Roy Heather: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roy Heather: Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6445. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ) 
: 
 ACT New Zealand opposes this legislation because it is not as the Labour Government has tried to tell us a fair way to raise revenue for accident compensation. It is an unnecessary tax from the Government that campaigned on promising no new taxes. No matter how much Mr Hughes stands there and waves his “credit card” around it is obvious that he does not know what a tax is. The Government promised no new taxes and here we have yet another one. So far we have had the fringe benefit tax the tobacco tax other petrol taxes diesel and road-user charges driver's licence fees— 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Richard Prebble introduced the fringe benefit tax. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I am glad that Mr Anderton is joining in here because let us not forget the sherry port and Madeira tax. 
I first became acquainted with the proposal for the increase to the accident compensation levy when I received an invitation from the Ulysses Club a group of older motorcyclists. They wrote to invite me to join them on the steps of Parliament last Labour weekend. They were very concerned that any levy would be added to their registration fee. So down I came to join them and who should turn up for the Government but the Hon Rick Barker. He was there in his full set of leathers and what a fine figure he cut in them too. I was not as confident as Mr Barker that I had the figure to carry off the full set of leathers so I came along in my jeans and a jacket. 
He turned up on behalf of the Minister and read out the set piece. It was obvious at that point that the Minister was veering towards the rise in the registration fee. The thousand motorcyclists were not at all happy. They had travelled the length and breadth of the country to come to Wellington on their long weekend. Rick Barker read out the set piece proposing the rise in the registration fee. Once he had read the speech in his full set of leathers he took a step to the left or actually it could have been to the right and said: “Now I’m going to speak to you biker to biker and what I actually favour is the rise in petrol tax. We’ll put the levy on petrol.” On 8 April when this legislation was brought to the House we saw that he had in fact got his way. 
Timing is very important in politics as we all know. The Government announced this decision in the first instance—when it decided whether to go with the registration fee or the petrol levy—on 18 December. It announced its decision to put the levy as a petrol tax on 18 December while most of the country was out doing its shopping for Christmas and would not notice. Labour’s Christmas present to motorists was the news that petrol prices would rise to cover an increase in the accident compensation motor vehicle levy. 
This is nothing more as we have heard this afternoon from this side of the House than a revenue rort that does not withstand close scrutiny. Increased revenue from petrol tax will supposedly pay for the rising costs of road injuries and deaths such as hospital and rehabilitation costs. However when we look at it closely we see that it does not add up. The number of weekly accident compensation claimants drawing from the motor vehicle account has dropped by more than 1000 in the past 5 years following a recent claimant purge. 
 The Accident Compensation Corporation’s motor vehicle account has run underlying net surpluses of more than $100 million a year before claim revaluation adjustments and changes in accounting treatments. Government members say that the increase is a way to cover rising health costs—and we have just heard them at it again—for road accident victims. Labour Party polling shows that this is the most acceptable excuse yet my questions to the Minister reveal that those costs are not rising as significantly as the Labour Government claims. 
It is interesting too to look at the corporation’s annual accounts. They show that the corporation’s problems are actually due to the revaluation of the future cost of social rehabilitation which over the next 30 years will be $858 million rather than $696 million. The accounts show that this is an estimate of future costs based on assumptions that social rehabilitation costs will rise by 20 percent annually. This just is not the case. The resulting difference in future social costs of $162 million has simply been deducted from this year’s operating surplus to provide a convenient deficit and an excuse to raise petrol tax. A change in accounting treatment increased this deficit by a further $50 million. It is amazing what can be done with figures. 
The Government has hiked the bill for taxpayers without providing any good reason. Either Labour is inept in going along with the corporation’s purported need for more money—and this is entirely possible I suppose—or perhaps the Government’s plan has always been to increase petrol tax thus making the consultation merely cosmetic. 
On 8 April the legislation was introduced into Parliament. If passed it will create the third unnecessary increase in petrol levies since the Labour Party came to power. The bill will increase the petrol levy used to fund accident compensation from 2.3c to 5.08c—an increase of 2.78c or 120 percent. Labour hoped that motorists would not notice its blatant tax grab because at the time the conflict in Iraq was occurring and there was a huge variation in the price of oil. Petrol prices reflected that. 
This increase of just over 5 percent per litre came on top of the 1 July 2001 Crown revenue petroleum excise tax increase and the 1 March 2002 National Roads Fund petrol tax hike. Like the previous two increases this tax hike is totally unnecessary—as I and other members on this side of the House have said today. What injury prevention are we talking about? The rate of serious injury and death has steadily fallen by 30 percent over the past decade while at the same time the number of registered cars has increased by 30 percent. The Government has inflated the estimate of future accident compensation claimant costs so that it can justify getting even more out of the back pocket of today’s motorists. The result is that this Labour Government can build up a fund. It is just the same as Dr Cullen’s fiddle with income taxes; he overtaxes workers so that he can achieve a surplus. 
Let us look at the Budget surplus of $4 billion. We have just reached a population of 4 million. If the surplus were to be divided amongst the population of New Zealand each person would receive back $1000. Dr Cullen had the perfect opportunity in the Budget to reduce incoming personal and company taxes with this surplus but of course he did not do it. He would much rather raise the taxes of New Zealanders in particular the New Zealand motorist. 
In short this is an anti-motorist nonsensical tax hike that will hit every New Zealander in the back pocket. For this reason ACT New Zealand strongly opposes this bill.