of Auckland.We've already heard from my colleague Cameron Luxton that the tax is regressive and certainly effects people who have to move around Auckland particularly those people living in the outskirts of Auckland who will more likely be those who are less well off. So it's going to benefit them.Let's also look at some numbers here: $780 million has been raised to date $341 million of that is still left in the kitty at the moment. So even if you didn't raise a cent from now until the 10 years of this scheme coming to its conclusion in the last six years $73 million a year has been spent. But in the next four years you would have to spend at $85 million a year to spend all that money—in other words $12 million more than the Auckland authorities have managed to spend in the last six years.Look I'm sure that our friends in the Opposition would say that the tax should be kept going but the reality is: if you look at what's in here and the purposes for which the tax was intended you could just about put anything into it—just about put anything into it—and it makes it effectively almost just an extra slush fund if you like—it's a bit of a pejorative word but a slush fund"—for the Auckland authorities.I also note that that $341 million—I can see why the Auckland Council is so enthusiastic about it. We had a question earlier today about the cost of borrowing. Well the Auckland Council with $341 million in the bank is earning say 6 percent—they're earning something like $20 million a year in money that they are getting from having that money in the bank. If I might say the question which was asked about the cost of borrowing for us as a nation it is over 2 percent—so more than $2 in every hundred dollars is spent in debt servicing just for our debt that we've run up and we've run up particularly under that Government.I've also noted that Mayor Brown has said that removing the scheme would cost something like $1.2 billion in possible revenue. What he didn't say is that $600 million of that roughly speaking will come from the fuel tax and he assumed that the other $600 million would come from the National Land Transport Fund. Of course that's not free money; that means that is money which is not available to anyone else anywhere else in the country. Look while we know that the good people of Auckland need investment so does the rest of New Zealand. So it is not free money that was going to come from nowhere.We've also heard from the Hon Julie Anne Genter just now about all the other wonderful projects that will benefit motorists. But I think one of the issues we're having here—and I don't think that motorists are buying into this—is that so much of the fuel tax dollar is now going on to non-roading projects. There is a balance—public transport benefits motorists—but there is also out of balance and I think that under the last Government we got out of balance. Too much of the money which was taken from motorists was spent on things which did not benefit the motorists. I think we lost that sense of balance and I think we need to get that sense of balance back.Just to finish off it looks like almost anything could be fitted into the set of things that were under the scheme as it was originally set up. There were 14 different areas of spending which were enunciated here and the three biggest projects there: one of them the Eastern Busway is under way; Penlink I understand has been reduced in its scale; and Mill Road was cancelled by that last Government and it is this Government which is going to bring it back again as part of the roads of national significance. So in actual fact while they are decrying the removal of the scheme they actually took one of the major flagship projects of the scheme and cancelled it and that is very unfortunate.I'm just going to finish off by saying that when I was in local government I was never keen on these sort of blanket fuel taxes but what I was keen on was congestion pricing which sends a clear message to people what they can avoid by changing behaviour by changing the time that they travel. I think that that is appropriate. What we also know on that side of the House and on this side of the House is that road-user charges are coming and that is going to be the way of the future in terms of charging rather than petrol taxes. I commend this bill to the House."