Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Madam Deputy Chair thank you very much for this opportunity. I wish to speak to both of the new Part 3s. I understand that it is a legitimate way of addressing this. There's a new Part 3 in the name of my colleague Brett Hudson which is seeking to insert a new Part 3 that is around the Commerce Commission fuel market study which he has spoken to and the Hon Judith Collins has spoken to. Then I'd like to turn to the new Part 3 that I've proposed—the amendment in my name which also seeks to insert a new Part 3 to do with reviews. I think it's timely that we do consider this because this bill is proceeding unfortunately and how it is impacting on New Zealanders is what should be carefully considered.The amendment in the name of Brett Hudson should actually be a very easy amendment for the Government to decide to support. The reason why it should be easy for the Government to decide to support this is because every time I've asked in the House questions of Phil Twyford the Minister around price spreading—every time I have asked questions around how petrol companies are responding to all of his new taxes of up to 25 cents a litre—his answer has been that they're going to have new powers for the Commerce Commission to put in place fuel market studies to enable them to better understand the situation. According to the Government the answer is to monitor this more. They think monitoring will lead to greater scrutiny greater sunlight as a form of disinfectant when it comes to price spreading and they're of the view as a Government that there should be powers there for the Commerce Commission to do so.The problem is the bill that the Government has put forward regarding Commerce Commission fuel market studies will take quite some time to get through the legislative process. It won't be in place on 1 July which is very close—it's not too far away. It will not be in force at the point at which the regional fuel tax for Auckland proceeds on 1 July and there will not actually be powers right at that point of time for the Commerce Commission to undertake studies around that.I submit to the House that if we were all to unite on this issue of price spreading and we were all to support the amendment in Brett Hudson's name then there would be the power immediately from 1 July for the Commerce Commission to start doing this work. And what better time for the Commerce Commission to start doing this important work according to the Government—it is their solution to the issue. The work that the Government wants to do could commence immediately on 1 July if they were to support Brett Hudson's amendment. So I have to say that I'm looking forward to what the Minster or Government members may wish to say on this amendment because they have an opportunity right now in the Parliament to say to New Zealanders that they actually take the issue of price spreading seriously.Why should they take the issue of price spreading seriously? It should be self-evident but let's just go through it a little bit. One of the biggest issues with a regional fuel tax—aside from the fact that we're of the view it's unnecessary—is that that there's going to be fuel market behaviour which sees not just Aucklanders paying an Auckland regional fuel tax; it will be spread across the whole country. People in the South Island will be paying for the Auckland regional fuel tax. People in the South Island people in Wellington people in the Bay of Plenty people in Waikato will be paying for the Auckland regional fuel tax. So if the Government's solution is to have it monitored here's a way to do so. Why should we care though that it's happening? We should care because if there's going to be a regional fuel tax in Auckland then Aucklanders should be paying the bill. We're seeing however that fuel companies are already deciding to put up the price of fuel in other parts of the country. Many commentators have suggested that they're doing so in anticipation of the regional fuel tax in Auckland coming into force.I'm particularly interested in some of the wording that Mr Hudson has put into his amendment. The wording he's put into his amendment gives the Commerce Commission quite some latitude to prepare a report around competition. I think it's also interesting that he wants to give the Commerce Commission the ability to look at changes to the policies or practices of central or local government. That's quite interesting because it is local government which comes up with the proposals that will be funded in the regional fuel tax scheme. It's a whole new way of local government doing things and the benefit of having this information quite early is that we know that the intention of this Government is to allow other councils around the country to have regional fuel taxes in just a few short years. That will be quite a change to local government practices and therefore it's helpful for the Commerce Commission to do this work.The other point about that wording that I think is interesting is that we know that it's not just a regional fuel tax that the Government is proposing; the total combined impact of fuel tax increases under this Government is up to 25c a litre when you include GST. So it's important for the Commerce Commission to understand the changes and the issues that are in there and that are being impacted by Government policy around increases to fuel taxes.I now wish to turn to the amendment that's in my name. We're also asking the committee by way of this amendment to support there being a review conducted by the Ministry of Transport and Treasury. This amendment if successful would provide a requirement for the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance to commission a report three years after the implementation of the regional fuel tax to understand exactly how it is impacting New Zealanders. The very reason why I think this is important is because we learnt quite a bit through the bill in terms of the views that individuals submitting had about the impacts of the regional fuel tax.We also learnt—and this came out at Estimates through the answers to the questions—that there was very little modelling done on the impact on New Zealanders. There was almost no modelling done on price spreading. In fact the paragraphs around price spreading—now I don't blame the officials that work for the Minister because they've had limited time to do a whole lot of work on this but there's limited information out there around price spreading. There's limited information out there about how it would actually impact on those that are struggling the most in this country from a cost of living perspective and understanding about how they will be impacted. There was evidence provided by submitters that those living the furthest away from the CBD and those that have the least fuel-efficient vehicles are typically the people in this country who need assistance from the State the most. Typically people in this country who are living in lower socio-economic circumstances will be impacted the most by this.So I think it's reasonable that Treasury and the Ministry of Transport do work on issues to do with cost of living issues to do with congestion—and let's just pause for a moment on congestion. We don't actually believe that many of the projects that the Minister has seen put forward under this will solve the congestion issues for Auckland alone but if there's going to be an argument put forward that the regional fuel tax is the grand solution the great panacea for Auckland—to tax people more and extract more money from their pockets—then let's actually have some real information around congestion and get that work done.I'm also interested to learn more about the public transport use and whether this regional fuel tax will actually see more public transport use come about in Auckland as a result of the regional fuel tax. There are also other elements to do with environmental impacts and to do with fuel consumption and other issues to do with regional fuel taxes.In this legislation we should put in place issues to be considered seriously given that so little work was done on this regional fuel tax. Given that so little work was done to understand the impacts to understand how much this hurts New Zealanders—particularly in Auckland where it will start; so little emphasis put on doing any work around price spreading—these two amendments are timely and they should be supported by the Government. There is nothing that the Government has to fear from having firstly work done that they've already proposed through another piece of legislation come into force immediately. If they're so proud of their tax hikes if they're so proud of the work they're doing to ram through under urgency legislation to put in place new taxes on Aucklanders then they shouldn't be afraid to front up and hear what Treasury and the Ministry of Transport would have to say about the impact of those regional fuel taxes.Sure under the amendment I've put forward it would take three years for that report to be done. At least we would have a cycle of a local government election. There'd be an opportunity to consider how it's being implemented—and of course these are infrastructure projects. So it does take some time for infrastructure projects to be implemented but there's nothing the Government should be afraid of when it comes to their taxes and how they're impacting on New Zealanders because they're so gung-ho and so proud of everything they're doing to increase taxes on New Zealanders at a time when I say it's not actually necessary or desirable for New Zealanders.