Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Madam Chair for the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill in committee stage. I would like to ask the Minister in the chair Phil Twyford a number of questions. These questions relate to Subpart 3 new section 65E inserted by clause 5 Proposal for RFT scheme: content requirements". Now this new section here is to do with a council which wants to put in place a regional fuel tax (RFT) and the requirements that they have to undertake in order to be able to put one together. And I've got a number of questions in relation to this because there are a large number of terms which I think require some defining by the Minister.The first question comes under paragraph (c)(iii). It says "explain why the regional council believes the project provides value for money;". I guess my first question is what does "value for money" mean? I think that's quite a broad term. Is that a benefit-cost ratio? Is that a benefit-cost ratio which the Minister has any guidance over what value for money would be? I know that the Minister has criticised certain projects for their value for money in the past and I wonder if the Minister has any guidance as to what regional councils should be taking into account as so-called value for money.The second question comes under the next subparagraph subparagraph (iv) which states "set out its proposed completion date;". Now if there's a completion date is that when it is proposed to be completed? Is there a contingency in that time frame? Is it something which can be moved? What kind of parameters does that allow for the regional council to be able to put in place?The next subparagraph subparagraph (v) says "state the amount of capital expenditure expected to be required from regional fuel tax;". Now does that take into account cost blowouts? I mean we know that a large number of particularly light-rail projects have cost blowouts as we've seen from around the world and I was wondering whether the Minister thinks that the regional councils should be making a contingency for these so-called cost blowouts.A little further down under paragraph (e) it says "set out the rate or rates of regional fuel tax and the period during which each rate is to apply;". I guess my question there is why the reference to "rate" and "rates"? I notice earlier in the legislation—in new section 65C(3)—it says that "The maximum rate of [a] regional fuel tax under an RFT scheme is $0.10 per litre."—and of course that's plus GST; as we know on this side of the House you have to add that on as well. But I guess my question is does that allow a regional council to put in place one regional fuel tax for 10c a litre and then another one for another 10c a litre and then make it more and more or does that mean that you can have three regional fuel taxes of 3c per litre? I guess there's a wide range of different questions that I've got around how that subsection operates. "Rate or rates" does seem to be quite a broad definition and whether that should only be referring to "rate" may be an improvement that we could assist the Minister on from this side of the House. I'm happy to provide a Supplementary Order Paper to that effect to improve that paragraph (e) if the Minister is interested in my assistance.Under new section 65E(fa) it says "set out the forecast expenses of administering the scheme including RFT rebate processing;". I guess my question on this is what advice has the Minister received? I'm glad to see the Minister taking note there of these questions. How much will it cost the admin? What advice has he received around the costs of this administration? How much will it cost? I assume that some regional fuel taxes may cost more than others; I'm not sure. I would've thought that the cost of running these schemes would be reasonably standard across the country—maybe it's not. It'd be helpful for the House to know what advice he has received around that.A little bit later in new section 65E(fc) it says "state to what extent the regional council expects the RFT scheme to change fuel-buying behaviour by the public any likely consequences from such changes and how such anticipated changes have been taken into account in the revenue forecast;". Now I guess my question in this is—that's quite a lot of research quite a lot of work for a regional council to put in place putting this scheme together. I do expect that they should do this work if they're going to get the money. However I would have also thought that this is something on which there would be some advice already put forward by the Ministry of Transport. Has there been some advice on what this is going to cost? Has there been any modelling? I think the question that my colleague Tim van de Molen mentioned earlier was quite relevant—[Time expired]"