Twyford Phil: Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: 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:10335. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): It is very disappointing and really a slap in the face for democracy and for the public that the National Government would come to the House pushing through this obnoxious legislation and those members are not even prepared to stand up and justify it make the case and argue for this law. Well on this side of the House we are prepared to stand up and oppose it. There are two reasons that we oppose this bill the Customs and Excise (Budget Measures—Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. The first is that it is an illegitimate tax grab. It is a politically motivated attempt to conjure up a surplus when one really does not exist so—Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s a lie.PHIL TWYFORD: It is a lie. It is a political lie for John Key to try to convince the public that he has got the books back in balance. The Government is doing it at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders and the motoring public.We want to talk about tax and put this tax in the context of this Government’s record on taxation. So let us talk about tax. The crowning glory of the John Key Government was to distribute massive tax cuts that transferred wealth from the poorest sections of society to the top.Chris Auchinvole: Ordinary New Zealanders are motoristsPHIL TWYFORD: We know—we know Mr Auchinvole—that 40 percent of the benefit of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of New Zealand income earners. That is an outrage and then this Government has spent the remaining few years shovelling home the cost of those tax cuts to ordinary New Zealanders.Chris Auchinvole: “Shovelling shovelling!”PHIL TWYFORD: Yes it has. It has increased GST a flat tax that added to the burden of already stressed low-income earners. It has refused the entreaties of every economist in this country almost without exception—every academic the IMF the OECD Treasury and everybody who says that the Government should institute a capital gains tax that it is the missing link in our taxation system and that not only would it be just to tax people who make their living from the earnings off assets but also it would channel investment into the productive economy. But no National is right and everybody else is wrong on that apparently. And now we see this stealth tax by pumping up the petrol excise by 9c over a period of time—3c every year for the next 3 years. That is an illegitimate tax grab.I also want to make the point in the few minutes I have that the other reason that Labour opposes this tax grab is that the purpose of it other than creating an illusionary surplus for the Government is to fund Gerry Brownlee’s wasteful economically damaging white elephant motorway projects. These so-called roads of National Party significance are the defining feature of this National Government’s transport policy. Labour is not opposed to all of the roads of national significance. We are not opposed to all motorways we are not opposed to all infrastructure but let me give you a couple of examples of why we oppose this transport policy and this particular bill. The “Holiday Highway” which National wants to build between Pūhoi and Wellsford—the Government claims it is an economic lifeline for the north. Well let me tell you—let me tell the members who do not like it being described as the “Holiday Highway”—that there are approximately 9000 vehicles on the road every day between Warkworth and Wellsford. Do you know how many vehicles are on the Te Atatū Road in my electorate? Four times that many—36000 cars a day on a normal Auckland arterial road and this Government wants to blow $1.7 billion on a gold-plated four-lane dual-carriage expressway on a road that carries only 9000 vehicles a day. It beggars belief.Mike Sabin got up in this House and said that this was the economic lifeline for Northland and that people desperately needed this road but he will not support a policy that we have got that would spend $400 million right now on eliminating the accident black spots eliminating the traffic bottlenecks. We would fix that road right now by spending $400 million. That member and the National Government want to blow $1.7 billion of this country’s taxes on a gold-plated “Holiday Highway”. That is completely unjustifiable.The other example that I want to put to the House of a wasteful—Hon Tau Henare: It’ll save lives. That’s what it’ll do—save lives.PHIL TWYFORD: Oh my God! The “brains trust” of Te Atatū has finally woken up. I am surprised that he is in the House. Did you not know Mr Henare that there is a football game on television at the moment? I am surprised that you are not in your office with your feet up on the couch watching the football because it is on right now. Frankly I am surprised to see the member—