Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I'm glad that we're having this debate and examining in great detail—and I say great detail—the GST elements of the regional fuel tax because I know Phil Twyford gets worked up and very unhappy when we talk about the fact that this legislation is full of misleading statements. They said one thing in an election but they've come to the Parliament with something different. If there's anything that highlights misleading statements out there it's the fact that they keep saying Regional fuel taxes are only 10c a litre"—or actually that they're not putting 25c a litre's worth of new taxes out there for New Zealanders. The reality is these taxes that they say are only 10c a litre are 11.5c a litre. This is an 11.5c a litre regional fuel tax. Phil Twyford through this legislation isn't getting just the power to put 10c a litre on taxpayers in Auckland; he's giving himself the power to put fuel taxes on motorists in regions around the whole country not at 10c a litre but at 11.5c a litre. And so I hope that the members opposite are more honest with their voters and with the public out there when they're talking about regional fuel taxes because it's not 10c a litre. It's got GST. Let's stop misleading New Zealanders about how much they're paying.We also need to remember that anything that they put in place when it comes to taxes is cumulative and when it comes to GST and comes to all of the other taxes that they're wanting to put on to motorists it all adds up to 25c a litre. I'm also pleased that we're giving a lot of consideration to this particular part because clause 10 in there inserting new sections which would make amendments to the Local Government Act has a lot of information in there that we should be debating and we should be coming up with new ideas about what councils should be reporting on. I'd like to signal this side of the Chamber is working on some new amendments because we quite enjoyed the hour's worth of voting on Part 1 and we think it's—Hon Ruth Dyson: You didn't win a single one.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Madam Government chief whip—it's probably something that she'd quite like to repeat as well. But that clause making changes to the Local Government Act around what councils should be reporting on in their annual report is very important and the very reason why it's so important is because this legislation—giving power for taxation—is not just an Auckland issue. It's something that voters and the public around the whole country will need more information on because they were misled into thinking that this bill was only around Auckland when it's not. And so for councils and regions in the future when the Labour-led Government puts in place regional fuel taxes on every—every—region around the country which they're legislating for it's important through these particular reports that will be produced by local government that we see hard evidence about why it's important for those regions.I say it can be funded elsewhere. I say it can be funded in a different way. I say that the Government has the ability to fund transport infrastructure without the need for regional fuel taxes. But if there are going to be regional fuel taxes in regions around the country that weren't expecting to have to pay more taxes thanks to Phil Twyford that weren't expecting that they'd have to pay fuel taxes higher than 10c a litre because the Minister is writing regulation-making powers that give him the ability to put fuel taxes at a much greater rate than 10c a litre they deserve to have this information.But in fact the information that is there in those local government reports should not just be limited in the way that's in this bill; it should be quite expansive. Now a debate that we've had a lot in this Chamber through questions and a debate that we've had in select committee is around the issue of price spreading. So I say that local governments which pride themselves on being involved in every nook and cranny they can possibly find out there in their region should be looking intensively at the issue of price spreading. They should be looking at the issue about affordability as well and how it's going to impact the lowest-income people the most.Because I know those people that are elected to local councils whilst we expect them to stick to core services mostly they like to spend a lot of time caring about well-being and the cost of living and all of those other issues that affect the people in their area. So I say that when it comes to regional fuel taxes and when it comes to local government annual reports they should be looking seriously at the cost and the impact on people that the Twyford taxes are going to be putting on people in their particular regions. When it comes to local government caring about the well-being of individuals and how they reported it I think they should be looking at for example South Auckland where the people who are the lowest-paid people in the country the people that—[Time expired]"