Cunliffe David: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10358. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I would like to acknowledge both of our colleagues who have contributed here. Mr Chairman you are ruling with an iron rod in this debate and we hope that there will be sufficient—[Interruption] That too. I need not come back on Tuesday perhaps. But it is an adjournment week so hopefully he will forget if you do not write too much in theHansard Mr Mallard.It is interesting how the most arcane details of legislation often provide the greatest insight. Colleagues have rightly pointed out that the refunds here the entitlements apply to agricultural and commercial vehicles. It is a bit like what they used to say: “Cutout the middle man; vote for Treasury.” Under this National Government it is “Cut out the middle man; vote for the other English guy vote for Federated Farmers.” This is really a Federated Farmers set of exemptions.The other exemption that is particularly important is the exemption for commercial vessels. Of course we have got a problem at the moment and I want to commend the Government for seeking to extend New Zealand flagging to foreign charter vessels in the New Zealand exclusive economic zone. At the moment those vessels are not subject to fuel excise at all. They are not even subject to GST. Their crews are not subject to PAYE and as many New Zealanders will know by the horrendous reports of abuse in parts of the industry—in parts of it; by no means in all of it—they are not subject to New Zealand labour law either. So I commend the Government for trying to fix that up and hopefully that will bring all of those vessels and therefore their fuel within the tax net.Mr Mallard raised an important technical point which was around the quantum of the exemptions and the refunds. In doing a quick scan for other precedents we have also picked up another similar example where it may well be that the Government needs to take remedial action. That is in respect of KiwiSaver for non-residents. Under the Income Tax Act that can be clawed back if someone has received a tax credit while overseas and failed to notify. But what is not clawed back is the interest or use of money or any capital appreciation based on those tax credits. It is a very similar situation to this one.I think the lesson here is that here is a Government that is passing legislation for the sole and utter purpose of trying to make its Budget appear balanced because without the $700 million - odd that this will deliver by 2015 it would not be within a bull’s roar of a so-called balanced Budget. It is not anyway because earlier in this debate we have illustrated some $3 billion worth of shystership of shonkiness of—well there are lots of other technical terms that spring to mind but let us just say that the numbers do not add up. They do not come close to adding up. But the Government needs this Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill even though it has the power to do the same job by regulation without detaining Parliament at $10000 an hour or whatever it is. We are here on a Saturday in New Zealand time trying to pass legislation that is unnecessary.In Part 2 of the bill we are further complicating life by creating a possible interaction between regulations that do not need to be there. We have asked the Minister in the chair the Minister of Transport to take a call and explain if he can which is by no means certain whether the clawback refund provisions apply appropriately. If he can address himself to the commercial vessels issue if he is able to also tell us whether the precedent around the KiwiSaver tax credits is an appropriate analogy and if he can tell us whether the Government intends to take remedial action on that matter as well that would be extremely useful.It may be that in doing so he could come up with some other reason why we are here on a Saturday afternoon passing legislation that is legally unnecessary. There may be something although I cannot think of anything that the Opposition has overlooked. There may be a legitimate reason why the Government is doing it; it is just that none of us can see it because as my colleague Mr Mallard has pointed out there is a regulation-making power that could have achieved exactly the same outcome on 1 July. The Minister is I think shaking his head; he may be breathing but I think he is shaking his head. If he is I would invite him to tell the Committee and the country why that is not the case because that is what the country believes Minister. The country believes that you are passing this for what Mr Joyce would call optic reasons—to make a balanced Budget appear when otherwise it would not.