Falloon AndrewANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm pleased to be taking a call this afternoon in the committee stage of the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill. I'll be joining the rest of my colleagues in speaking against the bill but I did just want to run through to start with an amendment in my name setting out an amendment to new section 65D of the Act set out in clause 5. New section 65D currently reads A regional council may prepare a proposal to establish or replace an RFT scheme for the region or a part of the region if the council having regard to the views of the regional transport committee considers that there are 1 or more capital projects that—" and then my amendment adds new section 65D(c) which reads "Must only fund projects that are certified by the New Zealand Transport Authority to have a positive benefit to cost ratio."I do that for a very specific reason and that is that if we are going to have this new tax in Auckland—and probably in other parts of the country frankly—then it should be spent well. So my first question to the Minister Phil Twyford is: will he support that amendment? The reason I ask him specifically is because as Labour's transport spokesperson before the last election he went on at length about a cost-benefit analysis for a number of roads that the former National Government proposed. So I ask him: will he support this amendment in my name being included in his bill?I then want to come on to another part of clause 5 and this is in relation to new section 65A "Definitions". Part of "Definitions" lays out that a " 'region' means a region as defined in section 5(1) of the Local Government Act 2002". So my second question to the Minister is if this is for Auckland and if this is just for Auckland then why doesn't he amend that definition to be clear that "a region" shall mean Auckland rather than "a region" could be any region in any part of New Zealand? I think the reason actually is pretty self-explanatory. It's because this bill isn't just for Auckland; it's actually for other parts of the country as well. We've seen that with I think mayors from Hamilton from Tauranga from Wellington and from Christchurch coming out and saying that they want to be included and have a regional fuel tax and it will just be as we know at the whim of the Minister. It won't require further legislation coming to this House. So I ask the Minister: if he's suggesting it's just for Auckland then make it very clear—make it very clear to those other mayors around the country—that this won't be available to them; this is just for Auckland and just for Auckland in perpetuity.I then want to come to just below that in the "Definitions" again. It mentions "RFT region" and it says "means a region or part of a region for which an RFT scheme has been established". My colleague Nikki Kaye has I think put in a very good Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) SOP 27 which relates to part of her electorate which is Great Barrier Island where they already have petrol at $3.30 per litre—$3.30 per litre—without this additional fuel tax. I do hope that members opposite do choose to support that SOP because it is a very good one and it will mean that petrol on Great Barrier Island will not be subject to this tax and pushed up even further. But I would ask the Minister if he would consider perhaps that if we're going to have region-specific amendments in that way he also allows us when there are new regions brought into this regional fuel tax to bring legislation back to the House to give members here the opportunity to exempt other regions. The classic one that springs to mind for me is Stewart Island. Now Stewart Island part of the Southland district has higher fuel prices there than on the mainland. They should be exempt as well in the way that Great Barrier Island would be if my colleague Nikki Kaye's SOP passes.I now want to come to what we're going to get for this money. My colleagues earlier in the debate have referred to price spreading. The unfortunate thing about this legislation is it doesn't preclude price spreading from occurring. There's nothing in the legislation at all that prevents price spreading. So we're talking about I think a 10c per litre tax. Members over this side have been talking about the potential for that to be spread across the country and that might be 3c or 4c all around New Zealand rather than just—[Time expired]"