Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand in opposition to this bill in its third reading. I have a few comments to make about particularly the Minister's contribution before getting on to the more substance that I wanted to talk about. The Minister when he introduced this bill in its third reading claimed before this House—with all the rules that go around that—that the purpose of this bill is to inflation-proof funding for our land transport system which is quite remarkable really because despite every effort by this Government to drive up the cost of living which they are actually being successful at inflation is still if you take general reports around 1.6 percent and occasionally going up to about 2 percent but then international fuel price assistance is helping that a bit. So inflation we'll say is 1.6 to 2 percent but the impact of this bill in year 1 is an increase of 5.6 percent and in year 2 it's an increase of 4.8 percent. Now either the Minister has told the House one thing which the facts do not substantiate—and he may wish to have another contribution at some point during this debate—or we've actually seen after the inadvertent openness and transparency earlier this week around the Budget itself and we may just have witnessed in this House the Government being its most open and most transparent of all and Mr Twyford is sending a signal to New Zealanders that they can expect over the next year and a bit for inflation to leap up to in excess of 5 percent. Quite frankly having seen all the other stuff in their Budget I wouldn't be at all surprised if New Zealanders at least feel that sort of pain over the course of the next 18 months. But it is remarkable—absolutely remarkable—that here we are the first piece of legislation in Budget 2019 the Budget that was lauded by the deliverer of it and the Prime Minister as being a global first the first ever wellbeing Budget. SPEAKER: Order! BRETT HUDSON: The very first action of it—the very first legislative action of that Budget—is to make New Zealanders worse off in 2019 by imposing an additional 4c including GST of tax on the consumption of motor fuels in their work and in their lives. It's even worse than that though—that's just 2019. The same legislation that is so hell-bent on making New Zealanders worse off this year is equally—equally—determined to make sure that they are worse off next year as well because it puts a further imposition in legislative concrete: a further 4c including GST per litre of motor fuels at the beginning of July next year. How can that possibly be described as helping people's wellbeing? It certainly cannot. I just want to tidy up another misconception which I guess members weren't really hearing in the committee stage. But throughout the process of this bill today including at its introduction I've heard members on the other side talk as if they believe that fuel excise taxes have a short half-life—that they just disappear into the ether after a period of time. Because it is true that Governments of either stripe have increased fuel excises over the years whether it was in 2012 or 2002 or any other date there have been instances where fuel excises have been increased. Those increases remain in perpetuity unless such as with this bill they are changed by Parliament. They do not naturally come down. Some of the real value of them is inflated away over time but the dollars are still collected and yet members over there talk as if you don't constantly add fuel taxes—and I'll just reiterate that this is far greater than the current rate of inflation. If Parliament doesn't through Government continually add to fuel excises somehow it all goes away—it doesn't go away. Those earlier excise changes are still being collected today. So the question comes to: what is the need for additional tax burden to be placed upon New Zealanders at the fuel pump? Well we know that the tax itself the excise itself is hypothecated to the National Land Transport Fund. That's the only purpose for which the tax can be used. We know from comments both in the Chamber during the course of the passage of this bill but also by Ministers related and by Government Ministers outside at various times that the decision has been made set very firmly that the funding that is taken from fuel excises including these increases is to be set against other land transport projects than might have been the case in more recent years. For instance $5 billion has been taken out of the State highway improvement category and redirected mainly to mass transit which is not particularly good code for loss-making light rail in Auckland along Dominion Road but also as we discovered recently in Wellington from the railway station to the airport. All motorists are looking now if this bill passes—and it's only a short way away one fears—at facing a further tax burden over the course of two years of another 8c a litre on their fuel including GST and it will be funding things other than what they are using. The mere fact the obvious fact is that in order to be paying this tax increase someone has to be in their motor vehicle because if they're not using their motor vehicle quite obviously they're not consuming fuel and therefore they're not paying it. So the people that are paying this impost have every right to want to know what it is being spent on and how it is helping them. Well we know that it's going very largely to mass transit to light rail projects. We know through the Public Transport Spine Study in Wellington that they can be enormous loss-making vehicles. In Wellington it was estimated that the light rail from the railway station to the airport would lose 90c to 95c in every $1 spent on it—90c to 95c loss in every $1 spent on it. That by the way was when that project was estimated to cost half a billion dollars less than it is currently estimated. So the math doesn't look at all good on that. So if one is a motorist being impacted by this legislation they have every right—because they know that the extra tax they're paying is going into the National Land Transport Fund—to want to know what it's being spent on but importantly to know that there is genuine value that will come from it. Now in this region in particular most of the people that will pay most of this tax are people that live on the northern edge of the harbour or beyond—people in the electorate of Ōhāriu people in Mana and Remutaka and Kāpiti and Wairarapa and Hutt South and people who might travel from Wainuiōmata every day sometimes by cycle sometimes by car. They will be asking themselves as they are seeking to make their way into work or perhaps weekend sport in Wellington what is happening to the additional tax that is being levied upon them. They are not going to benefit from a light rail system from the railway station to the airport but every day that they hear about that project they will be reminded that there will be no additional southbound lane from Ngauranga to Aotea Quay there will be no additional Terrace Tunnel and there'll be no undergrounding from the Terrace Tunnel to the Basin Reserve and yet they will be paying by the time this is fully effected 8c a litre more including GST. But wait it's even worse for them and particularly for people in the Hutt Valley. So not only are they being taxed more and getting less out of the Let's Get Wellington Not Actually Moving" programme but they've also had a major roading project deferred in their area: the Melling interchange. It's off the table now for at least 10 years—10 years before it even gets redesigned let alone re-implemented although I could suggest to them there is a way that they could possibly bring that forward if they changed the Government. But none the less the outlook they have right now is it's being pushed out by at least 10 years and they might well ask themselves "If that's gone out that long because of these other decisions the Government's making about spending my additional fuel tax then what's going to happen to the cross-valley link?" because I dare say that's not going to be rushing ahead and a priority of this Government any time soon. Also particularly for people in Ōhāriu because they too live further away from town will travel more in their vehicles and therefore will pay more of this fuel tax the Government has dipped out on the Pētone to Grenada link road a link road that was estimated to take well over 20000 vehicle movements a day off State Highway 1—off the Wellington motorway. Every one of those vehicle movements would have helped to reduce congestion for what was probably about 80 percent of the—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! We'll get back to the bill now I think. There's some appeal to what the member is saying but I think he'd better get back to the bill. BRETT HUDSON: So they're missing out but they're paying extra tax—that is the point. They are paying the extra 8c a litre but they get nothing for it. This is supposed to be a wellbeing Budget. It was supposed to make Kiwis better off but its very very first legislative action is to take money out of the pockets of hard-working Kiwis this year and next year and to make sure they get nothing in return for it."